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“Only the Childlike Attain True Wisdom and Learning”

by Rev. Paul Scalia
Episcopal Vicar for Clergy, Diocese of Arlington, Virginia
Transcript, Homily from the Baccalaureate Mass
May 13, 2017

“I give you praise, 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.”

My dear friends in Christ, at the risk of sounding a discordant note on a joyful occasion, allow me to say that there is something incongruous — perhaps even cruel — about this verse. At least for this occasion. Because today these young men and women bring to an end their years here of striving for wisdom and advancing in learning, and now we place before them Our Lord’s words against the wise and the learned! We have been encouraging them to grow up, and now they hear that they have to become like children. It doesn’t seem quite fair.

Of course, the Catholic heart knows that there is no contradiction here. In fact, our Lord’s words in this Gospel l (Luke 10:21-24) call attention to what makes for true wisdom and learning. They call attention to what is at the heart of Catholic education, what is the mission of this school, and what we hope these graduates take from their time here.

“You have hidden these things from the wise and the learned…”

It is not so much the Father Who hides His truths from the wise and learned, so-called. It is they themselves who, through their pride, blind themselves to His truths, and make themselves incapable of receiving what He desires to give. Of course, Our Lord intends here those who are wise and learned in the world’s estimation — or, even worse, in their own estimation. They represent a counterfeit kind of wisdom and learning, the kind characterized by a grasping at knowledge and a seeking for control.

In Our Lord’s day this counterfeit wisdom and learning was found in the Pharisees, and it is to them that He directs these words. They had ceased to be servants of the Word and had grown to consider themselves its masters. They had begun to use their knowledge of the Law as a means of control. Today this counterfeit wisdom and learning takes the form of relativism, the denial of truth, and in its place a grasping for more and more knowledge — Big Data, as it is called — all of those ingredients of the “technopoly” that characterizes our culture; the constant securing of information instead of wisdom; the securing of information not to grow in wisdom but to control and to become, well, like gods. It is, as always, a desire to manipulate and to control reality and even — if such a thing were possible — to redefine it. That is the counterfeit wisdom and learning that our culture suffers.

True wisdom, as Scripture tells us, comes from above. It is not so much obtained as it is received. Likewise, true learning is not a matter of just acquiring facts and data; it is more a matter of placing oneself at the feet of a master. And both those things require childlike dispositions. The truly wise and learned are such because they are first of all childlike.

Although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.

Notice that the opposite of the wise and the learned is not foolish and the dumb. The opposite of wise and learned is childlike. Only the childlike can learn, because only the child knows that he does not know. There are, of course, various qualities that make for this childlike wisdom. For instance, wonder — or awe. The worldly wise do not wonder. They do not see mysteries to be revered; rather, they see only problems to be solved and conquered. A child, however, knows his limits, so he is able to wonder at what is beyond him. The worldling knows no limits, and so today speaks foolishly of “transhumanism.” The worldling cannot wonder or be in awe because he thinks all things are within his grasp.

True wisdom is different. Nascantur in admiratione. This awe, this wonder — fear of the Lord, as Scripture calls it — is the first stage of wisdom. This gift of the Holy Spirit places within us that first requirement for wisdom and learning: to acknowledge our smallness, to wonder at the glory of reality and to desire to receive its truth.

Related to this, of course, is another gift of the Holy Spirit — in fact, the next one up in the hierarchy — piety. The world is impious. It is giddy about an ever-elusive future and scorns what has come before or what the past may have to teach us.

Piety, however, is first of all that sturdy, natural virtue of the Romans; that reverence for those who give us life, for those who have gone before, and for what they have to give us. The pious look to receive the wisdom and truth that prior generations have to bestow. Piety does not scorn any truth as outdated. Piety does not ever consider itself to be on “the right side of history,” whatever that means.

For us Christians, of course, piety is also a gift of the Holy Spirit. It disposes us, in a supernatural manner, to see God as father, to say with Our Lord, “Abba, Father.” If fear of the Lord gives us the proper awe of Him, piety grants us the proper trust and affection. It disposes us to receive gratefully the truth He desires to give us; not to grasp for what is beyond us, but to receive what is only properly gained as a gift. That is a characteristic of piety and true wisdom.

