According to Catholicism, who is the Wisdom being described in Proverbs 8:22–36?
Answer
The most direct way of linking the Wisdom to Mary is the title Mother of the Eucharist, Why? Proverbs9:1-6 describes the Wisdom as preparing the Holy Sacrifice that will give life.
Wisdom has built her house, she has set up her seven columns;
she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table.
She has sent out her maidens; she calls from the heights out over the city: “Let whoever is simple turn in here; To the one who lacks understanding,
she says, Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed!
Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.”
Now, let us connect the wordings of Wisdom9:1-6 to St.Louis De Monfort teaching;
she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table...and she says, Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed! Does this words pre-figured the Holy Eucharist that the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit had prepared and sanctified? And where does the Holy Eucharist comes from? It comes from the Blessed Virgin Mary's Pure & Immaculate Flesh.
St.Montfort describes this with this words;
***Together with the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary produced the greatest thing that was or ever will be: a God-Man.***https://sdbvnew.weebly.com/totus-tuus.html
This articles titled "Mary and the Eucharist" reflected on Mary in comparison to the monstrance that hold the Holy Eucharist as the Pure Womb of Mary.
On this day, I was presented with a monstrance I had never seen before. It opened up for me the mystery of Mary symbolically and visually in a way I had never experienced. The monstrance was an Image of Our Lady and the Divine Host was positioned within her womb. The message was profound. The Jesus who is truly present in the Holy Eucharist is the same Jesus who lived in the womb of that Holy Virgin for nine months.
Jesus told the disciples, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you" (John 6:53 ff). We who receive the bread of angels, who have been invited to the Eucharistic Feast, now have His Divine life within us. We spiritually bring Christ into a world waiting to be reborn. We are called to become living monstrances, repositories of the Bread of life for others. Mary is the model who shows us the way.
https://www.catholic.org/mary/maryeu.php
How about the Seven Columns, what does it pertains?
In summary, we might say that the seven pillars of wisdom are (1) counsel, (2) knowledge, (3) understanding, (4) might or strength, (5) power or authority, (6) riches and (7) honor. These are seven characteristics of wisdom.
Proverbs 8:14, "Counsel is mine and sound the wisdom"
Proverbs 8:12, "Wisdom dwells with prudence and finds out knowledge."
Proverbs 8:14B, "I am understanding, power is mine."
Proverbs 8:18, "Riches and honor are with me."
Proverbs 14:24, "The crown of the wise is their riches."
Proverbs 15:23, "The reverential fear of YHWH is the instruction of wisdom. And before honor is humility."
The Seven Columns or Seven Pillars correspond to the Sevenfold Gifts of the Holy Spirit. The succeeding verse in Proverbs9:1-6 speaks of "she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table" is a pre-figurement of the Holy Eucharist prepared by the Holy Spirit together with the Lady Wisdom as Wisdom is personified as a Woman.
Looking at the numerous verses pointing to Mary and the Eucharist and the Sevenfold Gifts or graces that the Holy Eucharist gives to every believers who will accept the invitation of the Wisdom. And this Wisdom as Proverbs8:22 had described as;
22 “The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works,before his deeds of old;
23 I was formed long ages ago, at the very beginning, when the world came to be.
To understand this phrase, Sis.Ingga of beautiful talks narrated beautifully St.Faustina's revelation;
"Mercy is the flower of Love, in Love it is conceived and in deeds it is revealed".
Sr. Inga Kvassayová speaks about "God's Greatest Desire" on January 22, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob6cs21Xlm0
How can this simple phrase reveals the identification of the Wisdom and mystery behind Proverbs8:22-23?
The Wisdom in Proverbs8:22 is a "Created Spirit" that sits on God's Throne as Solomon stated in his prayer in the Book of Wisdom.
This takes a deep meditation on how God immediately created a soul at the moment of conception as Catholic Church teaches in CCC366.
The question is, when God the Father and the Begotten Son conceived a Love for the chosen Woman what is immediately produced? It cannot be a soul as soul not glorified cannot enter the Glorious Presence of God, what God immediately produced is a "spirit" the "Spirit of Created Wisdom" that God decreed to be the Anointing of Mary's soul as the Created Immaculate Conception.
This reflections is clearly seen in the teaching of St.Maximillian Kolbe when he attributed the Holy Spirit as the Uncreated Immaculate Conception and Mary as the Created Immaculate Conception. (p.50-64 St.Kolbe's teaching on the Fr.Gaitley book 33 Days to Morning Glory.)