Hey you, schmart guy.

A few days ago, I met with my pastor and we had a long and fruitful discussion about discernment, the process and some of my concerns/misgivings.  Key among those concerns is the amount of study and erudition required and the end of that erudition.  Know for certain that I am not proclaiming that willful ignorance or eschewing scholarship is, in any way, of value. Rather, I keep being reminded how easily it is to get sidetracked, confused and wrapped up in '-ologies' that one loses sight of the Spiritual.  This comes into razor-sharp focus with today's reading.

At that time Jesus exclaimed:
“I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.  Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” (Mt. 11:25-27)

The wise and learned are the scribes and pharisees, who have studied and know the '-ologies', but it is that very erudition which shields their eyes from the truth of the Word.  It is the ignorant, the childlike, who are receptive to the Word and it's truth.  That doesn't mean that one should walk away from study and such, for even the greatest of the Doctors of the Church came to realise the Spiritual over the '-ologies'.  Rather, it is a concern to keep in the front of your mind lest one be taken away by fanciful mental constructs and enmeshed in intellectual webs.

Recall that all of this is about relationships (both to the Divine and to each other) and relationships aren't book-learning, but life-learning.