Homily at the Mass
Opening of the Academic Year
Memorial of Saint Monica
27 August 2007
by
Father Jonathan DeFelice, O.S.B.
President
Saint Anselm College

An audio podcast of this homily is available in the Saint Anselm College Blog.

If Saint Monica, whose feast we celebrate today, lived in the 21st century instead of the 4th century, some might call her a meddling helicopter parent.  After all, she inserted herself into the life of her young adult son, Augustine, often and in a very direct way – she was concerned about his education and about his reckless love life; when he left North Africa she followed him to Rome and then to Milan.  She was relentless.  But the difference is, she was not concerned whether or not he liked his dorm room or that he got into the courses he wanted.  She was focused entirely on his coming to the knowledge of the Truth and ultimately to his eternal salvation. 

Saint Monica was the wife of an emotionally abusive pagan husband whom she finally brought to the faith and to a life of peace shortly before he died; she was the mother of three children, one of whom became the great Saint Augustine of Hippo but who had given her more than a little cause for anxiety and grief.  But she succeeded because of her patience, her perseverance, and most especially because of her prayer.  She is a wonderful model for us as we begin this academic year teaching us clearly the transforming power of prayer in any situation.

Therefore, I once again encourage everyone here to continue to pray for God’s blessing as we begin classes and meetings and as we assist one another in our work of Catholic higher education.

Every year on this occasion, I have spoken about some aspect of our Catholic and Benedictine identity and I would like to do so again today.  As faculty look at the specific discipline they teach, as students wonder if they have made the right choice about a major or a course, as administrators and staff prepare again for the annual round of duties, I think it is good to step back and look at least one of the things that provides the inspiration for everything we do.  What I am speaking of is the reality that through the person of Jesus all human reality changed, touched by the fact of his presence among us.  He taught us in a new and unrepeatable way that God was not distant, but near; that human life, human learning, human activity was now touched by the fact of the incarnation and raised to a new level.

Since his election as Pope Benedict XVI our Holy Father has held about a half dozen question-and-answer sessions – it is an unusual format for a Pope, but it has yielded some very interesting results.  He has held one session with first communion children, one with young people, and the rest with groups of priests in some dioceses in Italy. In his last session with some priests in northern Italy there was an exchange that especially caught my interest. 

A middle aged priest recounted a story from his seminary days in which he said that when he was a young seminarian his spiritual director had chided him for preferring playing soccer to participating in Eucharistic Adoration.  The spiritual director said that he was doing fine on the human side of things… but….  That experience led this priest who has been ordained for 34 years to him to a life-long reflection on the role of things human in bringing God to human experience…and so now he asked the Pope:  “Does not bringing human persons close to God -- and God close to human persons -- pass above all through what we call humanity?”

More than the priest’s struggle and more than his question, I found the answer of the Holy Father to be a wonderful insight about what it means to be Catholic; and what, for us,  it means to be a Catholic College. Pope Benedict said, “I would simply say yes.” Then, using the Latin correlative conjunction he went to explain: “Catholicism is the religion of the Great Et…Et,” the religion of the Great Both…And.  “We are about the Great synthesis, not exclusion. And so I would be against having to choose between either playing soccer or studying Sacred Scripture.  Let us do both.”  In his response, which drew the applause of his audience, he said further “We normally live with our feet on the ground and our eyes turned to Heaven.  Both these things are given to us by the Lord and therefore loving human beings, loving the beauties of this earth, is not only very human but also very Christian and truly Catholic.”

I was deeply struck by the Pope’s use of the phrase “the Great Both…And” as a way to describe what is so fundamental to our Catholic faith.  And of course the greatest example of all is the mystery of the Incarnation – the only Son of God who became one of us, Jesus who is both God and man.  And I thought of any number of the synthesizing “both…ands” that we celebrate.  Our Church speaks so often of both scripture and tradition, of both faith and reason, of both humanity and holiness -- and think of the “both ands” among the blessed:  Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Benedict and Saint Ignatius, Saint Monica and Blessed Theresa of Calcutta.  Our tradition has excluded none of them, even though they are in fact so very different from each other.

Is there a lesson in all this for us as a Catholic College at the beginning of a new academic year?  “The Great Both… And” that our Catholic perspective provides should cause us to look anew at the way we approach our work:  the other night I spoke at some length about our need to become a College that is both truly Catholic and truly inclusive, that the fulfillment of our mission depended upon us doing so.  That is the institutional and personal commitment I asked for and for which we shall all be working.

But in order to do that well, we must have as our starting point a commitment to “The Great Both… And”: to working toward the synthesis that will lead us to the Truth about God about our world, and about ourselves.  As we approach our studies in whatever field we work, are we seeing the connections?  Are we attempting at least to make that synthesis, to see that the sciences and theology are not at odds, but that one can illuminate the other?  Are we understanding that business or nursing or criminal justice cannot be truly complete without profound understanding of the human person in the eyes of God?  Are we making the effort to understand that the arts, history, literature and languages, in fact all that we study – are we making the effort to see how all of these things unveil the richness of God’s creation and his presence here and now?  Pope Benedict suggested that everything on earth, all truly human undertakings can be “bathed in the splendor and beauty of God’s light.”

So let us then, begin our work in God’s presence, with the gift of his love in this Eucharist; let us begin with the joy that comes from knowing that our faith is neither an obstacle nor a threat to true learning; nor is learning an obstacle or a threat to our faith.  Rather, with the commitment to The Great Both… And,”  let us discover more deeply the Truth of God in all people and in all things.

God love you all.