"Be the Manifestation of His Light and Truth"
His Excellencey Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith Addresses the Class of 2007
(Summer 2007 Newsletter)
On Saturday, May 12, 2007, seventy-four young men and women
graduated from Thomas Aquinas College and were awarded a bachelor's
degree in liberal arts. Presiding over the day's events was His
Excellency the Most Reverend Albert Malcolm Ranjith, Secretary of
the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
Born in Sri Lanka, Archbishop Ranjith was ordained to the priesthood
in 1975, and for more than 25 years, served the Church in his native
land, eventually becoming the first bishop of a newly-formed diocese
in Ratnapura in 1995. In 2001, Archbishop Ranjith was called to
Rome to serve in the Congregation for Evangelization and, in 2004,
he was named apostolic nuncio to Indonesia and East Timor. He was
appointed to the Congregation for Divine Worship by Pope Benedict
XVI in 2005. His Eminence Francis Cardinal Arinze, the College's
Commencement Speaker in 2004, kindly spared Archbishop Ranjith from
the important work of the Congregation in order to give the Commencement
Address this year. His remarks are printed below.
Mr. President, members of the Board of Governors, members of the
academic staff and the administrative staff, dear graduates of this
most noble institution, dear parents, friends, and my dear brothers
and sisters, I thank you, first of all, for the kind invitation
extended to me to participate in this important ceremony today,
and I thank the Board of Governors of this institution for having
decided to confer on me the Medallion of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Thank
you very much for your kindness.
The Basis of Human Dignity
Statistics show that there are more than six billion people on
earth. Yet, none of them is equal to the other. That is the wonder
of creation. Even twin brothers or sisters who may appear similar,
are different in their character traits. They may not think and
act the same way. That is how life is: difference is part of life.
Difference is also beauty. If we walk in a nice garden (and here
you have such a beautiful one), we see flowers, but they are not
of the same color or beauty. There are flowers of different colors
and hues, each one so unique, and that makes any garden look so
beautiful.
That is the way we humans are made, and that, too, adds to that
unique dignity which the Creator confers on you and me, a dignity
that is unfathomably precious. The book of Genesis states that He
created us "in His own image and likeness." (Gen 1: 27)
What is more, we know that He redeemed us by His own precious blood.
Besides, He has a unique project for each one of us, even if it
looks so tiny in the great mosaic of His eternal plan of salvation;
we may be a small pebble stone in that great mosaic, but we have
a place that is important.
As the Psalmist said, "What is man that you are mindful of
him, or of the son of man that you care for him? You have made him
a little less than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor."
(Psalm 8) This dignity is not something that human society gives
us or the United Nations confers on us. It is something that is
already within us, given by God. The United Nations did proclaim
the Charter on Human Rights and Human Dignity, but that charter
is only a recognition of what we intrinsically are and not something
the United Nations conferred on us. Thus, no one can take away from
us this dignity which is inborn within us, which is God-given. No
political or economic force can take it away from us.
A Unique Place in God's Plan
For every one of us, therefore, there is one, single, unique vocation.
It is something planned for us from eternity, not due to our own
worthiness, but given to us freely on God's part, as a gift. As
the Lord said to Jeremiah the prophet, "Before I formed you
in your mother's womb, I knew you. Before you came to birth, I consecrated
you. I appointed you as prophet to the nations." (Jer 1:5)
Even before he was formed, God knew that he was important for that
mission.
When Jeremiah was called, the young Jeremiah said, "Lord, I
do not know how to speak; I am a young man." But the Lord said,
"Do not worry; I will give you the words." (Jer 1: 1-9)
Similarly, when Moses fled from Egypt out of fear and did not want
to go back, the Lord wanted him to return in order to deliver Israel
from Pharaoh. Moses protested saying, "Who am I to bring Israel
out of Egypt?" (Ex 3: 11) Thus, often enough God's plan for
us is something for which we do not feel competent by ourselves.
But, He calls us. It is a gift, often a surprise in our lives.
A question people frequently ask is, "Why me, and not the other
one?" That is always the situation in our lives. But we should
never forget what Jesus said about this, "You did not choose
me. No, I chose you. I commissioned you." (Jn 15: 16) The plan
He has for each one of us, our Christian vocation, is a sign of
His love and appreciation of us. It is a sign of trust.