Then, as this Gospel passage indicates, there is also joy. The passage begins with a remark about Our Lord rejoicing in the Holy Spirit. The world’s wisdom is not joyful, but cynical. It does not laugh, but sneers.

True wisdom, in a sense, requires that joy that is characteristic of a child. That is, that self-forgetfulness of a child. Children are not afraid to laugh, to lose themselves in a game, or to forget themselves in play. It is only as worldly wisdom infects us that we become self-conscious, less likely to play or to laugh. We want everything confined to our own estimation. The joy of a child is always looking to what is beyond us and to that in which we are in awe.

Joy is also the fruit of wisdom — a fruit of the Spirit Himself — because the more we receive this wisdom from above, the more we rejoice. And this is what the world needs to encounter in us, as children of God who rejoice not in just the knowledge of the things of this world, but in the wisdom from above.

The Mass this morning is a votive Mass of the Holy Spirit, as is fitting for such occasions. But as many of you know, today is also the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima and the 100^th anniversary of her first apparition. Just this morning the Holy Father canonized two of the shepherd children to whom Our Lady appeared: Francisco and Jacinta. For those who seek wisdom, the Holy Father has put forward for veneration and imitation two completely obscure, illiterate, and unaccomplished children…which also serves as a rebuke to the counterfeit wisdom of this world. It was also a rebuke when, in 1917 — as the wise and learned of this world presided over the suicide of Europe — it was the childlike at Fatima who received true wisdom.

Again, there is a certain paradox here. These two uneducated peasants may seem to be the least fit to propose to college graduates, almost the antithesis of what your last four years have been about. But of course these two saints — St. Francisco and St. Jacinta — embody those qualities of awe, piety, and joy.

Awe in the terrible beauty of Our Lady of Fatima, both that supernatural quality of hers and the beauty of hers. No matter how gentle and familiar she may have become to them, they never lost that proper fear.

They embody piety in their childlike trust of Mary. They were willing to be taught by Our Lady and to trust in her words. Years after the apparitions, Sr. Lucia testified that when hell was revealed to these shepherds, they would have died of fright had Mary not been right there by their side. That is the power of that simple quality of piety, that powerful gift of the Holy Spirit: to look at what can be frightening and daunting, and to look at it peacefully because we know that Our Lady is at our side.

And because of that trust, we find in them a disarming joy in their childlike acceptance of mortifications and penances. They embraced them not begrudgingly, but with joy, because they knew that they were fulfilling Our Lady’s wishes.

When I graduated from college a popular book at the time was entitled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. I never read that book. Why would I read a book whose title tells me that I don’t need to? The kind of childhood that we speak of here is nothing so trivial as that book conveyed. Nor is it the childishness and the worship of youth that Chesterton termed “Peter Pantheism.” Rather, the childhood we speak of here is divine filiation, a share in the Sonship of Christ Himself, through Whom we have God as our father and Mary as our mother.

On occasions such as this it is customary to exhort you, graduates, to pursue your dreams (which I am not going to do, because I do not know what your dreams are) to encourage you to go make a difference, to change the world. Please God, you do make a difference and change does come to the world, but not by dint of your own efforts. It seems such a small thing — to just go change the world, make a difference — in comparison to what a Christian is called to do. That is, to change himself, to become a child, to yield in all things to the Holy Spirit’s promptings.

You have been blessed to study at a school that understands this Christian paradox: that only the childlike attain true wisdom and learning. You have been blessed to study under the patronage of a saint whose intellect soared because he was first willing to humble himself.

May the Holy Spirit, Whom we invoke at this Mass, always grant you that wonder, piety, and joy that is essential for true wisdom and learning. May the Eucharist that you receive today nourish that divine filiation within you. And may Our Lady of Fatima, who appeared to the shepherd children 100 years ago today, secure in your souls these fruits and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

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