Test of Faith

Mastering the skills of discipleship by undergoing testing

02/12/2018

James 1:1-11 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion, greetings. Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and he will be given it. But he should ask in faith, not doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, since he is a man of two minds, unstable in all his ways.

Life is a test, and most of the people I know do not like to take tests. Do you? But a test is a good indicator of whether or not you have mastered a certain skill. Anyone who has taken piano lessons knows that performing recitals are part of the learning process. If you cannot tickle the ivories in front of others, you have not made progress in becoming the next Beethoven. You do not possess piano playing skills. A priest friend of mine, Fr. Leo Patalinghug, had his cooking skills put to the test on the popular television show, “Throwdown with Bobby Flay,” and he beat Bobby! Talk about a pressure cooker. No one can earn the salary of a professional – a certified public accountant, a medical doctor, an attorney – without undergoing rigorous testing. In other words, it is not until you have been placed in the crucible of a test that your real metal shows, and those who cannot stand the heat better get out of the kitchen. No one really enjoys being tested, but no one can really avoid being tested if they want to demonstrate mastery of certain skills.

What is true in the natural order of things also often proves true in the supernatural order, especially when it comes to faith and discipleship. St. James insists that our faith, too, must be tested if we want to master the basic skills of a Christian disciple. He writes: “Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, for you know the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” James suggests we not just grit our teeth and get the test over with as quickly as we can, but even that we find joy in it. St. James is optimistic about trials and tests because he knows faith that is merely lip-service (untested faith) is useless, which he goes on to elaborate extensively in the rest of the letter.

His entire letter serves as a healthy and helpful counter-point to St. Paul who emphasized the priority and primacy of faith – rightly so! – especially in his letters to the Romans and Galatians. Nonetheless, both James and Peter knew well that no one deserves the title of disciple of Jesus without carrying a cross, that is, without being tested. No one masters the skills of discipleship without a test of faith.

But there is at least one respect in which the supernatural order differs from the natural order of things. The hardest tests of faith do not come when things are hard, but rather when things are easy; our faith is not truly tested in times of persecution, but rather in periods of peace and prosperity. That may sound counter-intuitive, but think about it. Do you recall what happened in the days following the attacks of September 11? Churches, synagogues, mosques, were all packed with worshipers whose faith had been renewed precisely because of the horrendous attacks. We clutch our faith close to our breast in times of adversity. Most of the time, persecution is an easy test of faith to pass.

But I believe the real test of faith comes in times of peace and prosperity; that is when it is difficult to be a good disciple. Archbishop Fulton Sheen had the habit of making the Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament every day. He opined that the hardest time to make the Holy Hour was not when you are busy, but when you are on vacation. When you have all the time in the world, it feels hard to find any time for God. People often skip Mass on vacation. In peace and prosperity we meet the true test of faith, and we do not all pass so easily.

My suggestion to you would be to put your own faith to the test daily, and do not wait for God to test you. It is always easier to test yourself. Pray on vacation, read a good spiritual book, go to confession, be more generous to church or charity, forgive someone against whom you hold a grudge, reduce your alcohol consumption, visit family or friends in the hospital or nursing home. When we put our own faith to the test, we almost begin to find joy in being tested, as St. James said. And joy in testing is one of the skills of discipleship.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Leftover Love

Seeing all things as gifts from God’s bounty

02/10/2018

Mark 8:1-10 In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat, Jesus summoned the disciples and said, “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have come a great distance.” His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough bread to satisfy them here in this deserted place?” Still he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They replied, “Seven.” He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to his disciples to distribute, and they distributed them to the crowd. They also had a few fish. He said the blessing over them and ordered them distributed also. They ate and were satisfied. They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets. There were about four thousand people.