My dear students be therefore happy, for you have a unique place
in God's plan. God loves you, and He has chosen you for whatever
is your portion in His plan. What would happen in your lives if
you allow Him to guide you, would thus never be an accident or one
of pure chance, but what He would accomplish. That, too, is a sign
of His love. It is this love and trust that makes you experience
how much He values you.
Besides, His plan for you is something that is also mysterious.
You do not see it now. But if you allow Him, He would make things
happen in your life. When you walk away from this ceremony today,
you will still not know what your future will be. It will be full
of possibilities. But, you can be sure that what He will finally
realize in you will be something great-if you only allow Him.
Maybe, when you are older, when you are in your 50s or 60s, each
time you look back, you would see that inter-connecting string that
runs through your life-the way He was preparing you for what comes
later. You will look back and say, "Well, I was prepared by
the Lord for this in that fashion, at times even in ways that surprised
me." You will understand it better and better as life moves
on. That is the way a servant of God would understand and value
his or her life.
Obedience is the Key
What, then, is it that is required of you and me? We are required
to be obedient and faithful to Him, and to say, like Mary, "I
am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done unto me as you will."
(Lk 1: 38) If we obey Him, it is possible for God to achieve great
things in our lives. If we turn our lives to Him, then He will achieve
what He has planned for us, and we will become miraculous manifestations
of His love for humanity.
Jesus was always conscious of that call to obedience to the Father
in His mission. In that episode of His being lost in the temple,
answering the anxious question of His parents, "Why have you
done this to us?" (Lk 1: 48), Jesus replied, "Did you
not know that I have to be attending to my father's work?"
(Lk 1: 49) He was, thus, forthright in claiming that His mission
was to fulfill the will of God faithfully. Obedience to the Father
was what mattered most for Jesus. You, too, ought to feel that way.
Through obedience, you will become open to God's action in your
life.
In fact, St. Paul calls Jesus' salvific death his greatest act of
obedience: He obeyed even until death, death on the Cross. That
is how He became the Savior of the world. Now, this is what is expected
from us: full and total obedience to the Father in Jesus, His Son.
This obedience is like a process of "tuning in," like
tuning in to a radio or television station. You may have a radio
with you, but if you do not tune in, you cannot hear the music.
If you do not "tune in" your life to God, He will not
be allowed to realize what He wants to realize in you.
If I were to explain through another example, it is like the lotus
flowers that bloom in our part of the world. Outside of the cities
there are these swampy areas, and if you take a walk in the early
hours of the morning, you see these small flower buds opening out
little by little when they see the sun. If you go around 10:30 or
11:00 a.m., you see that they have opened up fully, and the whole
marsh is one full carpet of flowers. It becomes so beautiful. The
lesson is that our lives, if they are turned towards the light of
the Lord, will blossom and become so beautiful, beautiful beyond
description.
If we turn our life to God and allow Him to do what He wants, our
lives will shine brightly. It is also like the sunlight reflected
on a mirror: if you wish to turn the sunlight in any direction,
the mirror will help you to reflect the light where you wish to.
Just so, if the mirror of your life is turned to God, His brightness
will fall on you, and you will be able to reflect it to others.
Thus, you will become a cause of strength and blessing on your brothers
and sisters, too.
Genuine Catholic Education
Education today, if it is to be wholesome, has to help young people
to come closer to God, to feel challenged, strengthened, and called
by Him, and to be able to respond generously to Him. In other words,
it must facilitate a young man or woman to "tune in" to
God's wavelength so that he or she may achieve what has been planned
for him or her.
Jesus told us, "Let the children come to me; do not hinder
them." (Lk 18: 16) That is the invitation addressed to the
Catholic school and to Catholic teachers. The most important consideration
is to let the Eternal Truth shine on these young people. Jesus did
claim that He was "the way, the truth and the life," (Jn
14: 6) and He did assure us that "the Truth will make us free."
(Jn 8: 32) It is to reflect that truth, which brings true freedom,
that a good Catholic education should assist young people.
The Second Vatican Council's document on education says this: "Beautiful,
therefore, and truly solemn is the vocation of all those who assist
parents in fulfilling their task, and who represent human society
as well by undertaking the role of school teacher."(Gravissimum
Educationis n.5) It is a beautiful vocation to be a teacher, but
what is most important is that the school teacher empower himself
so that he works with the young people who come to him or her, and
helps them, along with the parents, to discover their supernatural
vocation and to respond generously to that. It is a most noble task.
