Seeking to Know

The search for knowledge is a challenge in which we are capable of self delusion. Our seeking may be contaminated by our self centered orientation. The texts, today, from the Roman Catholic Lectionary touch on this problem. In his commentary on the passage from the first letter of Paul to the Thessalonians, Friar Jude Winkler tells us that Paul was contrasting his message of the Good News with the rhetoric of the Sophists who were paid to provide convincing arguments in philosophy and natural science. Our acceptance of knowledge about ourselves is much greater when it agrees with our understanding of who we are. Mark Twain is credited with commenting that his father knew very little about life when Twain was young, but certainly learned a great deal as the author aged. The Gospel from Matthew continues the condemnation of the hypocritical practices of Scribes and Pharisees as they become scrupulous about attending to the fine details of religious observance and miss the point about the transformation of our knowledge of ourselves which, as Friar Jude observes, is the practice of Paul in Thessalonica to relate to the people with a mother’s love and a father’s love. The psalmist reminds us that God is Creator and the One who knows our intimate make up. We are children of God and God reveals the knowledge we seek as we accept the deep transformation from selfishness to selflessness offered by love of the Divine Mother and Father.