Calling on Sophia

Sophia???? The Greek goddess of wisdom??? Though you quote from the OT's Book of Wisdom it would seem the title other than Christian's Wisdom you are calling upon...Sophia with a small s, maybe? But your question asking how often do we call upon Sophia indicates something other than Jesus,the Wisdom of the OT.
However if this poem/prayer is read in the Spirit of the OT it is very beautiful and inspiring. The reference just seems a little strange for a Christian ...but it is good to have you back Sister! I always look forward to that kernal of truth I find in so much of what you write.

Sophia is also the name given in the Old Testament for wisdom, as ThristForTruth points out too.

Wisdom is frequently noted to be feminine in the Old Testament. I saw a list of bible passages that mention this while reading about this a while ago.

It is sad that we so quickly and so often want to deny any feminine part of God, why is that? Why do so many not love or value womaen, everyone has a mother, as did Jesus. Natural law is that God is both male and female, a Spirit, both sexes and ineffable too.

Thank you, love this, love the name - and used by so many cultures.

Someone just posted the quote from Sir Thomas Beecham on Facebook - "The function of music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought." How well what you wrote and that statement go together.

I am thankful for the God -incidence..

It seems to me that the petty distinctions about "Sophia" - "sophia", mirror
just exactly where we are as a Church today. I wonder what the people of
Latin America, indeed, the martyrs who died "in the Lord" think about the
beatification yesterday? We need a new Francis, a new Catherine of Siena,
to provide a roadmap back to the Path.

Kathy@ Jesus is concealed in the OT and revealed in the NT. The OT is filled with His prophecies (what other purpose would the OT have other than to prophecy to His people his coming?)One of my favorites is found in Proverbs
(Prov.8:22-31)which tells about Creation and Jesus like a "master craftsman, working beside the Creator,His daily delight.... rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men"..imagine Jesus, the Son, having His Father's Creation,the earth and its inhabitants, His personal playground, rejoicing always, in His friends, the sons of men. Oh, to have the talents of Sister Joyce Rupp...what could be done with just these few verses.
@Jonathan...God is Pure Spirit...He is neither male nor female...spirits have no sexual distinction...read St. Paul, I think maybe Colossians. But you are right in that in the OT Wisdom is given a female-ness probably to indicate the fertility and fruitfulness of its gifts.
My original point was to question not so much the use of the word sophia as in its Greek connotation ..but that in the poem and especially in the questions that follow one could think Sister Joyce was separating out a spirit of wisdom called Sophia (as the ancient Greeks actually believed)to call to and search for and seek. If Sister means only to call to God for an understanding and appreciation for His Wisdom...beautiful! But, as someone here pointed out, given the prevalency of New Ageism, one could be quite confused by this wording. Of course Sister Joyce could clear this up by commenting here....Sister,please a word from you????

Male/Female in the likeness of God, God created us Male and Female, and it was good. God is Spirit so why say "His" or "Him" when referring to God then? Good ideas Mr. Steffan.

ThristforTruth you are correct, in John 4 Jesus says God is Spirit, neither ? or both ? male/female, ineffable, beyond all gender so why do we keep referring to God as a male, and so many are horrified if we refer to God as female?

God created males and females in God's own LIKENESS. Both sexes. Genesis.

This just shows a devaluation of girls and women that some people can not stand God as a feminine, but love to refer to a male only God. Do they not see the crazy hypocrisy and prejudice against females that they are exhibiting when they denounce any feminine part of God whether paying attention to God as Spirit when they still use the He and His and Him when referring to God, as that is male. Anyway this matters because our church hierarchy still belittles all women and girls.

All the gospels are sensitive to women’s issues. In Matthew and Mark, the woman who prepares Jesus for his coming death anoints his head, a sign of her authority, rather than his feet. In John Jesus assumes the voice of Sophia, Wisdom, who is generally personified as a woman in the Jewish Testament. In the gospels, Jesus did not discriminate against women as disciples.
The church currently suffers from a deficiency of female authority and wisdom, revealed in a culture that fosters child abuse and male domination rather than appropriate sexual boundaries and a spirit of love and conciliation. The church does itself great harm by its slowness to address this imbalance. Authoritative, wise women are shunned but not burned at this stage of church history. Sex-obsessed celibates live in terror when priests should act as ordinary holy people, says one woman professional. Deacons have the maturity but not the doctrinal and leadership skills to be in charge. St. Augustine and St. Thomas agree that the reality of the Eucharist is the unity of the people, even if it is not celebrated sacramentally each Sunday as it should be. Eucharist can still occur where there is love.
With a God whom Jesus tenderly calls Father, Abba, and a God whom Jesus personified as a woman looking for lost coins and who is more our Mother than any human mother, the Triune God might naturally have emerged as masculine Father, female Wisdom, Sophia, incarnate in Jesus, and Holy Spirit, to Hagios Pneuma, neuter in Greek. In the New Testament the Hagios Pneuma is sometimes referred to as neuter and sometimes as masculine. Jesus calls the one whom the Father will send the Paraklete, a masculine designation for the Spirit. Philo Judaeus (ca. 20 BCE-ca. 50 CE), a philosopher and theologian, seems to have played a part in substituting the masculine Logos for the feminine Sophia with the result that the Trinity could consist of all male persons and this is what we find in the New Testament. The female non-Christian equivalent is generally given as Virgin, who is the source of life, Mother, the next stage of life, and wise woman, with the disrespectful designations of Hag, witch (possibly from Hagia, holy in Greek) and Crone, a withered, witchlike woman (same root as carrion, dead meat). The switch from a Great Mother as the chief God to a male war God, with the Jewish God as an example, occurred about 5000 years ago. In war, males bond together to exert their strength, at the expense and degradation of women. Aristotle apparently believed his own assessment that women were misbegotten males, an opinion in which St. Thomas Aquinas concurred. This kind of sexism is diabolical and deep.

Feminine God? Jesus referred to himself as BakerWOMAN making the Bread of Life, MOTHER HEN gathering us under Her wings amd WIDOW Woman ceaselessly searching for the lost coin.

Jesus is certainly OK with feminism and femaleness of God.

Yes yes let us worship our new goddess Sophia.