I love leftovers. Do you? Let me tell you why I love leftovers. First of all, some food tastes better the second or third day you eat it, especially if it is my dad’s Indian chicken curry. The spies have had more time to marinate the chicken. Secondly, when I enjoy a meal of leftovers that means I did not have to go out to eat and therefore the church did not have to reimburse me for a meal expense. The pastor eating leftovers means the parishioners are saving money! And the third reason is to avoid wasting food. The next time you go out to eat at a restaurant, glance at the other tables and pay attention to the large portions of food that are ordered, and sadly, the equally large amounts that are thrown away. Many times those leftovers could have made a second meal, and sometimes it would have tasted better than the first meal.

In other words, to love leftovers, we have to change our attitude and approach to food altogether, and start seeing leftovers as a gift rather than as garbage. The moral and ethical roots of this change plunge deep into our relationship with God, who has given us everything, even our food as a gift to be cherished. Remember how the prayer called “Grace Before Meals” goes? We pray: “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.” If the meal you are about to devour is indeed a gift of God – from the bounty of his heavenly table – then take what you need, and guard the leftovers as a gift to be enjoyed later. When we love leftovers, we are showing love for God.

Jesus teaches his disciples to discern how to approach food, too, and really wants them to learn how to love leftovers. Our Lord’s tender heart is moved deeply when he sees the crowd hungry and asks his disciples what should be done. They are at a loss because they only have seven loaves of bread, hardly enough for each person to eat a crumb. But that is more than enough for Jesus. Our Lord multiplies those seven loaves – which may have been leftovers from a previous meal – and not only feeds four thousand people, but has seven baskets of loaves leftover. I am sure they did not throw those leftovers away like garbage, but rather they treated them as a great gift, indeed, they had received them straight “from God’s bounty through Christ our Lord.” When we love leftovers, we show love for the Lord.

Let me give you a few other examples of loving leftovers, and not just leftover food. A local construction company sends emails that often have attachments. At the bottom of the email, however, it says: “Please consider the environment before printing this email.” What a simple but healthy reminder not to create leftovers that we later treat like garbage rather than as a gift. The “Baby Bottle Campaign” for Heart to Heart Pregnancy Center is another good example of treating our leftover change with more respect and a touch of reverence. That leftover change can save a life and truly become a gift of God. A friend of mine has the habit of giving something away whenever he gets something new. If he buys a new shirt, he gives an old shirt away; if he gets a new book, he gives an old book away. That is why I hang out with him, so I do not have to buy shirts or books. And my parishioners do not have to reimburse me.

When we love leftovers of whatever shape or size, we do more than protect the environment. We begin to see all of creation as a gift of God, and we treat that gift with the respect and reverence it deserves. Our love of leftovers shows our love for God.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Fashion Statement

Discerning what our clothes are saying about our Christianity

02/09/2018

1 Kings 11:29-32; 12:19 Jeroboam left Jerusalem, and the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite met him on the road. The two were alone in the area, and the prophet was wearing a new cloak. Ahijah took off his new cloak, tore it into twelve pieces, and said to Jeroboam: “Take ten pieces for yourself; the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I will tear away the kingdom from Solomon’s grasp and will give you ten of the tribes. One tribe shall remain to him for the sake of David my servant, and of Jerusalem, the city I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.’” Israel went into rebellion against David’s house to this day.

Do you know what a fashion statement is? It is when you use your clothes to make a point, usually revealing something about yourself. One day an elderly man walked a long way to visit his son’s family. He arrived late at night and was exhausted. He knocked on the door and his son, a middle aged man, opened the door. Instead of greeting his father with a hug and a kiss, he was rude. When the older man asked if he could come inside, the younger man said it was too late, the family was in bed, and that the old man would have to sleep on the front porch. He told his twelve year old son to bring a sheet for the older man to wrap up in on the porch. But when the little boy returned, he had torn the sheet in two pieces. The middle aged father asked angrily why he did that, and the little boy answered: “Half is for grandpa, and the other half is for when you visit me someday.”

Now, that is a pretty dramatic illustration, and hopefully no one would actually do that to their elderly father. But we do sometimes feel that way in our hearts even if we do not verbalize it. That is the power of a fashion statement: to say with our clothes – or with cloth in this case – what we feel in our hearts but do not necessarily want to say out loud. Both the father and son said something about themselves.

