The Nobility of Teaching

"I wanted simply to say what I think are the fundamental factors of the whole educative process. First, the value of tradition, which is the first factor targeted and censured where a power dominates in society, in the family, in civil society, and paradoxically, in religious society. At times, it can happen that ecclesiastical society, if it is lived as will for power, censures its own history. Second, the figure of the educator, which is the place where tradition becomes conscious and becomes a proposal, but it is a proposal that must offer companionship in its impact, and therefore in the comparison, and in the comparison show the reasons for the proposal itself. But this, the third factor, that is to say, the proof, the verification, is not mathematical; it is not a matter of logic; it stops short, as I said, on the threshold of the person's freedom. Here lies the drama of the risk of education. But whatever be the immediate outcome of your own loving passion (because as the Pope says, there is no demonstration of love for mankind like the educative commitment), the living proposal, in other words, the "I" of the educator, must be untiring, an "I"that is not halted by any circumstances of space or of time, nor therefore of age, nor by any exterior situation, not any kid of response." 

These remarks constitute the closing paragraph of a conference given by Fr. Luigi Giussani on The Risk of Education in 1985 in Milan Italy, (so the Pope mentioned would be John Paul II.) I think it is a remarkable summation of a conference about an incomparable book. It is a final paragraph that concisely packs in the density and depth of Giussani's wisdom on education with an image of the teacher as sacrificial victim. Educators (teacher, preacher, mother, father, Christian, etc.) are called on day after day to give all they have in them, and give it freely, in the face of rejection, indifference, opposition, and even persecution.  It makes me realize that if our teaching is not a "loving passion" that makes us pour ourselves out in self gift, we are doing our students, ourselves, and the Truth we hope to communicate, a tremendous injustice.

Mary's Hidden Words

Mary spoke very little.  The silence in which she concealed herself reveals the Son’s word all the better. She lets Him speak, and yet in His Word hers is also hidden.

Mary and her Son walk side by side in such a way that there is always room for both; there is never any need for one or the other to step aside.

Because the only thing I can do is love, I turn my eyes to you sinners, and all I can think of is the birth of my Son, for which I thank you. At the same time I do not see my path or suffering, but only His future path. If it were not for your sin, I would not have had to say my fiat, and so I would have been left without Him. For His sake, then I can look away from Him and look gratefully upon you. And by doing that I can give Him wholly to you, and so, to the Father, so that the Word might be fulfilled.

He came in order to forgive as savior and judge, to give the gift of His grace, to walk the path of suffering, and to take your sins upon Himself. But I can only love, dwell in Him; and because I have received the divine Son through you sinners, on your account, I can love you in God, even as the sinners you are.

Through you I love Him, and through Him I love you.

Lumina/New Lumina,  pp.50-51    Adrienne Von Speyr,  Ignatius Press

Man and his activity

....If by the autonomy of earthly realities we mean that created things and even societies have their own distinctive laws and values, which much be gradually identified, used and regulated by men, this kind of autonomy is rightly demanded. Not only is it insisted on by modern man, it is also in harmony with the design of the Creator. By the very fact of creation everything is provided with its own stability, its own truth and goodness, its own laws and orderly functioning. Man must respect these, acknowledging the methods proper to each science or art.

   One should therefore deplore certain attitudes of mind which are sometimes found even among Christians because of a failure to recognize the legitimate autonomy of science.These mental attitudes have given rise to conflict and controversy and led many to assume that faith and science are mutually opposed.  

   If, on the other hand, the autonomy of the temporal order is understood to mean that created things do not depend on God, and that man may use them without reference to the Creator, all who believe in God will realize how false is this teaching. For creation without the Creator fades into nothingness. 

Gaudium et Spes, nn. 36

Science is the study of a subject by means of the method required by the subject, not by means of some generally applicable method that undermines its specific character. (Romano Guardini)

So what within science gives it the right or ability to step outside the limits of any particular science and begin its study with a prejudice against the supernatural that posits the impossibility of God and creation by God?