Deacon Doug McManaman
As a teacher, I have to say that what fascinated me most over the three decades I had in the classroom were the different kinds of minds that I encountered in my students and colleagues. Some of them have great mathematical minds, some have great literary minds, some have great minds for history, others administrative brilliance, financial genius, and so many had scientific brilliance. Some are musically brilliant, and even athletically brilliant–I eventually came to the conclusion that being a great athlete has more to do with intelligence than it does with being physically superior. Some people, however, are polymaths–they are exceedingly brilliant in a number of areas. Leonardo DaVinci comes to mind, so too Gottfried Leibniz, the inventor of calculus and a great philosopher among other things; Aristotle for sure; Benjamin Franklin, Isaac Newton, or in the Arab world, Ibn al-Hasan, who was a Muslim polymath who made significant contributions to optics, anatomy, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, physics, and more.
It’s fascinating to discover people like this; you begin to wonder if they are of the same species. What I loved about teaching students of the International Baccalaureate program – a very rigorous program for exceptional students – were those in grade 9 Pre-IB. They were exceptionally brilliant, but they were still kids, still very childlike – the arrogance of young adulthood had not yet creeped into their lives, so there was something angelic about them: brilliant but childlike. After a couple of years, however, that angelic quality would gradually disappear; many of them began to see themselves as a cut above the rest. Those students with a good spiritual life, however, would quickly pass through that phase and return to being humble children again. But not everyone made that return.
And then there were those who were not particularly brilliant academically. And yet, they had real gifts. Some were very intelligent, but had no interest in academics. And some did not stand out at all, but were very humble, very likable, and very personable. Often it is the latter who go unrecognized, especially on awards night or graduation, and yet St. Paul tells us that these are the ones the Lord recognizes and chooses. In 1 Corinthians, he writes: “Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God.”
And of course, the greatest saint in salvation history is the Blessed Mother, who was not a brilliant polymath. There is nothing in the scriptures to suggest that she was a multi-talented human being; for she said: “The Lord has looked upon the nothingness of his handmaiden”. She saw herself as nothing.
And this is the beauty of humility. There are all sorts of people around us who are much more gifted than we are, who have been given “five talents” and who are using them and producing tremendous fruit for the Church and for the world. The problem with pride and envy, which is very prevalent in the Church and in the world, is that they will not permit you to look up to others with a sense of wonder and joy; envy, jealousy, insecurity, the disordered love of self, prevent that from happening. But when we accept with joy and humility the person that God has called us to be, however insignificant in the eyes of the world, and accept the few gifts as well as the small place he’s given us in this life, then it is delightful to look around us and see people that we can look up to and admire, and of course benefit from. It makes life so full of wonder.
But envy is not able to look up at others, it only wants to look down, so it refuses to see and acknowledge the giftedness of others. And that’s why the one who was given a single talent went out and buried it; his eyes were on the earth; he didn’t have it in him to look up. He was envious, which is why he was referred to as wicked and lazy. He did not employ that single talent and multiply it with the help of others around him who were given more. He buried it, instead of seeing himself as part of a larger body, the Mystical Body of Christ, whose purpose is to proclaim Christ, and live in him for the glory of God the Father. If my heart is set on that purpose, then I will be delighted when I see all around me people who contribute to that end in a way that exceeds my abilities, because I am not acting alone, but in union with everyone else, and the single end of the Church has become my own end. As long as that end is being achieved, the humble one is delighted. And if others are glorified in the process, that just makes for a greater happiness for me, because their glory is my glory.
A Catholic Philosophy and Theology Resource Page by Deacon Douglas McManaman 