The prophet Ahijah employs the example of a fashion statement to drive home God’s judgment on the people. We read: “Ahijah took off his new cloak and tore it into twelve pieces, and said to Jeroboam, ‘Take ten pieces for yourself…I will give you ten of the tribes.” God had decided that the sins of the people had grown so great that they needed to be punished by dividing the Kingdom of David. Jeroboam would be king in the north, with ten tribes, and henceforth that area would be called “Israel.” Rehoboam would reign in the south, over the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and thereafter that area would be called “Judah.” Incidentally, that is the historic moment at which the Chosen People were called “Jews,” a term derived from “Judah.” Ahijah used his new cloak torn into twelve pieces to make a memorable fashion statement: it symbolized the historical, political, moral and spiritual state of the people. That is quite a fashion statement.

Do your clothes say anything about you? I believe that no matter how little we care or pay attention to our clothes, they nevertheless say something about us: our values, our priorities, sometimes even our self-worth. Priests have the privilege of wearing the Roman collar, which is a symbol of spiritual authority which should be lived out in service. Every morning when I put on the collar and look at myself in the mirror, I feel both the blessing and the burden of my vocation. That black shirt and white collar say a lot about me without me every opening my mouth. Recently a church staff member brought a fashion magazine advertisement with a woman modeling a trendy outfit that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Frankly, it looked rather silly, but what was not silly was the enormous waste of money on such clothes. That outfit speaks volumes about the spiritual state of anyone who buys it. Catholic school children wear uniforms that are modest and inexpensive. We want to teach our students not to focus on fashion but rather on their studies! Pope Francis said in his encyclical on the environment: “A person who could afford to spend and consume more but regularly uses less heating and wears warmer clothes, shows the kind of convictions and attitudes which help to protect the environment” (Laudato si’, 211). Even nudists who wear nothing at all are saying something about themselves; not even nudists can escape making a fashion statement.

Whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not, our clothes ineluctably say something about us. When you get dressed in the morning, look in the mirror and ask yourself: what statement is my fashion making about me today? Your fashion statement could even become a faith statement.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

One Size

Raising children and Christians according to their individual needs

02/08/2018

Mark 7:24-30 Jesus went to the district of Tyre. He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice. Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied and said to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

All parents love to talk about their children. As I listen to their stories, invariably parents observe – sometimes to their own surprise – that each child requires a different approach and attitude on the part of the parents in terms of child-rearing. In raising children, one size does not fit all. For instance, my brother and sister gave my parents a lot of grief while were growing up, but I was a perfect angel. Therefore, our parents had to be a lot tougher on them than on me. Experienced coaches often say the same thing: different players respond to different coaching techniques, one size does not fit all of them. One player you must coddle and compliment, while another you should criticize and correct. In this way, both types of players will reach their full potential as athletes. Business leaders share a similar struggle with their employees. They deal with Baby Boomers differently than they deal with Generation Xer’s and still differently than they work with Millennials. Lord help us when the Centennials become part of the workforce; we may have to force them to work! Anyone who mentors another human being, regardless of the field, knows well that one size does not fill all persons.

This need for different approaches to different disciples can shed some light on the interaction between Jesus and Greek, Syrophoenician woman in the gospel of Mark. She asks, like so many other people had also pleaded, for her daughter to be healed. But Jesus rather rudely replies: “For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” Now, if you or I had heard that rebuff, we would have felt highly offended and stormed off. But how did this humble woman reply? She said softly: “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” Jesus was very pleased with her reaction and immediately heals her daughter. Jesus, like any good parent or coach, knows that one size does not fill all people, and therefore the easy, familiar attitude he adopts with the Jews will have to change when he deals with the Gentiles. In all such cases, however, our Lord wants each person to reach their full potential in faith. Jesus is mentoring his disciples to grow in faith.

