Holy Mother the Church teaches her children the way of salvation through the Liturgy. The Liturgical calendar is the vehicle wherein the Catholic truths are spread out in the right order and in its completeness during the Sunday Masses. It is amazing to see the beauty of the arrangement of the truths and how the truths gradually developed from the first Sunday of Advent up to the feast of Christ the King. It is enough to study one cycle ‘to believe.’
On the third and fourth Sundays in ordinary time (cycle C) we begun the Gospel of St. Luke. Prior to these Sundays was Advent and Christmas season where we were taught how to live the life of Repentance according to the Old Testament. On the third and fourth Sundays in ordinary time we are given a preview on how to live the life of Repentance according to the New Testament. This is in preparation for the season of Lent where the Liturgy completes the teaching on Repentance (which Our Lady complained in Fatima that the world was no doing.) From Holy Week to Easter Holy Mother the Church begins teaching us how to live the life of Faith and Hope. And on Pentecost she describes to us the virtue of Charity. Faith, Hope and Charity make up the spirituality of the New Testament
I just mentioned the third Sunday in ordinary time because it is on this Sunday that before we seriously study Repentance in the New Testament we are taught how to study the Gospel messages of the next following Sundays leading to Lent. Studying how to live a life of Faith, Hope and Charity is no easy task and is very much different from studying nuclear physics. The Gospel is on how to study.
St. Luke, in fact, begins his Gospel by teaching us how to study, showing us how the Israelites in the synagogue had wrongly studied Scriptures and so ended up rejecting Christ. While Scriptures narrate several incidences wherein after an encounter with Christ they followed Him.
There are two ways of acquiring knowledge. One is when we study with the end of merely acquiring that knowledge, like studying astronomy. We just want to know what is going up there. The other kind of knowledge is when we learn something in order to be able to do a good work like when we study medicine. We study not just to know about medicine but to be able to do good by curing others. The latter is the way we study Scriptures.
In studying Theology, going on a retreat, listening to a Homily, reading a book or attending Congresses on the Year of the Priest – we don’t just want to get information but to be able to do some good like the salvation of our soul or the souls of other people which we often times think we are doing but closer examination shows we are not.
The first kind of knowledge is commonly referred to as “curiositas” and the second is called “studiositas.”
“Curiositas” is listed by Tomas a Kempis as the ‘forbidden knowledge’ that is an obstacle to the attainment of Faith and holiness. And it falls under the category of ‘vices.’ And vices are such that the longer you stay with it the faster you deteriorate in the spiritual life. If the seminarian studies his theology with ‘curiositas’ he deteriorates spiritually everyday. How bad can he deteriorate in a six year course staggers the mind.
On the other hand “studiositas” is a virtue and the longer you resort to it, not only do you develop knowledge, understanding and wisdom of Catholic truths, but you develop great self-control over the passions, emotions and concupiscence.
In “curiositas” the seminarian studies things unnecessary for salvation; like studying how to socialize or improve the economic condition of people, how to start a new business, holding retreats in beaches, psychological techniques, learning things from television, surfing the internet, wanting to pass the final exam, to learn the arts and to become a bishop or cardinal. To make these the end of one’s study is “curiositas.”
“Studiositas” is everything of the above plus a great emphasis on nature and how to find the God of nature (the way Bl. Louis Martin taught St. Therese to find God in a beach or sunset) and with greater emphasis on God and the things of God. The seminarian must ponder intellectually over all earthly things with the goal of knowing God whose image is reflected in all these things. This exercise will aid him in contemplating God and the things of God thus increasing his knowledge of Divine Love and increasing his ability to Love God. And this love for God will, in turn, increase his desire to know more about God, the inexhaustible source of knowledge.
This contemplation of divine truths helps develop the moral virtues leading to the possession of the Theological virtues. Life in the seminary becomes an active life wherein the seminarian becomes active in developing the moral virtues. This way of life helps him quell his passions making it conducive for him to live a contemplative life. Only in this way can we put into practice what Pope Benedict XVI said in his document on the Year of the Priest ” to contemplate the Heart of Jesus” when he declared the Year of the Priest on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.