Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - August 23, 2024
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”
An eleventh century Benedictine monk born in Italy, Saint Anselm, lived a life that doesn't seem too unlike the mobile lives of our times. He became a member of a monastery in France where he had gone to be near his mother's family after a quarrel with his father in Italy. Eventually he became archbishop of Canterbury in England but that didn't end his travels. In that position disputes with the English kings over control of the church led to several exiles. All this without benefit of air travel, automobiles or railroads. He managed, too, without a laptop to write a number of books on theology and philosophy which continue to his influence today. Not only his mobility but his thought has relevance for millennial people.
One famous line of his is even helpful to mortals like you and me. “I believe in order to understand.” Those of us with some inclination to rationality would more easily comprehend a saying like: “I understand, I investigate, in order to believe.” And for many there is much truth in that. We study, question, think, in order to strengthen our decision to believe in God and Jesus Christ.
Anselm's line, “I believe in order to understand,” stresses another, less obvious point. Not only should some thinking precede faith, but faith should provoke more thinking and understanding. Faith is not a way of ending all questioning but of opening up new questions. We who use our minds to understand economics, tax forms, golf, computers, how to program a new smart phone, should certainly use them to unfold the meaning of faith, of what we believe.
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
