More wisdom from Fr. Ronald Knox

Loving the truth isn’t the same thing as arguing about it; when we argue, we are so bent on getting the other person to see our point of view that we hardly mind whether it is true or not; we become advocates. Loving the truth isn’t the same thing as preaching it or writing about it; when we preach it or write about it we are too much concerned with making it clear, with getting it across, to appreciate it in its own nature. Loving the truth isn’t even the same thing as studying it, or meditating about it; when we study it, we are out to master it; when we meditate about it, we are using it as a lever which will help us get a move on with the business of our own souls. No, we have got to love the truth with a jealous, consuming love that can’t rest satisfied until it has won the allegiance of every sane man and woman on God’s earth. And we don’t, very often, love it like that. We are God’s spoiled children; his truth drops into your lap like a ripe fruit—Open thy mouth wide, he says, and I will fill it. There is a sense, you know, in which the false thinkers of today love the truth better than Christians do. Their fancied truth is something they have earned by their own labours, and they appreciate it more than we appreciate the real truth which has dropped into our laps.

—FR. RONALD KNOX from A Retreat for Lay People