Knowledge and understanding are overrated. . .

All of us grew up in a culture in which knowledge and understanding were prized above all.  We learned information in school that was meant to help us understand and therefore become wise.  As you look around you, you can see that the fruits of this system have been mixed at best.  

I had a discussion about math with a college math teacher in my parish who was convinced that if people understood math, they would be better at it.  Obviously, the way I learned math was not keyed into understanding.  It was not even concerned all that much with knowledge.  I memorized the multiplication tables and simply stuck numbers into formulas.  I did not have a clue as to how I arrived at the answer but I did not care all that much about it either.  Then I learned from my parents and a grocer, for whom I worked staring at age 12, some short cuts to adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing.  I can count but I am a failure at math.  At least according to the expert.  I did take comfort from the fact, however, that the math professor could not count out change if his life depended on it.  Oh, well. . . 

My brother suffered under the introduction of new math.  I assume that new math is now old math but I expect it is the same confused and futile effort to make students understand what they were doing and to give them knowledge to make math transparent.  My brother hated it.  When my kids brought home their math homework, I hated it as well.   I watched them muddle through an arcane process of multiplying numbers while I had finished with the answer a long time ago.  Their teachers did not like my interference and they were penalized even when they got the answer right -- because they did not show their work.  Really?  And if they showed their work but got the wrong answer in the end, they still got partial credit.  What?  But that is the way of an education that imparts knowledge to build understanding.

Switch now to catechism class.  In the Church we still practice memorization and value this memorization over knowledge that bears the fruit of understanding.  Sure, some congregations and pastors have abandoned the catechism and memorization and instead pursue a catechetical model that values knowledge, understanding, and feeling more than anything else.  I don't have figures but my instinct is that those who catechized by memorization have fared better -- more orthodox and more faithful than those who spent time learning to love Jesus and figure Him out.  I did not understand all that much of what my pastor taught me but it found its home in my mind and heart.  It was not that he was all that effective as a teacher but it is the nature of the Word of God to find its way into us -- that is the agency of the Spirit, after all.  

Knowledge and understanding are overrated.  Remember the Lord's conversation with Nicodemus?  Nicodemus wanted answers.  Jesus was not giving any.  Jesus even mocked Nicodemus (you, a big time teacher of the Jews and you do not get it?).  Jesus called Nicodemus to faith -- to trust in what he did not understand and what he did not know (at least in the sense of knowing how it worked).  And then there is the way Jesus treated Thomas' request for a sign or something to bolster his faith and relieve him of some of the risk inherent to faith.  Again, Jesus does not seem to accommodate Thomas without also turning it back on him (Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe).  Seeing is not believing and neither is knowing believing or understanding believing.  I am not saying knowing the Scriptures and understanding it as best you can are bad things but we dare not equate knowledge and understanding with faith.  After all, the devil certainly knows the Scriptures better than we do and I assume he understands them pretty well but that has not led him to faith.  Faith is the Spirit given response to the Word preached and the Sacrament of Baptism administered.  

Truth be told, I still think that memorizing the Catechism, hymns, liturgy, and prayers are among the most valuable disciplines to strengthen the faith.  And these bear fruit in virtue -- seeking to be the best you are.  For the Christian this is not some humanistic pursuit of righteousness we can claim credit for but Christ living in us and working in us by the Holy Spirit to bear the fruit He has always intended to bear in our lives.  Abide in Christ and He will abide in you and you will bear the good fruit that endures.  In the end, is that not what the Lord (and we) are seeking -- faithful Christians who believe the Word, who trust in what they have not seen and do not comprehend???  Are we hoping that in our catechism classes is another St. Thomas Aquinas or are we hoping for solid, faithful, serious Christians who seek to become the people God has declared them to be in baptism?  Are we looking for great thinkers or virtuous people (in the best sense of that term)???

. . . once the people have learned the text well, then teach them to understand it, too, so that they know what it means. Take up again the form offered in these charts or some other short form that you may prefer. Then adhere to it without changing a single syllable, just as stated above regarding the text.—SC Preface 14. 

You do not need knowledge and understanding to benefit from the Divine Service.  You can follow along without knowing the history or having full comprehension of the mystery that is witnessed and manifested in the efficacious Word and the life-giving food of the Eucharist.  Again, my point is not to suggest that knowledge and understanding are bad but neither are they the ultimate goal of our life in Christ, gathered around His Word and Table.  Nor are knowledge and understanding the prerequisites of virtue -- of God bearing good fruit in the lives of His baptized and believing children.  Hate me for saying it but sometimes knowledge and understanding are overrated.  But faith and repentance are underrated.  A little something for you to chew on today.  Don't hate me for it.