Ignorance
and Want
Just before
Christmas, some of you probably saw Thornbury Amateur Dramatic
Society’s production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol,
excellently directed by parishioner Pam Davidson. In the play, the
Ghost of Christmas Present confronts the miser Ebenezer Scrooge with
the (global) effects of his meanness and lack of love in the shape
of two emaciated and impoverished children, ‘Ignorance’ and ‘Want’.
Sensibly, Pam chose not to cast real children for this scene.
Perhaps Thornbury ones are all too well fed! Instead, she used two
gaunt, life-sized manikins to even more dramatic effect. Their mute,
lifeless, haggard faces, and empty, bewildered, hopeless expressions
accused the audience of complicity in Scrooge’s meanness and self-centred
life. I for one found the scene very moving.
Ignorance, the lack
of even basic understanding, and want, the thwarting of the most
basic needs and desires by poverty and deprivation, are not confined
to Victorian times. They are with us still in many parts of the
world, even our own. Lacking the rudiments of education and the
satisfaction of fundamental wants, people grow up to be misshapen
and broken human beings, unable to fulfil their God-given potential.
This is why an enlightened society, at its best, and the church,
always try to address these essentials. But are education, food and
good housing all there is to it? Does knowledge alone and the
satisfaction of our legitimate human desires, material or emotional,
completely remove ignorance and want?
Thursday of this week
is the feast of St Thomas Aquinas (ca 1225-1274) probably the
greatest Christian philosopher-theologian the world has known. He
realised that there is more to ignorance and want than meets the
eye, since knowing and desiring are closely connected.
Our human knowing,
says Thomas, naturally seeks the truth, and our desires naturally
seek goodness, but real Truth and Goodness are found only in God.
Knowledge and desire are thus like two parts of our natural ‘God-nav’
that keeps us on target heading for God.
But we can’t do
this on our own since we are still damaged creatures. Faith, for
Thomas, perfects human knowledge, and love (charity) perfects our
human wants. In the end, only Faith and Love, special gifts of God,
working together completely remove ignorance and want.
I think Brother
Thomas would have found A Christmas Carol interesting.
Scrooge comes to learn where he has gone wrong, recovers his faith
and hope in the future, and acts with love. His ignorance and want
disappear, and then he can help others remove theirs.
God our Father, you
made Thomas Aquinas known for his holiness and learning. Help us to
grow in wisdom by his teaching, and in holiness by imitating his
faith.
Peter Hampson
