As soon as the lecturer dismisses the class, the silence breaks. A racket rises into the air. A million different waves of sound reverberate around the room. People discuss where to go for their meal; some pick up their phones to call their friends at another class; the more studious ones begin to examine amongst themselves what exactly the lecturer was talking about, and still others approach the lecturer directly. The different pitches and rhythms give birth to an orchestra of babble. An ensemble of chatter erupts all around.
Within five minutes the lecture theatre is emptied. Not a shred or trace that the ensemble existed. Not a clue that these people where even there before. The room was as well-kept as it was before the lecture began. Quietly, another student enters the lecture theatre and places the crucifix on the teaching table. The rest of the mass items and the celebrants vestments are laid out. A small candle is lit and placed beside the crucifix. The crucifix is a curious paradox. A man is pinned to a cross, the sin INRI prominent above him. His face displays an agony beyond description, an image of death, an illustration of utter pain and disgrace, yet ironically, it is a symbol of life and worn on the chest of many with joy and pride.
Within 5 minutes, the table that once stored knowledge had been transformed into a table that stored life. An altar of sacrifice, after giving life to the brain the lecture theatre was to be the scene that gives breath to the soul. A prayerful room of study had become a prayer room for students. Students and staff begin to enter the lecture theatre, first a trickle the dots the space, and then a flood that fills the room. At precisely the appointed moment, the priest arrives to celebrate the Mass. A loud ring of hymns begins the Mass, the readings follow and a directed homily proceeds. The Body and Blood of Christ is then consecrated at the table and distributed. Before long, the Mass is ended; the lecture theatre is vacated as quickly as it was filled: another class is beginning…
“For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, I in am in the midst of them” (Matthew 18: 20). When the Mass was held in the lecture theatre, God was there physically in the Eucharist, but he was there before the Mass and even after that. Even when He was not there in body, He was there in Spirit. God has always been, is and continues to be present at every place in our lives. He is in the surroundings of the school, He is in the people in school, He is in the activities in school and He is in the studies in school.
Christians are told to live and preach the Gospel, but does it always involve the use of words? Living and preaching the gospel are perhaps closer to each other than preaching is to speaking. One can preach the gospel without speaking, but cannot preach it without living it. Living the gospel is God’s vocation for man, so that man can seek and become closer to God. A vocation can take countless different forms and is not static (just as how not every person stays in one industry throughout his working life); all worthwhile work is a mission field of sorts – baptism clothes a person in the cloak of a missionary. Being an engineer, a doctor, a lawyer, a businessman, a poet, a journalist, a writer, a chef etc. any field of work is an apostolate. An apostolate is the manifestation of a vocation, and vocation is the person beyond the apostolate. An apostolate is God’s way of giving one particular gifts and skills so as to help that person enter into a closer relationship with Him. Just as one does not wait to breathe until he knows about respiration so too one does not wait to live a vocation until he truly knows it, he just does. A student might not be a professional but he too is called to vocation in an apostolate of studentship.
It is perhaps misleading to describe a particular profession or choice of study as a career. It is more encompassing than that. It is an apostolate. An apostolate is a vocation – a divine call. It is a means for us to seek God through our everyday lives and the things we do. There are a number of dimensions which seeking God shows forth in the apostolate, nonetheless, it is by seeking God that the gospel will be preached through us to others, for to seek God is to live out, strengthen and nourish one’s faith. The Christian faith is a faith lived out not by dogmatic proclamations and ritualistic worship (although they are of use) but by love – Mass is either a painful/boring obligation or the triumphant banquet of the Lord’s Love. To live in love, is to live in God since God is Love.
There are more appellations used describe the way of the Christian God, and one is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Eminent church scholars have written tomes on just this phrase alone, and it would not be this writer’s place to attempt anything similar with his meagre understanding. What is striking though is the word, Truth – a vital word in the apostolate of the student[1].
The apostolate of studentship is a vocation that requires one to seek God by pursuing Love and Truth.
Truth for a student exists in quest of knowledge. The findings of science through scientific enquiry are truth in action, gravity is truth just as plate tectonics is truth; natural selection is truth just as organic chemical reactions are truth. Science is quest for truth. Much knowledge in education in this world revolves around science. The truth that one learns in these subjects should be the spur to greater wonder and faith in the world that our God has created – he should marvel at the creation as he contemplate the creator who created that creation. The deeper his search for this truth, the more he will uncover, the more our faith is strengthened. Science is neutral and passes no judgement on God or His absence, it is there to help man understand this world and (for those who are religious) through it know God better at least on an intellectual level.
It was previously mentioned that there is much truth in the sciences and humanities. But science is not everything; it cannot explain anything outside the physical world. It is the fool who thinks that any one aspect of knowledge can explain everything. A biologist can explain natural selection but cannot explain string theory. For this one has to turn to other aspects of knowledge that God allows to illuminate[2] the total truth that is Him.
