MIND NOT HIGH THINGS

A MESSAGE FOR THE 3rd SUNDAY AFTER EPIPIHANY

Our Gospel today begins with the story of a leper. This leper, in spite of the great deal of suffering he must have endured from his disease, nevertheless had faith in our Lord’s ability to heal him. Did he fully understand that this Man was the Son of God?  Was his understanding of the nature of the Blessed Trinity so complete that he had grasped the reason why the Second Person of that Trinity was now living in the midst of the children of Israel working miracles?  Most assuredly not.

We sometimes falsely equate our faith with our understanding of the truths of that faith.  This is the wrong approach.  It is perhaps true that the more we understand those truths, the more complete our faith is.  But God calls each person to a different level of knowledge.  The average layperson is not expected to have the knowledge of a priest who has undergone five or six years or more of intense training in a seminary designed for the purpose.  And neither that priest, nor even those who had taught him in the seminary can claim to approach the level of comprehension that a St. Thomas Aquinas or a St. Augustine had of the truths of the faith.

This is as it should be. We are not all born equal when it comes to intelligence and opportunity.  Our divine judge will never pronounce sentence on us based on how much we know, unless of course we have deliberately neglected to learn our faith.   Otherwise, we are who we are.  We should not try to rise above our station.  Or as St. Paul says in today’s Epistle, “Mind not high things… be not wise in your own conceits.”  It is a sign of humility to recognize our own worth when it comes to intelligence and education, and never make pretences to learning higher than we actually possess.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and for this reason armchair theologians are dangerous.  One cannot simply read, for example, the Code of Canon Law and then pretend to know how to apply its principles to unforeseen situations such as the ones we come across since Vatican 2.  And yet, we have such creatures as “home-aloners” who refuse the sacraments because they believe traditional priests don’t have “jurisdiction.”  Laws that worked in the past cannot be applied today, but that doesn’t stop them pontificating to the rest of us based on their pathetically incomplete knowledge of the principles.  Don’t be impressed by people who try to overwhelm you with “facts” and quotations. Chances are, they are sincere, but wrong!  Good intentions pave the way not to a closer walk with God, but to hell.

It’s better to accept, humbly, that we can’t unravel all the complexities of life and theology thrust upon us by the ravages of Vatican 2 and the evil men who promote the Church’s destruction.  And far better to take on the role of the leper in today’s Gospel, proclaiming to our Lord in heaven that we know, by our faith, that he has the power to make everything right again.  If we would all fervently and repeatedly make this prayer, maybe we would be blessed to hear once again the answer of our Lord, “I will; be thou clean.”