Teaching is thus a vocation, not merely a profession.
Jesus Himself should be the example of those who take up teaching
or those who run Catholic schools and colleges. He turned, within
a brief period of time, a rag-tag band of illiterate, confused,
and ambitious men into committed apostles. They were ambitious;
they were doubtful; there was one who was very close to Him and
yet denied Him three times and, worse still, one who even betrayed
him. But within a short period of time, because Jesus was so powerful
and His light shone on them so much, He turned them into apostles
who were ready to proclaim and fulfill the mission that was entrusted
to them, and even to lay down their lives for Him. That is what
the school and the teacher should empower their students to do.
I know Mr. Dillon has always said that Thomas Aquinas College has
to be like another Christ who forms the best in these students.
And I think the College does this, so I can only compliment it.
Catholic Education Suffers from Modern Trends
The danger facing education today is that of visualizing itself
as a servant of a given economic or socio-political system with
goals which are purely earthly, just placing the accent only on
some shades of the externals. Education, however, is not an appendix
of an economic or socio-political system. Its aim is not that of
producing a man or a woman who will serve a given political or economic
system blindly. Hitler, for example, sought to orient the schools
and universities in Germany during his time towards an idolization
of himself and the system he introduced. This is not education.
So it was also in the countries that were hidden behind the Iron
Curtain.
Now, there is a new ideology today which tends to dominate humanity-secularization-which
in its extreme form is atheistic and materialistic. This ideology
in some of its milder forms at times seems to have adherents even
among good Catholics. It seeks to marginalize faith and the Church
from public life. Even good Catholics adhere to this ideology that
the Church should stay away from public life. They posit a strict
separation between the Church and the state, and between faith and
life.
To make matters worse, there is an economic free-for-all without
any spiritual or moral content, which in matters personal places
accent on the freedom of the individual so much so that the individual
sees all binding structures of religion, morality, and discipline
as impediments to his freedom. He seeks to free himself from these
either through an attitude of indifferentism or by relegating these
strictly to the realm of the private and personal. In matters social,
this ideology seeks to suffocate or kill religious and moral values
through a philosophy of strict separation of the spiritual and the
secular.
Then there is the substitution of religion in its communitarian
expression with mass scale social gatherings or distractions, especially
those that demean the sense of the sacred in human life. By this
I mean the use of Sundays and holy days for mass-scale cultural
events, sports events, or other distractions. Nowadays, for example,
I know where I live in Italy, more people go to the stadium to watch
football than do for Sunday Mass. More people go to the supermarket
on Sundays than to church.
As Pope John Paul II stated, "Unfortunately, when Sunday loses
its fundamental meaning and becomes merely part of a weekend, it
can happen that people stay locked within a horizon so limited that
they can no longer see the heavens." (Dies Domini 4) What beautiful
words! Even the day which should have been a day of rest and quiet
has now become, for many, yet another noisy affair. This is the
type of society that is being advocated-man becoming its slave-doing
exactly what it wants.
All of this is a result of a utilitarian outlook on human life which
affects education too. Education becomes a process by which only
the personnel that are needed for the progress of the market economy
are formed. Schools and universities are more oriented to the empirical
and rational sciences which concern the intellect, rather than to
the ethical, moral, and disciplinary aspects of formation.
Catholic Education Is Ordered to the Transcendent
In the life and formation of Jesus, however, the focus of attention
is different. For even Jesus had His own formation. Yet He is not
considered the object of education, but is very much its subject.
He is always conscious of his ontological relationship with the
Father: "I and the Father are one,"
(Jn 10: 30) He stated. He is, in fact, from God and has been sent
by Him so that He may fulfill God's will. He was aware of the nature
of His mission and prepared Himself for it consciously. Thus, He
is not so much the object of education as much as its subject.
This understanding is something very important for us so that we
do not consider ourselves as just objects at the receiving end listening
to lectures, being drilled to accept uncritically everything that
is taught. On the contrary, education should stimulate us to start
thinking about ourselves, our noble vocation, our higher relationship
to God, and to feel stimulated to achieve great things in Him, not
just ordinary immanentist goals. Like Jesus, we should recognize
the nobility of our vocation and its divine origins.
