04 February 2006

Misericordia veritatis

4th Week OT (Sat): 1 Kings 3.4-13; Mark 6.30-34
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX
Hear it!

Compassion moves Jesus to teach the crowd. Not a need for attention, a hunger for the adulation or the warmth of the spotlight. It is his love for them that compels him to stay a little longer to teach, to go one more hour to show them the Way. He looks out over them and sees clearly the reason for his time among them: they are sheep without a shepherd, hungry souls needing the solid food of truth and compassion. And so, he stays to teach them many things. And they stay to be taught.

What does it take to teach and what does it take to be taught? More specifically, what does it take to teach the faith and what does it take to be taught the faith? Maybe there’s even a more basic question here that needs to be asked and answered first: why is it even necessary to teach and to be taught the faith? Why can’t we be solitary learners? Individual souls seeking truth? Captains for our own exploratory faith-vessels?

There is an element of individual effort in learning the faith, of course, some sense of being the unique soul seeking out the Face of God in order to better reveal Him to others. But my question is more about the nature of the faith itself than it is about the comparative effectiveness of diverse learning styles. The nature of our faith requires that it be taught. We can come to trust God without being told to, without being tested by a professor. But can we come to the fullest possible understanding of what that trust means for us without authoritative instruction, without the experienced witness of a teacher to poke, prod, stir-up, and direct?

As a shared trust in God, a witness passed on and handed down, our faith is not simply about feeling a connection with the Divine, not merely an affective jolt or glowy attraction to Something Transcendent. We trust a person, Jesus Christ. Not an idea. We have faith in the Son our Father sent to teach us. Not a system of principles or some sort of cabbalistic academic jig-saw puzzle.

Dominicans are committed to teaching misericordia veritatis, the compassion of truth. This is the mercy that the truth reveals, the compassion evident in exposing the truth. And we do this best as a fraternity, as an Order of Preachers. Not as singular friars motivated by academic incentive or the lure of the spotlight, but as a family committed to God’s Self-revelation in scripture, in His creation, and in the unique person of Jesus Christ.

As teachers of the faith, all of us must come to both the content of revelation and its subjective affect with the humility that true compassion requires. It is not enough to rehearse publicly propositional declarations of the faith. Nor is it enough to gather together and vigorously emote. The fullest possible understanding of the faith comes when we obey—listen to—what has been handed on to us and when we experience personally, run into, the man, Jesus Christ—in one another, the Church; in the memorial of his sacrifice for us, the Eucharist; and as living witnesses to his compassion.

To teach the faith is to show godly pity, mercy, to those starving for the truth of Christ. To be taught, to be a disciple, is to tame pride long enough to admit a basic ignorance and the need for instruction.

The crowd followed Jesus to a deserted place and with compassion he taught them many things. We, his students, his apostles, can do no less.

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