Have you ever felt that God was dealing with you differently than he treats other people? When we become sick, or go through a divorce, or lose a job, we are tempted to compare our lives with other people’s lives and feel a deep sense of injustice. Why should others have a happy marriage and not me? Why did his stocks soar so high while the bottom fell out of mine? Why do their children still go to church while my children do not even believe in God? Why did I get cancer even though I exercise and eat right, while my neighbor smokes and drinks and never gets sick? There are hundreds of other similar situations. From the point of view of the children there is clearly a different approach and treatment that looks very unfair. But from the point of view of the parents, there is a profound awareness that one size does not fit each child’s needs and circumstances. And what is also obvious to the parents is that a different approach in mentoring does not mean there is any lack of love. Indeed, perhaps parents love more tenderly the children they have to be the toughest on.

Maybe God gave us children not only so we could raise them right. But maybe he also intended for us to see how God raises us as his children. We raise our children so they will reach their full potential in life. God raises us so we will reach our full potential in faith, that is, so we reach our full potential in the next life.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Spice of Life

Fostering meaningful friendships to find flavor in life

02/07/2018

1 Kings 10:1-10 The queen of Sheba, having heard of Solomon's fame, came to test him with subtle questions. She arrived in Jerusalem with a very numerous retinue, and with camels bearing spices, a large amount of gold, and precious stones. She came to Solomon and questioned him on every subject in which she was interested. King Solomon explained everything she asked about, and there remained nothing hidden from him that he could not explain to her. Then she gave the king one hundred and twenty gold talents, a very large quantity of spices, and precious stones. Never again did anyone bring such an abundance of spices as the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

I am responsible for the discovery of America. Well, not exactly me personally, but my people from India. Do you remember the main motive for Christopher Columbus to leave Spain in search of the new world? He was actually searching for a shortcut to India, a faster way than the normal trade routes, to obtain Indian spices. The children’s nursery rhyme teaches: “In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. / He had three ships and left from Spain / He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain…Day after day they looked for land; / They dreamed of trees and rocks and sand. / October 12 their dream came true, / You never saw a happier crew! / ‘Indians! Indians!’ Columbus cried; / His heart was filled with joyful pride. / But ‘India’ the land was not; / It was the Bahamas and it was hot. / The Arakawa natives were very nice; / They gave the sailors food and spice. / Columbus sailed on to find some gold / to bring back home as he’d been told.” Sometimes we think explorers are only looking for gold – and most of the time they are – but spices ranked right up there with gold as a precious commodity. And it still does today.

Do you enjoy eating spicy food? A priest friend of mine loves habanero chilies, which are very spicy hot, and he says: “A good chili burns you twice.” (I will give you a second to chew on that.) The spicy heat of a chili pepper is measured by the Scoville Scale, named for its creator, the American pharmacist, Wilbur Scoville, in 1912. The hottest chili peppers in the world have intimidating names: the Carolina Reaper, Pepper X, and Dragon’s Breath. Those chilies will burn you more than twice. Columbus may not have been searching for the Dragon’s Breath chili pepper, but he was looking for the spice of life.

King Solomon also loved good spices. The Queen of Sheba (roughly modern day Yemen) rewarded Solomon for his great wisdom by giving him a ton of spices. We read in 1 Kings 10: “Then she gave the king one hundred and twenty gold talents, a very large quantity of spices, and precious stones. Never again did anyone bring such an abundance of spices as the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.” Maybe the queen hid a few Caroline Reapers in the mountain of spices she gave to the king. Solomon, no less than Columbus, was looking for the spice of life.

May I suggest to you, however, that the real spice of life is friendship? Friendship was the real spice that Columbus received from the Arakawa natives, and friendship was the real spice that Solomon received as a reward from the Queen of Sheba. Think about your friends. Are some friends too hot to handle, too spicy? Sometimes our friends “burn us twice” because they betray us, or lie to us, or spread rumors about us. We may discover they are like a Carolina Reaper chili pepper and we cannot handle their spice. But other friends (even though they are hot) may challenge us, make us think differently, help us to try a new activity and their friendship adds a delicious flavor to our life, like my priest friend loved habanero chilies. You may think sometimes that because a class or a sport or an instrument or a teacher is too hard – they are too spicy! – you want to give up on it. But I have learned that when I do something really hard that is when I have grown the most in life. And the hardest things in the world to work on are good friendships, the spice of life.