An education that does not take into consideration the transcendental
nature of our vocation and the need to orient our life towards the
noble aspirations which go along with it cannot be Catholic education.
Says the letter to the Ephesians, "And you, parents, provoke
not your children to wrath, but nurture them in the discipline and
the admonishment of the Lord." (Eph 6: 4)
The Scriptures recount to us how before his death Tobit advised
Tobias, his son, on the way he should bring up his children: "Bring
up your children to do what is right. Teach them that they must
give to the poor and must always remember to praise God with all
sincerity." (Tob 14: 9)
St. John Chrysostom, a 4th-Century Father of the Church, in his
sermon on the Letter to the Ephesians, spoke about the example of
Hannah, the mother of Samuel, who, after the Lord had removed the
shame of her barrenness, conceived and bore him. He stated, "Imitate
Hannah's example. Look at what she did. She brought Samuel up at
once to the temple. Who amongst you would not rather that his son
should become a Samuel than that he should be king of the whole
world ten thousand times over? She offered him up to God, and then
she left him." (Homilies on Ephesians XXI, 4) Let everything
else, therefore, be secondary for us, when compared to the need
to take provident care of our children, raising them up and orienting
them in the first place to know, love, and serve God.
Thus, the best education we can give a child is to place him or
her in the closest possible mode of relationship with God, because
God's light will then fall on them and help them to see, understand,
and respond to truth in the most noble way. The best in their characters
will then shine out naturally.
Some of us still recall with great awe and reverence teachers
who not only taught us but allowed that which was happening in the
intimacy of our hearts at the behest of God's mysterious hand to
realize itself. They did not stop or impede that. That is what the
famous educator Maria Montessori affirmed, "We teachers can
only help the work that is going on, as servants wait upon a master."
(The Absorbent Mind Ch. 1) Each teacher before a student is like
someone approaching something sacred saying, "Something is
happening in this young person; let me help as much as I can."
Truth is a Gift
What I am pinpointing here is that there is a deeply divine dimension
to Catholic education which must be understood. That is the only
way in which a proper Catholic education can be given to young people.
I was edified to listen to the presentation just now by the Senior
Class Speaker, as he talked about that divine aspect of theology,
of knowledge, and of truth. As Jesus stood in front of Pilate, there
was a very intriguing question asked. Pilate asked Him, "What
is truth?" Jesus never answered. He did not answer because
truth is not so much something that is defined as it is given. It
is a gift of God. It is a person. It is God Himself, Truth eternal.
And Pilate failed to recognize Jesus, the very incarnation of Truth.
Truth. We only have to seek Jesus, and if we genuinely seek Him,
and if we open our hearts to Him, He will reveal Himself and His
plan for us which will help us free ourselves from slavery to untruth.
Otherwise, we are like the five blind men who were taken to a big
elephant and told to define what it looked like. One went and touched
the trunk and said, "An elephant is like a tree." Another
touched the tail and said, "An elephant is a creeper."
But that, everyone knew, was not the truth. We cannot go looking
for truth if we are blind to God's light. The eye of faith is that
which leads us to that personal expression of truth, which is the
understanding of God. That is why it is important that we allow
the Lord to shine on us and let His light guide us.
This is very important, and I congratulate Thomas Aquinas College
for the great service it renders to these young people, especially
helping them to discern truth through faith and reason as its handmaid.
I was edified to hear yesterday, when I was with a group of these
graduates at breakfast, how they presented their lives and their
dreams of the future.
Dream in the Lord
Dream. It's a good thing to dream. But dream in the Lord. Dream
for Him. Dream with Him. Hold His hand, walk in the search for truth,
and He will lead you to the truth which He himself is. That is what
we all wish for you, dear young people, today. Take with you this
great optimism of life which comes from your faith. Never give up.
Be courageous.
I wish to conclude my reflection by thanking all of you, dear members
of the staff and my dear students. I wish you God's blessings in
the years to come. As St. Paul states, "No eye has seen, no
ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those
who love Him." (1 Cor 2: 9)
God loves each and every one of you, my dear students. That is why
He created you so differently and gave you so many different talents.
That is why He has a special plan for you. If you allow him, you
will shine and be yourselves the manifestation of His light and
truth. Let Him then be always the cause of your brightness and grandeur.
Thank you.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Summer 2007
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