Thursday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
Paul is taking a well-focused aim on some professors in today’s first reading when he states that knowledge inflates with pride. The author of the famous devotional book The Imitation of Christ (1427) held back no punches with is opinion of those who study without devotion:
What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility, you displease the Trinity? Indeed it is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God. I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it. For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart and the principles of all the philosophers if we live without grace and the love of God? Vanity of vanities and all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone.
Paul’s writing and the Imitation of Christ may seem rather anti-academic and has given some the idea that it would be better to spend all day thinking about Jesus, wandering through a field picking flowers and then spending the evening making macrame wall hangings. Perhaps a corrective to a misplaced ridicule of the academic life is the realization that St. Ignatius chose a higher education for himself, as an integral part of formation for members of the Jesuit order, and chose education as the primary work of the order. Ignatius wisely drove between the two extremes of a rejection of academic pursuits and the pursuit of knowledge in order to advance one’s honor, riches, and pride by noting that all pursuits must be done for God’s greater glory. As he stated in the First Principle and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises, our goal is union with God and the means are to choose that which will take us to that goal. Since the world is a very complex place, a thorough knowledge of the world is necessary for us to make good decisions that will move us towards God. This study of the relationship of the world to God’s plan for creation could and should be the foundation of any Catholic institution of learning but it comes with some study and lots of hard work!