The Importance of Continuous Catholic Learning
“How much better to get wisdom than gold! To get understanding is preferable to silver” (Proverbs 16:16).
It’s been said that the best leaders are lifelong learners who continuously open their minds to new ideas and stay up to date on emerging trends. Developing knowledge can not only inform your work but can also help improve your sense of well-being and community. For example, you may come to learn a tidbit about birds by reading a short article, which may ultimately help you connect with that quiet co-worker who happens to be a bird aficionado.
Traveling, one of the greatest venues for education, is an opportunity to form connections and build camaraderie with others. Your supervisor may have recommendations for eateries to try during your trip, or your business partner may have a suggestion for a must-see art exhibition.
Lifelong learning offers an opportunity to connect with others on a personal level in addition to expanding your own understanding of the world. Many would agree that we should stay engaged in learning, but how frequently do we apply this idea to our faith?
Individualized Education Plan
It’s essential as Catholics to continuously engage with our faith through a pursuit of knowledge and understanding. The last half-century of Catholic education has shown us that being baptized and attending Mass do not necessarily create a faithful laity who understand the Church and her teachings. How many of us went to a Catholic school as children and can say that our former classmates continue to practice the faith? Or that we know the basic tenets of Catholic social teaching? Despite many of my teachers’ good intentions, it was and remains largely up to me to pursue my own understanding of the Church, her history, and the reasoning behind her teachings.
Catholicism is something that is learned and interacted with; it is not simply inherited. If we are in a relationship with Christ, then we must cultivate that relationship by engaging in study and discussion to continuously get to know our beloved and his institution.
Spiritual Learning Is Good for Business
Continuous learning is a smart business decision, too. Many companies and institutions strongly recommend, if not require, professionals to engage in some form of continuous education. My company encourages us to take LinkedIn Learning courses about a range of topics, from project management to emotional intelligence. My husband’s profession requires him to take courses that are banked as continuous education (CE) credits in order to stay up to date with the latest research in his field. We have all seen major corporations mandate that their employees become trained in equity, diversity, and inclusion principles.
By integrating spiritual learning into our life, founded upon more than 2,000 years of wisdom, we are setting up our business and career for success. While many professional education courses offer profound insight into a discipline and/or may help spark a new idea, it is only through Catholic spiritual study that we can be moved to take up our cross, to be more like the saints, to better discern the spiritual forces impacting us and our work, and to better understand human nature and the times that we live in. Simply put: By developing as a Catholic, we become a more developed professional, intellectual, and worker, whatever our work may be.
Getting Started
Here are some of my favorite resources for Catholic learning.
Listening
Of course, it is not always easy to carve out time to read books or enroll in an online course. For those of us with a busy schedule, we may try to listen to an audiobook or a podcast at a faster speed (I personally enjoy 1.25x) while cleaning, cooking, or driving to the store. I’ve been enjoying Father Mike Schmitz’s Catechism in a Year podcast this year (free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music). I also keep an eye out for deals at Audible and Audiobooks.com, where I can get audiobooks for a discounted rate, or listen for free through my local library’s Libby by Overdrive and Hoopla applications.
I recently learned about the history of medicine and the hospital by listening to Mike Aquilina’s “The Healing Imperative: The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine as We Know It,” narrated by the author and available on Audible.com. As a health care professional, I listened to it to help provide context and understanding for my daily work. The health care system as we know it today would not exist if it had not been for Christians responding to Christ’s call to heal the sick!
Timely Reading
Many free online newsletters and Catholic news sources help us stay up to date with current happenings in the world and within the Church. The Loop is a daily newsletter providing political and social news with the goal of mobilizing Catholics to stay engaged in politics and to vote for leaders who CatholicVote believes remain true to Christian values. There is also a weekly podcast called The Loopcast, in which the three hosts comment on the latest news and trends. I’ve had quite a few laughs listening to this podcast and highly recommend it.
The Pillar is also free and offers long-form journalism that mostly covers news surrounding the Church, both in the U.S. and abroad, with insightful commentary. Its newsletters come out every Tuesday and Friday. It is smart journalism—a little above my head at times but definitely worth it.
Online Courses
The University of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life offers online theology courses for $99 that typically last between four and eight weeks, with new classes starting each month.
In Print
First Things, the Word on Fire Institute’s “Evangelization & Culture” journal, and New Polity are print journals, and their publishers also offer free digital content and newsletters.
For book lovers looking to engage in spiritual and literary reading with other women, Well-Read Mom is a national network of reading communities, led by Catholics, in which groups of women get together to read books that encompass the theme of the year (this year’s theme is the Year of the Giver). You can see if there is a group near you, or start your own, at Well-Read Mom’s website. As Marcie Stokman, founder of Well-Read Mom, recently wrote in a piece for Catholic Women in Business, by learning and reading, “we grow in compassion and empathy. We grow in wisdom and in our capacity to recognize and acknowledge our human condition. We grow in understanding our need for a Savior.”
Just as a mustard seed must be nurtured by watering it, fertilizing it, and placing it in the sun so that it may grow, our faith must be cultivated in order to deepen our understanding of Christ. Continuous learning helps enliven our souls even in the most monotonous periods of our life and in our career, when we may feel stuck. When we become closer to Christ, we develop into better professionals and better people.
Margo White lives in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania with her husband and two dogs. A lover of the elderly and healthcare, and inspired by St. Catherine of Siena's care of the sick, she works as Healthcare Coordinator for the senior population to help them age-in-place. Margo spends her free time reading, planning travel adventures, and learning new things - her new favorite is skeet shooting! She can be reached at margohwhite@gmail.com.