The quest of knowledge also exists in arts, humanities and the social sciences. These subjects do not pass laws and postulate firm scientific hypothesises like the hard sciences but they too are repositories of knowledge. The inherent logic of the humanities and arts, this says nothing of the morality of it, is a creation of God and the more one delves into it, the more one will be given insight into the logic and the beauty of that logic. This logic should so overwhelm him that the only response would be to bow down to the true source of that logic in divinely-inspired humility and beg forgiveness for his insufficiencies. The logic of literature (ironic as it sounds through the emotions and themes it explores) is the same as that of sociology and psychology observation of man and life; the logic of philosophy is in its contemplation of life; the logic of theology comes from its meditations on God. Still an economist/historian/political scientist may be able to explain the flourishing of religious orders in the church militant, but this knowledge is insufficient to explain the glories of the church triumphant. The knowledge given to humans is the normal form of knowledge and a vastly powerful one, since it is the normal creation of God. Having said that though it is not the be-all-end-all, rarely but not impossibly, there is knowledge revealed that is beyond the reasoning and thinking of man (for example, the revelation of the Trinity), but this is not the scope of this essay.
There is a false dichotomy today that runs that religion (especially of the Christian persuasion) is foolish and runs counter to enlightenment and truth; that religion is contradictory to the reality and is subscribed to only by bigots and fools. That it is a relic of a bygone error, and should be consigned to the annals of history and that it is frequently unreliable. It is a pervasive trend especially in many schools and institutes where the corpus of human knowledge is created and transmitted. It is ironic though, that a God who is all Truth should be claimed as a god of falsehood, it is bad philosophy and insensible logic to make such a case. To say that God is the creator and first cause of all things is not the same as saying that God is the direct creator of all things. Attacking the logic of religion because of the superstitions of the worshippers is as bad as condemning democracy because there are demagogues. It is similarly naïve theology to claim that God[3] is contrary to factual truth. If God is Truth then the reality of this world and the lessons it conveys are windows to help man, in his own way, move closer to God. The ultimate goal of science is to answer everything. However, this goal is based on the belief and the assumption that things work according to a fixed set of laws, that there is logic in this world. Why should a religion that believes its God to be the creator and sustaining of that logic, be an enemy of science? Art may be subjective, but the inner conveyance of emotion is a result the same fundamental feelings that each human feels similarly though in different times, places and events. How can a religion who believes that it’s God the fundamental mover of all emotion and logic, have no place in art and humanities?
God’s truth exists in the knowledge that is continually being built up and uncovered. It is a path to deeper relationship with God. It is hence that normal truth is an important way for the student to seek God in his present apostolate.
The quest for knowledge though would be one sided without the perfecting influence of perfect love. This is the second and perhaps more important constant in the apostolate of studentship. The danger of pursuing knowledge without the modifying effect of God is that pride in knowledge becomes the parasitic god that gnaws away at the essence of the human person. Without the realisation that God is behind that knowledge, the pursuit of knowledge becomes the goal in and of itself. The pursuit of knowledge is a luxury and when it is not tempered with the guidance of an even greater end it leads to extravagance. It is an extravagance used to feed other indulgences. When the God is placed as the goal of knowledge, a student’s studies can become a source of prayer and communion with God.
The perfecting influence of God is not limited to the search for truth. Recall that the first aim and responsibility of the Christian is to spread the good news. Knowledge helps him grow in God so that he better love the message of God even better. To love the message of God is one thing, to spread it is another. This is where the perfecting influence of God is more important. God allows various instances and experiences to happen to man so that he grows closer in God. In the context of a student, the successes and failures in exams, the struggles in studying, the challenges in interpersonal relationships, the difficulties in projects, the stimulation in conversation… all these God allows to happen (just as he allowed bad things to happen to Job) so as to help us grow deeper in love with Him. People in love tend to behaviour in a similar manner. This too is the case with Christians and God. The more the various experiences in the vocation and around the apostolate are taken in with a spiritually ready mind, the more able one is able to offer up these occurrences as an offering to God to join in the redemptive sacrifice, the more one becomes a mirror of God’s Love.
The wealth of knowledge and truth available to the student is the tool that God provides for the student to become perfect as the Father is perfect, and to reflect love for neighbour and God. It is consuming, and expectedly so – a secular career is draining, more so should a divine mission be absorbing. Perhaps this is a mere portion of what was meant when man was exhorted to love the Lord God with all his heart, his entire mind and all his strength.
[1] Truth is an important idea in all Christian vocation. What I mean here, is not that truth is important to some vocations, but that in different apostolates, God highlights different aspects of Himself to bring us closer to Him in Faith, Hope and Love. In fact for different individuals, even if they are both have the same apostolate; God might flash various aspects to each in a unique way suited especially for him. Perhaps the one aspect of God that will always be present regardless the vocation is the call to Love as Christ loved.
[2]For lack of a better word, I have used illuminate. But how inefficient a word like illuminate is, since the brightness that we see now is nowhere near the brightness that God is. It is merely a substitute on this earth that whets our appetite for the eternal reward.
[3] I can only make this statement with the Christian-Catholic understanding of God; my ignorance of other religious beliefs would not permit me to make any other claims.
