More Precious than Silver or Gold – A Meditation on the Spiritual Work of Mercy to Instruct the Ignorant By: Msgr. Charles PopeTo instruct comes from the Latin in + struere, which means to build up or (even more literally) to pile up. In English, there is also the notion of strewing something. For example, to strew hay or to say that the seed has been strewn. Thus, to instruct means to disperse knowledge or build someone up in what is learned.These days, the word “ignorant†is most often used in a negative or pejorative sense. And thus to say that someone is ignorant usually...