• “The more you know, the more you know, you don’t know.” (Aristotle)
• “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.” (Einstein)
• “Hire a teenager today, while they still know everything.” (a bumper sticker I once saw)

As a person in my fifties, I find myself at an interesting point. I have shed the daring ignorance of youth but have not yet acquired the wisdom of old age. This is a wonderful place to be at. I know there is much to learn, but better yet, I know where the learning has to come from. It is not the wisdom of this world that I seek, but rather God’s wisdom.

“I studied for the benefit of others and did not draw profit from it for myself… I ought to have done like the mother that turns everything into nourishment in order to feed her child with her superabundance, with her own substance.” (Eymard, Rome Retreat 1865)

In today’s first reading, we meet Apollos, an eloquent Scripture scholar who “spoke and taught accurately about Jesus, although he knew only the baptism of John.” (Acts 18:24-25). Something was missing, for he had not yet received the Spirit of God. We see how the others exercise a spiritual work of mercy by taking him aside and “explaining to him the Way of God more accurately” (verse 26). He was encouraged, welcomed, and allowed to continue to teach. Paul eventually baptized him.

Instructing the ignorant, when done with love, opens the person’s mind to receive the fullness of God. Apollos was a learned man, yet he was missing the wisdom from the Spirit of God. We are all ignorant when it comes to our infinite God. We must be continuously nourished to flourish and be an instrument in the Kingdom of God.

Let us pray:

“Constantly shape our minds, we pray, O Lord, by the practice of good works, that, trying always for what is better, we may strive to hold ever fast to the Paschal Mystery. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect)