Lent and Sirach

While reading the book of Sirach from The Navarre Bible: Wisdom Books (The Navarre Bible: Old Testament) I’ve come across a few comments and passages that have a lenten tone to them.

Commenting on Sirach 4:21,

“For there is a shame which brings sin, and there is a shame which is glory and favour.”

St. Gregory the Great says:

“When we bring to mind the evil we have done and repent of it, we experience a moment of weighty and bitter confusion; a storm of thoughts troubles the soul, sorrow weighs it down, anxiety lays waste to it; the soul gives way to sadness [...]. Therefore, may the bitterness of the suffering experienced at the moment of repentence dull the attraction fo evil” (Moralia in Iob, 4, 32).

Later in Chapter 6, we hear advice on how to obtain wisdom. The teacher says in verses 24-26:

“Put your feet into [Wisdom's] fetters, and your neck into her collar. Put your shoulder under her and carry her, and do not fret under her bonds. Come to her with all your soul, and keep her ways with all your might.”

The commentator rightly associates this passage with our Blessed Lord’s invitation to find true Wisdom and peace of soul in his teaching: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt 11:29). Yet I cannot deny sensing the same language of His passion. Is not true Wisdom also found on the wood of the cross?