What we think is the right road
We know so much. We know science and mathematics; we know architecture and engineering; we know sociology and criminal justice. We have made so much progress in so many fields, and everything is getting better and better. All we have to do is to trust our leaders and ourselves, and we can have heaven on earth.
But it's the wrong road
It's true that we have made progress in a number of areas. We humans, though, are still plagued with the sins and evils which have been always been part of history. In fact, the worst sin, many theologians have told us, is the kind of pride represented in the notion that we can build paradise, or perfect ourselves, right here and right now (for reference, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church 57, 1784, 1866 and 2094).
One could mention the Fall, the Tower of Babel, or our human tendency to exalt ourselves by minimizing God and divine authority. There is, however, one largely unknown scriptural verse which seems to capture the gist of any serious conversation about what we know, or don't.
As the Israelites were building their country, they were attacked by a large army and disaster appeared imminent. On the verge of military doom, they desperately appealed to God: "But as we know not what to do, we can only turn our eyes to thee" (2 Chronicles 20:12 DRB). This translation (from "ut oculos nostros dirigamus ad te") is important because it gives us the core of Catholic moral teaching: our eyes should be always on God, who is our help, our joy and our destiny, if we keep him paramount in our lives. The secular world tells us to "keep your eyes on the prize." Baseball coaches, similarly, tell their hitters to keep their eyes riveted to the ball.
This is precisely the meaning of the quotation from Chronicles, quoted above. When we transfer our vision, our trust, our faith, from God to our leaders and ourselves, we invite chaos and corruption into our personal and national lives (see Proverbs 29:18 and 14:34). When we lose the humility of God's righteousness, we fill the void with our own pride – and with false leaders, who, appealing to our bloated self-importance, tell us that we are on the long march to personal or earthly perfection.
Here, then, is the great good sense of the traditional prayer at the foot of the altar (which is Psalm 42, or 43 in recent translations), where the priest and people pray: "Defend me, take up my cause against people who have no pity; from the treacherous and cunning man rescue me, O God. ... Send out your light and your truth. ... I shall go to the altar of God, to the God of my joy." Light and truth are found, not in fleeting and fraudulent promises from the false gods of merely human endeavors but, rather, from the God we worship at Mass.
Not for nothing does the Bible sternly warn us against putting too much trust in our political leaders (Psalms 118:8, 146:3). That is true as well of trusting too much in any other humans, in any other field.
A key point of traditional Catholic philosophy is the importance of our knowing what we do not know – by which is meant that we must keep our eyes first and foremost on God, not accepting mountebanks who promise us paradise if only we will be progressive enough to reject "false Catholic teaching." It was the French Catholic writer Charles Peguy who said, "It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been committed for fear of not looking sufficiently progressive." And it was Padre Pio who told us that, without God's grace, all we know is how to sin.
When we are asked, directly or indirectly, what we know for sure, the secular world replies with a comment about death and taxes. Catholics, however, have a surer and more serious response: we know that we are sinners in need of a Redeemer. And we know, with Job, that our Redeemer liveth (19:25).
It is to God that we turn, praying, "Open my eyes that I may see the wonderful truths in your law" (Ps 119:18 GNB).
Deacon James H. Toner serves at Our Lady of Grace Church in Greensboro.