In the 4th century, St. Jerome wrote, “Ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” How can we love what we don’t know? If the goal of our lives is to radiate the love of Christ to others, we must first know about him—about his love for us and his sacrifice on the cross. The head is the mental strength of the person, and therefore to love God with your head means to love him with your whole mind, in knowledge and understanding of his plan and his message.

In this section, we will focus on loving God with our heads and our minds, and learning about Jesus—his church, his saints, and his teachings. With a deeper understanding of the scriptures, we can truly come to love God with all the power of knowledge in our minds. This will allow us to conform our minds to Christ, and to radiate his love to the world. We will heed the words of St. Paul, and learn to “not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Romans 12:2).

People tend to seek out money, power, pleasure, and honor—all of which are good things in themselves, when they are sought as a means of serving God. But St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that when these things become the goal of our lives, they become false idols. This is the reason many people in our world today struggle with addictions, hoping that earthly possessions and pleasures will bring them happiness in life. When these false idols leave them empty, people fall back on their addictions for temporary stimulation.

St. Augustine knew this struggle well, and tried for many years to find happiness in earthly things, discarding God in favor of the pleasures of the world. He summed up his struggle, writing to God, “You have made us for yourself oh Lord and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Augustine, and all the other saints, realized that only God can perfectly complete us. It is only through an intimate relationship with God do we find rest for our souls.

In reading classics from our Catholic intellectual tradition, we can learn how to find eternal happiness in God’s love and service. Sacred scripture, lives of the saints and their teachings, the writings of the Theologians, and official Church documents can show us how to renew our minds in Christ.

Explore all the pages within this section: Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Study, and join us daily so that we can conform our minds to the lives that God has planned for us!