Fr. Nnamdi Moneme: Where Does Your Self Knowledge Come From?

A well-loved and revered priest and seminary theologian left the priesthood during the early years of my seminary formation because of gravely scandalous relationships. His departure and the scandal involved left many of us, his students, devastated, confused, and discouraged. Someone quipped about him, “He knows theology and scripture well, but he probably did not know himself well.”

Those words have stayed with me ever since then, reminding me of the indispensability of sufficient self-knowledge in the spiritual life and in any vocation. We cannot give ourselves in any vocation if we do not have sufficient self-knowledge. Our vocational commitments are endangered when we do not acknowledge our past failures and successes, strengths and weaknesses, limitations and abilities. We cannot ignore the feelings that accompany our actions, our self-destructive tendencies, alongside our hope and motivation to be faithful to our vocations. …

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