The Two Tiers

Yet another old, old post that was never published.

I had the opportunity to listen to Dale Ahlquist on Relevant Radio the other day. I am thoroughly convinced that G.K. Chesterton was a forward-seeing, prophetic voice in the Church that we need to continue to listen two.  I'm glad that Mr. Ahlquist and his associates is helping keep this voice alive. I myself was able to acquire for free almost the entire Chesterton corpus. I have only begun to dip into it.  Some of the wonderful kids in our homeschool group are associated with the Chesterteens blog. This has added an intellectual depth to our formal and informal discussions.

Now, for the point of this post.  One trap I think people can get into when they are enthusiastic about someone that God providential raises up in the Church to guide us through a particular set of challenges is the temptation to interpret everything through the lens of that person's thought or life.  I'm not accusing Ahlquist of this, by the way, but I can believe that anyone who listened to him talk on Relevant Radio would believe it about him.  I've noticed this about many enthusiasts in the Church. Opus Dei people have a tendency to quote El Camino;  Schoenstatt people will quote Fr. Kentenich; CL people will quote Giussani or Carron; Thomists will quote St. Thomas. 

I am convinced, however, that the center of anyone's spirituality and intellectual life should be these things that the providence of God has given us in the Church to sustain us--the Word of God, the liturgy.  It bothers me when someone can quote C.S. Lewis chapter and verse, but spend little or no time studying the Bible.  As Frank Sheed has pointed out, the important thing for Christians is to know Christ Jesus.  As St. Jerome pointed out, ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.   

I am a Franciscan so I am quite familiar with the tendency to interpret everything through a particular spiritual lens. But to truly follow Jesus in the footsteps of St. Francis, I should come to know the sacred text as deeply and as intimately as he did.  I should be able to interpret my own life and experience in light of the biblical text.