“Becoming Authentically Human in the Educational Endeavor”
Divine Word College, Epworth, Iowa
12 May 2023
Distinguished guest, friends, and graduates, good morning. It’s a distinct honor for me to be invited to take part in this special occasion in your intellectual and vocational life. I stand before you today as a DWC alumnus because I had spent a year of pre-theology studies at DWC before going on to Techny for the Novitiate Program. Though only a short time, this experience has been etched into my memories as one of the most significant and happy times in my life. Here, I learned how to transition from studying for the purpose of advancing in secular society to serving God and the Church. I learned to build relationships not as a way to impress others and improve my social status, but to be part of a community of Christian disciples dedicated to the work of proclaiming the Good News. I also learned that if I helped my friends too much by correcting all the grammar mistakes in their philosophy papers, they end up getting an ‘F’ from the professor, who knew right away that this was not their writing.
But enough reminiscing. Let me start my sharing today with a quotation from a famous Jesuit theologian nearly six decades ago. That theologian is Karl Rahner. Rahner said, “There are many matters in which the Church could well be more modern than she is. But the time is beginning already in which having the courage to be old and human is going to be the most modern thing at all.”
As I progressively stray further from my youth, heading ever closer to that stage of life that Vietnamese people cleverly describe as ‘nearer to earth and further from the sky,’ I am challenged to see the profound wisdom in this statement. This idea encompasses more than just the cycle of life; it involves understanding our place in the world.
Today's world is complex, marked by digital advancements that offer the potential to transform us into cyborgs and superhumans. However, our growing dependence on technology is also distancing us from the natural world that was once crucial to our upbringing, cultural identity, and personal growth. While globalization and transnational migration have brought people of diverse backgrounds closer together, trends in our hyperconnected world have paradoxically led to social, emotional, and intellectual disconnection. Despite having unprecedented access to information, individuals living in the same household or community may hold vastly different beliefs regarding topics such as whether wearing masks during the pandemic is a good thing, whether human activities is the cause of climate change, or even whether the earth is flat or round.
So as you receive your diploma today and go forward into this new brave world, what do I hope your DWC education have gained for you? There is one thing that I hope your education and formation at DWC have helped you with – to become truly human. Surely, all of us are genetically human. But to be authentically human, truly human, requires more than just physiology and biochemistry. It requires intellectual, moral and spiritual cultivation that helps us to achieve the full potential and destiny of what it means to be human.
The Judeo-Christian tradition teaches that human beings are made in the image of God. However, being the imago dei is not defined by our biological makeup but by our spiritual and moral fabric. The poet Alexander Pope says to err is human. Certainly all of us make mistakes and sin in numerous ways. But that’s not the state we are encouraged or expected to stay in. Jesus calls us to moral maturity and to be perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect, to remove the plank in our own eye as we help our brothers and sisters with the speck of sawdust in theirs.
Thus, to be truly human is to be able to fully reflect God in the way we “live, move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Confucius would concur because he taught that human beings who lacked the virtue of ren, which can be translated as goodness, benevolence, or humaneness is not a fully realized person, and no more than a brute.
Many of us here come from cultures influenced by the Confucian tradition that emphasizes that a profound person, a fully realized person is one who displays unity in knowledge and virtuous action. The educational pursuit is only considered a success when it is demonstrated in actions that nourish our relationship with self and others. Indeed, the pursuit of knowledge must not be an individualistic endeavor serving our selfish interests. At its heart, true education is a communal act because it prepares us to be aware of and carry out fully our relationship with family, village, country, world, the cosmos, and the transcendent.
A holistic education helps us to see ourselves as the center of this inter-connected and ever-expanding network of relationships. In this holistic worldview, there is no room for egotism, narcicism, nepotism. There is no place for ethnocentrism, narrow nationalism, or anthropocentrism. Just as egotism and narcicism harm the self, nepotism degrades the family, ethnocentrism hurts the community, narrow nationalism opposes legitimate patriotism, and anthropocentrism destroys the natural environment. Only when we rid ourselves of these negative proclivities can we truly form harmonious and mutual relationship between body and soul, self and community, humanity and creation, and human heart and the Divine Will.
When we are authentically human, we will find it much easier to open ourselves up to other peoples and cultures, becoming intercultural rather than just tolerating or co-existing with people from other countries and cultures. Being intercultural means actively engaging with people from other cultures by sharing and dialoging with one another, learning from and being challenged by one another, and ultimately being enriched and transformed as a result of mutuality and reciprocity in this experience. Interculturality is when we realize that we are unique but not hopelessly different from the other. In reality, we are both different and the same.
Herein lies the space for relationship, collaboration, and ridding ourselves of the destructive tendencies that manifest themselves in the belittling of groups of migrants, mocking of certain cultures, and creating fear of certain religions.
Herein lies also the chance for us to do away with the zero-sum mindset that believes that a person or group’s gain necessarily denotes another person or group’s loss. Instead, interculturality supports the idea that through mutual collaboration that we can work for the common good that benefits all.
Authentic humanhood also helps us to become inter-creational. What do I mean by this term? Being inter-creational involves taking a radical step in our approach to relationships, extending beyond individuals and cultures to include all of creation. In this view, nature is recognized as an expression of God's loving plan, wherein every creature possesses inherent value and significance (Pope Francis, Laudato Si, no. 76).
Being inter-creational means engaging with creation in a relationship of mutual respect and reciprocity, recognizing that everything in the cosmos shares the same creator, God. As siblings of creation, we respond by caring for the natural world as we do for our fellow human beings. Our reciprocal service to creation, which provides us with sustenance, relaxation, and opportunities for profound connection with the divine demonstrates our gratitude to creation for all that creation has done for us.
When the Buddha after many days of meditation achieved enlightenment, he returned to his home village to show gratitude to his parents and the natural environment in which he grew up. He also showed gratitude to the bodhi tree under which he spent many days and nights before achieving enlightenment.
Those of you who are receiving your diplomas today will surely be taking the time to thank the various people who have helped you reach this milestone. But let us perhaps also not forget to show gratitude to the nonhuman beings that have contributed to our achievement: the beautiful trees and cornfields and flowers that surround this campus; the quiet path between the main building and Megan Hall that gives us time to reflect on the things that we have studied as we walk to and fro mornings and evenings; and the night sky filled with stars that remind us how miraculous it is that even though we are but a tiny tiny speck in this vast universe, that we are known and loved by God who also knows and loves everything else that God has created, from the biggest galaxy to the tiniest of viruses – yes, even the Covid-19 virus.
So, as you celebrate this personal achievement, I ask that you take a moment to assess whether your experience at DWC has helped you to become more authentically human. Of course, self-cultivation is an ongoing gradual process of living, learning, and growing. There is no such a thing as a spiritual and moral quantum leap. What is important is that we recognize and do not lose sight of this holistic vision of life and of this radical openness to relationship with all that is. It is this personal and communal reality that makes us more fully the imago dei, more conscientious stewards of God’s nonhuman creation, and more compassionate brothers and sisters of one another.
Once again I congratulate all of you as your joy today becomes our joy, your hope for tomorrow is likewise our hope, and your gratitude is our own praise and thanksgiving to the God who raises up the lowly, rewards the humble of heart, and gives peace to all who seek justice and truth. Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment