Wednesday of the 15th Week of the Year

According to Saint Bernard, curiosity is the first step of pride. If this is true, what are we to make of Moses’ curiosity about the burning bush that was not consumed? After all, he was known as the meekest man on the face of the earth—a quality that is the very opposite of pride. One answer is that the kind of curiosity that Bernard is concerned with might better be labeled inquisitive or even nosey and meddling in other people’s affairs. Such curiosity is frequently an attempt to avoid looking within ourselves so that by focusing on others we distract ourselves from ourselves. The resulting deficits in self-knowledge then naturally favor the growth of unrecognized pride and the loss of a humility bound up with a deep awareness of our sinful and unredeemed state. In contrast, curiosity as the quest for knowledge and expanding one’s horizons is something very different from being nosey and a meddler. Instead, it is a virtue which, in the case of Moses, led to his profound encounter with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so in heeding Saint Bernard and curbing our curiosity let’s make sure we’re curbing the vice and not the virtue.