The Things for Which I Thirst

Miss E, who works downstairs in my building, recently forwarded me an email from her department regarding training in "Catholic terminology."  The examples given were along the lines of "What is a diocese?  What is the difference between a bishop and archbishop?"  I jokingly suggested that she add hyperdulia and anamnesis to the list.



During our noon Mass, however, I was reflecting on the fact that this training was taking place at a rather large, well-established Catholic organization, where some people have fancy degrees with Latin diplomas from Rome.  And other people need to know why some priests are called "Monsignor."

I remembered something Dr. Sirilla had told my class about about Augustine (whose feast day was last week).  Although he was a great theologian among great theologians and trained by the great St. Ambrose, he gave, as the highest example of faith, his mother, St. Monica (who also had a feast day last week).  She had no theological training, she lived a life of love for Christ.  She attended Mass twice a day, so that she could hear the Scripture.

For some reason, that bit stuck out to me today.  I am a product, by nature and nurture, of everything encouraging for great literacy.  I devour books by the mouthful -- I consider them as a resource as free as air and as accessible as water.  I cannot imagine a world where I am cut off from reading the Bible.  I cannot imagine St. Monica's world, where she hungered for the Word of God and needed a priest to bring it to her.

I do hunger and thirst for knowledge of God and of the Church and fidget because I am not in school right now -- but most of the time that hunger is for knowledge and not for God.  I can learn good deal from St. Monica, who thirsted for knowledge because it was God.

The image is from Wikipedia's page on St. Monica.