Knowledge is Power…to destroy as much as to build

St. Jerome in his Library

Part of the faith experience as Catholics is learning. It may surprise you to hear that this is a fairy new phenomenon in Catholic history. For hundreds of years only those pursuing degrees in Theology, and a small segment of other laity devoted themselves to learning anything beyond the reading of sacred scripture. But the internet has changed that and a great deal of ordinary Catholics have made self-education an ordinary part of their faith “journey” Search engines, blogs, YouTube and social media have made this very easy to do—sometimes a little too easy.

There is always the risk of believing that information is the same as knowledge, and that gaining understanding is the same as having wisdom. There is also the risk of believing knowledge is the same  as holiness. We have to be very careful to avoid temptation to these pitfalls. Here are some quotes from saints that will help to guide you along a straight path.

“When you seek truth, you seek God whether you know it or not.” 
— St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

This important quote sets up some things I will say in the rest of this post. God is the Eternal Truth. He is Truth itself. You’ve probably heard me say this in many podcast episodes. Whenever we are studying, whether or not it’s religious in nature, we are seeking Truth, and therefore we are seeking God, or some aspect of his nature.

“Do you desire to study to your advantage? Let devotion accompany all your studies, and study less to make yourself learned than to become a saint. Consult God more than your books, and ask him, with humility, to make you understand what you read.”
— St. Vincent Ferrer

Many of the church’s current ailments are due to isolating theology from spirituality when they should go together. The most errant theologians in Church history are those who not only elevated learning over spiritual devotion, but practically regarded spirituality as something that only simple minded Catholics need to do. Remember that the reason we learn Truth is to better understand how to live the Truth—to be holy; to be saints. We must put into practice the things that we learn.

“I would rather have learning joined with virtue than all the treasures of kings.” 
— St. Thomas More

What good is knowledge of good and holy things if we aren’t manifesting that knowledge by how we live our lives? When we face Jesus we won’t be graded for what we have learned, we will be judged for how we have lived.

God illuminates the mind by grace. He doesn’t do this to store up treasures in our brains, he does this because in order to live the Good and the True, we must have an understanding of it. So learning is a good thing as long as we are growing from it, and living better lives by putting what we learn into practice. But living virtuous lives is most important. Many great saints in our history were not saints because of learning, but because of their lives of heroic virtue.