Wednesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Sometimes we hear this phrase in secular law: “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” If you break a law, you can still be punished for it, even if you didn’t know it was illegal. That’s a common principle because otherwise anyone could claim ignorance. And proving what somebody knows is truly challenging for us. So we have to have that rule.

But you’ll notice that God deals with us differently. In today’s Gospel, ignorance is, to a degree, an excuse. The servant who knows his master’s will and does not do it is beaten severely. The one who does not know his master’s will, but still does something deserving of a severe beating, is beaten only lightly. Now, both are punished. Neither gets away without consequences. But the punishment is not the same, because God takes account of what the servant knew.

That is possible with God because he can see into our minds and hearts. He knows what we truly understand, what we know, and what we do not. And he knows our motivations better than we do. We can lie to ourselves about our motivations, and we often do. We tell ourselves that we are being noble and just and righteous, when more often than not we’re simply being selfish. God can see all of that, and he takes it all into account when he judges us. Did we know, or did we not?

That is good news for us, because there are many things we don’t know. I don’t know how many times people have told me, “I’ve never heard that before.” We continually learn throughout our lives, and it’s hopeful to know that God takes account of what we have not yet learned.

Now, some people hear that and think, “Well, I’m not going to learn anything then, because I don’t want to be judged harshly.” That doesn’t work either. We are certainly responsible for learning. And notice: the ignorant servant was still beaten, even if only lightly.

God’s law is written on our hearts. Original sin does distort that, certainly, but aspects of it remain. We all have access to the truth to a greater or lesser degree. So we have a responsibility to learn God’s law and to grow in faith.

And that is good for us. It draws us closer to the truth, and the person who knows the truth can more readily find authentic freedom and authentic holiness. The saints weren’t worried that they were going to be judged more harshly. They rejoiced that they knew God all the more, that they could more readily achieve holiness in this life and draw ever closer to eternal life through that knowledge.

So we don’t shy away from knowledge because it makes us more responsible. We trust in God’s grace to help us put what we learn into practice, to act on it. We trust that he will give us all the more help to lead that life and truly come to holiness.

We can take comfort in knowing that we are not responsible for what we do not know. But at the same time, we are responsible to come to know. We should continually try to learn throughout our lives, to draw closer to the Lord and understand his law more and more.

Scripture speaks about how blessed is the one who meditates on God’s law day and night: the one who is constantly trying to draw closer to him, to find freedom and holiness and righteousness in this life. That is our goal: to become like God himself, to know and live and love as he does. And we can only achieve that by growing in knowledge of him, meditating on his law, and accepting the responsibility that comes with it.