Fr. Ferdinando Colombo: Teaching the Ignorant
Actualizing the works of mercy through the eyes of Fr. Ferdinando Colombo
I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the great and the wise and made them known to the little ones.
Yes, Father, thus you have willed. And he said again, The Father has put all things into my hands. No one knows the Son, except the Father. No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son makes Him known. Come with me, all you who are weary and burdened: I will give you rest. Receive my words and be taught by me. I treat no one with violence and am good to all. You will find peace, for what I command you is for your own good; what I give you to bear is a light burden.” (Matt. 11)
To allow oneself to be instructed, one must step into the shoes of the little ones Jesus speaks of in the Gospel, placing oneself in an attitude of surrender, of trust in the teacher.
“Unlike works of corporal mercy, where (usually, if not always) the one who gives food is not hungry and the one who goes hungry is not in a condition to give food, here the benefactor and the beneficiary are not properly distinguished. In fact, it is a good rule not to distinguish them at all: we are all recipients of these “works.” It is good, therefore, for each of us to consider ourselves both ‘instructor’ and ‘ignorant,’ wise counselor and doubter, champion of justice and sinner, and so on.” (Card. Giacomo Biffi)
- 16% of the world’s population can neither read nor write; 67 million are children, mostly girls, between the agese of 5 and 9.
- Still today 72 million children and 71 million adolescents do not have access to a school.
- Also globally 759 million adults are unable to read and In two-thirds of cases these are women.
- The plight of more than one million Syrian children without some would argue that this work of mercy is a bit out of course in the time we live in, the time of the Internet, the time when almost every form of knowledge would seem to be within a mouse’s reach.
There is no doubt that in the age of Google, access to information has reached a level of ease never before experienced in the history of humanity (at least the so-called “connected” one), but we all sense that it is one thing to have information, another to know, that is, to change the way we see and interact with the world.
An experience, that of knowing, which the great Augustine of Hippo linked to love, to say that without some form of attraction, of passion, of transport, of change, there can be no true knowledge. (Fr. Roberto D’Avanzo)
Today, the strange condition of man is that he knows everything except the things that matter, that he carries out the most complicated investigations and is dumb before the most fundamental and simplest questions, that he is able to go and pick up moon rocks and cannot tell himself what he came to earth to do.
Ignoring what the meaning of our very living is; ignoring what destiny ultimately awaits us; ignoring whether our coming into existence has as its premise and reason a design of love or blind chance: this is the absurd night that objectively begs to be illuminated.
The first and greatest act of charity that can be performed toward man is to tell him the way things are. Which also means revealing to him his authentic identity. This is the first mercy the Church exercises – must exercise – toward the human family: the tireless proclamation of the truth. (Cardinal Giacomo Biffi)
Plutarch, a Greek philosopher who lived at the beginning of the Christian era said, “The teacher is not one who fills a sack, but one who kindles flames,” to say that to teach is to broaden horizons, to unleash immense interests, to open one’s eyes wide to the boundless beauty of reality.
Today’s man often has much knowledge but little wisdom. Wisdom tells him how to use the world’s means well, offers him sound moral criteria. How many people ignore such principles and, as a result, are prisoners of sins, passions, selfishness and not infrequently also of drugs, alcohol, pornography, organized crime, etc.!
Even more: how many people today live in ignorance of God: the most devastating and destructive poverty. Living without God, in fact, means living without a point of reference, without light, without hope! How many people, although they are baptized, do not know the faith, nor prayer, nor the sacraments. (Hermann Geissler F.S.O.)
Research finds that 69% of Italians have never read the four Gospels, that only 15% have read them at least once in their lives, leaves anyone who cares about the quality of Christian life and the transmission of the faith to new generations appalled.
The data are especially astonishing when one considers that the majority of these people say they are “believers” and 17 percent even practice the faith.
The Church “strongly and insistently exhorts all the faithful to learn ‘the sublime science of Jesus Christ’ (Phil. 3:8) by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. ‘For ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ,’” as St. Jerome says. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 133)
“God himself is the first educator who revealed himself to us creatures who were ignorant of the intimate essence of his Trinitarian life: “It pleased God in his goodness and wisdom to reveal himself in person and to manifest the mystery of his will, by which men through Christ made flesh have access to the Father in the Holy Spirit.
For by this revelation the invisible God speaks to men as to friends in order to invite and admit them to communion with himself.” (Dei Verbum, Second Vatican Council)
Prayer (Wis 9:1-6. 9-11)
God of the fathers and Lord of mercy, who hast created all things by thy word,
who by your wisdom you formed man, that you may rule over the creatures you have made,
and govern the world with holiness and justice, and pronounce judgments with a righteous mind,
give me wisdom, which sitteth beside thee in thrones, and exclude me not from the number of thy children,
for I am thy servant and the son of thy handmaid, a weak man of short life,
incapable of understanding justice and laws.
Even the most perfect of men, deprived of your wisdom, would be esteemed a nothing.
With you is the wisdom that knows your works, which was present when you created the world;
it knows what is pleasing in your sight and what is in accordance with your decrees.
Send her from the holy heavens, from your glorious throne, that she may assist me and be with me in my labor and I may know what is pleasing to you.
Online version of the book by clicking on “The Work of Mercy – Fr. Ferdinando Colombo – browsable”
Photo
- “Le Opere di Misericordia“, fr. Ferdinando Colombo