A good friendship is like a good chili: it always burns you twice, and probably more than twice. But discovering a great friend is also when you have discovered the spice of life.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

The Fifth Gospel

Making a personal pilgrimage through our geographical past

02/05/2018

 Mark 6:53-56 

After making the crossing to the other side of the sea, Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret and tied up there. As they were leaving the boat, people immediately recognized him. They scurried about the surrounding country and began to bring in the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak; and as many as touched it were healed.

I was very blessed to have Archbishop J. Peter Sartain write the Foreword to my first book. He colorfully described the life of a priest, saying, “A priest’s life is a busy one. Especially if he is pastor of a parish, he finds himself shifting gears all day long. William Martin writes that begin a pastor is like being a stray dog at a whistler’s convention” (Oh, for the Love of God, 7). That means that if I am the stray dog, then each of you holds the whistle. One minute I am blessing someone’s rosary, the next minute I am running to the hospital, and the next minute, I am counseling and comforting someone who is hurting. But I have learned that someone else has a bigger whistle than my parishioners do, and that is the bishop. Over the course my priestly career the bishop’s whistle made me run to Texarkana, and then to Fayetteville, then to Washington, D.C. and finally to Fort Smith. I sure hope he stops blowing that darn whistle soon.

But when I pray, I realize that Someone else has an even bigger whistle than the bishop, namely, God. When I look at my life writ large over forty-eight years, I see that my moving from place to place – from India to Arkansas – was orchestrated by God’s loving providence. In other words, what may seem accidental and arbitrary moving from place to place by forces out of my control was in actuality God’s whistle teaching and guiding and loving me. Just like a dog whistle is often imperceptible by human ears, so too, hearing God’s whistle requires ears trained by prayer and contemplation.  We usually do not see or hear what God is doing.

Jesus’ movements from place to place in the Holy Land can also appear accidental and arbitrary. He goes to Galilee, he travels to Capernaum, he visits Bethany, he ends up in Jerusalem, he dies on Golgotha. But there was nothing arbitrary about any of it. Scripture scholars often call the path that Jesus followed in the Holy Land the “Fifth Gospel.” Just like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the four gospels to help us understand who Jesus is as the Messiah, so the geography of Jesus’ journey also reveals who he is, his mission plan, and his keen sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Jesus was hearing God’s whistle directing him from place to place, and that’s why our Lord spent long hours at night or early morning in prayer, training his ears to hear that high pitch. People who make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and trace Jesus’ steps have read five gospels, not just four like the rest of us.

When I prepare a funeral homily, I meet with the family of the deceased and ask them to go through the life of their loved one not only chronologically, but also geographically. Where was the person born? Where did he or she grow up? Where did they attend college? Where did they land their first job? Where did they decided to raise their children, and finally where did they retire? It may seem all these moves were either carefully planned or they happened quite by accident. But I believe there’s another Agent at work in our geographical history, and that is God with his imperceptible whistle. When we prayerfully contemplate our own journey through life, making a sort of personal pilgrimage through our past, we begin to hear God’s whistle and we start to see how he has led us everywhere and taught us to be more like his Son. When you prayerfully retrace the steps of your own geographical past, you are reading your own fifth gospel.

As you run from place to place in your life, stop to look around and see what’s happening in your relationship with God. More importantly, learn to listen prayerfully to a certain high pitch whistling. You may find that you, too, are just “a stray dog at a whistle’s convention.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Ignorance Is Bliss

Accepting what we can know and what we cannot know

02/04/2018

1 Kings 3:4-13 Solomon went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, because that was the most renowned high place. Upon its altar Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings. In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. God said, "Ask something of me and I will give it to you." Solomon answered: "You have shown great favor to your servant, my father David, because he behaved faithfully toward you, with justice and an upright heart; and you have continued this great favor toward him, even today, seating a son of his on his throne. O LORD, my God, you have made me, your servant, king to succeed my father David; but I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act. I serve you in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a people so vast that it cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong. For who is able to govern this vast people of yours?" The LORD was pleased that Solomon made this request.

