There is a drive in us that wants to understand as much as we can. We do not like things we cannot understand. We don’t like people we cannot figure out. As much as possible, we want to figure out things. We want to analyze things. We want to understand. Truth is, is it really possible to understand everything? Is it really possible to understand everybody? Much of our suffering comes from that. We want to understand everything. We want to understand everybody.
We want to be able to predict how this husband or wife will react. We want to be able to predict how this son or daughter will be? We want to understand. The Jews also wanted to understand Jesus. That is why they were trying to establish where He was from and what He had been doing. They were analyzing Him. But is it really possible to understand God? If it is not possible for couples to understand their respective husbands or wives even if they have lived together for a long time, how then can we even dream of understanding God when God is all knowing, God is infinite and God is beyond our understanding?
Arrogance has been defined as claiming for ourselves what is not ours. Claiming for ourselves what we have not worked for, what does not rightfully belong to us. Maybe we can say we are not really arrogant in the ordinary meaning of the word. We might say we are not mataray, we are in fact mild-mannered. But aren’t we, all of us, arrogant because we want to understand; we want to claim for ourselves what is not really ours? The heart has logic that our human logic does not understand. The heart has reasons reason does not know. Today at Mass, we pray, “Lord, there are things I can understand. May I understand them. There are things I cannot understand. May I just accept them with love and faith. First and foremost, Lord, give me the wisdom to distinguish between things that I should understand and things that I must just accept.”
Many of us are not happy and the reason for our unhappiness is we are too arrogant. We want to understand everything. We cannot. Let us just accept our limitations and live in faith and live in love.
WANTING TO UNDERSTAND
Jn. 7:1-30
Love Like Jesus
