Today we celebrate the feast of St. Anselm, a doctor of the church. Born in the 11th century Anselm lived a quiet but forceful life in Christ as a Monk, a Bishop, a Scholar, a Mystic, and a Disciple.
He was a man of great tender affection for love, for truth, and for his God.
For Anselm it was always Faith seeking Understanding. He taught us and continues to teach us that we must begin and end in faith, understanding comes as we live and believe.
If we seek first to understand prior to faith we will miss out on the beauty and power of faith and how it is meant to guide our reason and intellect, not the other way around.
For most of our present society, we got it backwards. Thus, this is why their are so many unbelievers, so many professed atheist; they expect reason and intellect to do what it was not meant to do.
Reason and intellect without faith is like a compass with out arrows; a GPS system with out a map or satellite hook up; it is like a car with out a steering wheel.
Faith must direct us or we shall simply be lost in the dark.
Excerpt from St. Anselm
"Lord, teach me to seek you
and reveal yourself to me when I seek you.
For I cannot seek you unless you first teach me,
nor find you unless you first reveal yourself to me.
Let me seek you in longing and long for you in seeking.
Let me find you in love and love you in finding.
O God, let me know you and love you so that I may find my joy in you; and if I cannot do so fully in this life, let me at least make some progress every day, until at last that knowledge , love, and joy come to me in all their plenitude."
Doctor Anselm pray for the world that we might put Faith and reason in its proprer order and thus come to love as we ourselves are loved.
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