           Human beings have a strange desire to know some things, but at the same time we believe that ignorance is bliss. Modern science has an inexhaustible capacity to know how the universe works, and to unlock its hidden secrets. Stephen Hawking, the eminent astrophysicist wrote: “I believe we can and should try to understand the universe. We’ve already made remarkable progress in understanding the cosmos, particularly in the last few years (Universe in a Nutshell, 70). This relentless pursuit of scientific knowledge is definitely a good thing, and shows that we human beings were made to know the truth and we rightly rejoice when we find it, especially when we win the Nobel Prize for finding it.

           On the other hand, we also prefer not to know some other things. For instance, I really would rather not know what goes into making a hotdog. Everyone loves sausage until they work in a sausage factory. Some of us are on a diet. Some mornings we want to get on the scales and know our weight, but most mornings we don’t. Ignorance is bliss. After we reach a certain age, we celebrate our birthdays and no one asks how old you are. Not even the NSA (National Security Agency) knows how old my mother is. Sometimes we love the light of truth, sometimes we want to turn the light off.

           But wisdom is different from knowledge. Wisdom is not the impulse to drive down the information superhighway in a Lamborghini and indiscriminately accumulate more and more knowledge. Rather, wisdom weighs carefully what we can know and what we cannot know; it discerns prayerfully what we should know and what we should leave shrouded in mystery; it ponders devoutly what secrets of nature we should unlock and what secrets of life we should stand solemnly before and bow. Wisdom teaches us to slow down and stop when we encounter God. Knowledge answers the questions: who, what, where, how, and when, but wisdom alone can answer the question why.

             In a sense, the whole Bible is about learning how to manage knowledge and to seek wisdom. Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve’s original sin was eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gn. 2:16-17). They desired to know something that they should not know. The last book of the Bible is called “Revelation,” or in Greek, “Apocalypsis,” which literally means “unveiling” or “revealing,” “revelation.”  In other words, it won’t be until the end of time that we will know all things as we should know them – even the ingredients in hotdogs and a woman’s age.

            1 Kings 3 says that on his coronation day, Solomon asked for wisdom, saying: “Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart (wisdom) to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.” That is, help me not to make the same mistake as Adam and Eve made by reaching out to know good and evil. Instead Solomon asked for wisdom, which is knowledge bestowed as a gift, if God wills and when God wills. Some things we should not know until God reveals it to us, until he gives that knowledge to us as a gift. Knowledge comes from man, but wisdom comes from God.

             One of the hardest times to distinguish between knowledge and wisdom is when some tragedy befalls us. We want to know not only what happened, but also why it happened. When someone gets cancer unexpectedly, when a young person dies in an accident, when a couple separates or gets a divorce. When my nephew Noah died before completing his first year of college, it wasn’t enough to know what happened, but heart hurt to know why such a tragedy happened. Such times and such tragedies remind us the difference between knowledge and wisdom: knowledge comes from man, but wisdom – the answers to the “why” questions – comes only from God. And we must wait till he bestows that wisdom upon us as a gift; and it may not be until the end of time that he reveals it.

              When I was first ordained as a priest, I believed that I should know the answers to all theological and spiritual questions. What was the point, after all, of eight years of seminary studies if you didn’t learn the answers to tough questions? I felt like a failure if I had to admit my ignorance about Church doctrine. But after twenty-one years as a priest, I have learned that the answer, “I don’t know” is perfectly acceptable. That may be the only answer available to the tragedies that befall you; you must say, “I don’t know why.” And that answer is perfectly acceptable. Let us avoid the mistake of Adam and Eve, and pull back our hands from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead, let us be like Solomon and open our hands to allow God give us wisdom when he wishes; because knowledge comes from man, but wisdom comes from God.

Praised be Jesus Christ!