Intellect is one of the missing links between God and man in the modern use of the word religion.  It’s as if science and mathematics had some kind of patent on logic, knowledge, and wisdom.  Religion is no longer seen as a science.

Instead, religion is something man invented to satisfy an emotional need.  A trace of his attachment to parental guidance.  So long as he feels that there is a god looking after him, then there’s no need to take it further, and develop it into a creed (or to conform to one that already exists).  ‘Warm and Fuzzy’ is the order of the day.  How many times have we heard (in religious argument) the words, “My God is…”  As if God were a subjective part of our beliefs.  After a simple belief in God, the next step (finding out more about what God wants from us) is entirely skipped.

As Catholics, we tend to think ourselves above this sort of misguided system. But we’re not…even a traditional Catholic is sometimes tempted to sink into inspiring music and ‘feel’ their prayers rather than pray and meditate.  Not that there’s anything wrong with a charismatic approach to prayer, but emotional upheavals aren’t always present and they’re not something we should try to force during prayer.

The arousal of emotions is a gift from God to be taken graciously…but it’s not the norm.  So when the emotions aren’t present, instead of trying to stir them artificially, we must fill the empty space with something more substantial – contemplation.

Contemplation is the search for truth from what we know…trying to gain an understanding of God that stems from our knowledge of Him.  It follows that by feeding our knowledge through study, our contemplation becomes more fruitful.  And the more fruitful our contemplation is, the more we will learn to love God.

This intellectual exercise becomes even more important in the age of electronic information.  We have everything at our fingertips.  We have the unique opportunity (not ever available in the past) to build our knowledge like a fort…supplying it with all the necessary stones needed to give our religious convictions a strong foundation.  But again, the knowledge is only part of it.  Contemplation is the mortar that will hold all the bricks and stones together.

The work is sometimes difficult, but the fruits of this work bring us closer to the happiness that God had intended for man.  Through contemplation we get beyond the emotional soup and move onto a hearty meal that fills us more completely.  Contemplation is, in itself, happiness.

St Gregory mentions that "The contemplative life begins here, so as to be perfected in our heavenly home, because the fire of love which begins to burn here is aflame with a yet greater love when we see Him Whom we love."

St Thomas Aquinas also chimes in on the benefits of contemplation.  In his Summa, he claims that “the delight thereof surpasses all human delight…”.  He makes a distinction here that few are ready to accept - the happiness we draw from contemplation (an intellectual exercise) is higher than any other form of happiness that we can achieve.

The point is that sometimes we feel that our heavenly happiness will be an emotional attachment, like the euphoric bliss we feel on earth when all seems right and we feel at one with God’s will.  But this is far from happiness.  It is the crumbs that sometimes fall when we contemplate. 

Study and contemplation will eventually be one of our most powerful weapons against the culture of death, because it is in our intellect that our conscience develops.  Of course prayer, fasting and the Mass are always more powerful, but without intellectual nourishment, the conscience withers and dies…and that is what is happening in our society right now. 

As Christians, and more importantly as Catholics, it is up to us to clutch to the intellectual wealth before the rest of the world forgets it.  And while the free thinkers (meaning one who is free of thought) hang on to their misunderstanding of religion, we must dig in and hold on to the truth so that we have something to give the world when we’ve outlasted the ‘nonconformists’.

Learn the truth, conform to it, and you’ll have found a solid foundation to stand on.