Knox

Monsignor Ronald Knox said, “we are here to colonize heaven, not make things better on earth.”

Knox (1888-1957) was an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism at age 30.  I know basically nothing about him, but came across the above quote in an article on St. Augustine’s commentary on the Sermon on the Mount.  About Augustine and the Sermon on the Mount I know a little bit.

However, Knox’s phrase intrigues me.  In three words: is it true?  Is it true we are here to colonize heaven, not to make things better on earth?

To my non-professional yet interested eye, I agree with the first half of the sentence, but not the second.

And I think Catholic doctrine – all Catholic doctrine, from the “pro-life” movement so anathema to many American progressives to the “Catholic social teaching” so anathema to many American conservatives – agrees with me.

We are called to fight injustice, be it legalized infanticide that’s the law of the land or the ever-widening wage disparities between CEOs, poor working joes in the middle class, and the poorest citizens of the inner city or Appalachia.  And every injustice in between.

But I do believe Knox has the order correct.  And I think Jesus says so, too, and states it most explicitly in His command that we be first and foremost concerned with the logs in our own eyes before those in our neighbors’.

So I would re-phrase the phrase thusly:

“We are here primarily to colonize heaven, and secondarily to make things better on earth.”

Not as poetic, but more to the truth, I think.

However, I could be wrong, and would not be adverse to listening to why.

(Postscript – I am fully cognizant that Msg. Knox is most likely being hyperbolic to make a point.  Heck, I do that at least once a week here on the Hopper, to an audience 0.00000000000372% the size of his …)