The Recovering Choir Director

Taken together, Steven Riddle’s “The Proper End of Knowledge” and Tom da Fiesole’s hypothesis on why faithful, good-willed, intelligent Catholics tend to be dismissive of statements from bishops and the Pope strike me as true and call into question what’s really the inspiration behind this site.

From Mr. da Fiesole:

The situation between faithful, good-willed, intelligent Catholics and their bishops is probably especially bad these days because these Catholics are so well educated in their religion. (Not necessarily their faith, but their religion.)

(Amen to that. Sometimes my self-education in things liturgical and musical does seem to get in the way of my faith to the point that I find it very difficult to act out of love. All of this learning about plainsong, polyphony, good liturgy, etc.—has it really gotten me closer to God?)

While the men who are now bishops were learning how to maintain financial records and dealing with lonely parishioners who just needed to talk to someone, lay Catholics could at their leisure pore over the records of the disputes that led to the Third Ecumenical Council and highlight favorite passages from St. Robert Bellarmine, or simply collect the tracts and magazine articles that were the fruits of other layfolks’ labors.

And of course, for ten years now autodidacticism has becoming increasingly easy. Anyone who’s mastered Google’s search syntax can become an expert—or at least a relatively informed debator—on any subject in a matter of hours.

(Hear, hear.)

And from Mr. Riddle:

“The process of understanding is unending”–good so far as it goes. But understanding is not the highest goal–love is. Perhaps understanding leads to love–but again there are other routes. As St. John of the Cross points out–”To understand everything, desire to understand nothing.” The via negativa provides a poignant counterthrust to our attempts to grapple with God intellectually. We must grapple with God at the level of the heart, and for many that intellectual grappling is a fortification that keeps God away from the territory He must claim if we are to be transformed.

I’m still digesting this, but an initial thought I have is to scrutinize the motivation behind each post I write especially as it pertains to music and the liturgy. Especially because for me, disdain and frustration can turn quite quickly into something uglier. It’s a thin line….