30th Anniversary Festivities
Homily, Most Rev. Raymond L. Burke
The Most Rev. Raymond L. Burke, a Wisconsin native, is
Bishop of the Diocese of La Crosse. He holds degrees from
The Catholic University of America and the Pontifical Gregorian
University in Rome.
In 1984, he was named Moderator of the Curia and Vice
Chancellor of the La Crosse Diocese. In 1989, he was named
Defender of the Bond of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic
Signatura in Rome and served there until his appointment as
bishop of La Crosse in 1995.
Following is an abridged version of his homily for the
on-campus Mass of Thanksgiving for the College's 30th Anniversary,
held on September 21, Feast of St. Matthew.
In the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, there is
a wonderful painting by Caravaggio, The Call of Matthew, which
represents the power of both Christ's call and of Matthew's
attraction to the call. The call of Matthew to be an apostle
uncovers for us the essential relationship between Christ,
the Truth Incarnate, and the human soul which, by its very
nature, is attracted to the truth.
No matter that Matthew's soul had been, in some way, tainted
through the practice of his profession of tax collector, Christ
was seeking him. And Matthew, notwithstanding his sinful ways,
responded to Christ's call.
Christ is so convinced of the natural attraction of the human
soul to the truth that He gladly goes to Matthew's house for
dinner. And there He dines with tax collectors and sinners
to satisfy the greatest hunger of his host and the other guests,
and to reveal to them the truth for which they were longing
in their deepest beings.
For the Pharisees, Christ's seeking of the souls of tax collectors
and sinners was a contradiction of His mission as Messiah.
Religion was no longer for them the highest response of man,
in his fallen state, to the truth of God. It was no longer
the way of daily conversion in overcoming the lie of sin and
walking in the light of the truth.
Rather, it was a matter of a human institution which operates
according to the mind and plan of its leaders. The Messiah
was no longer the Anointed of the Lord Who came to win a share
in His divine anointing, the anointing with the Holy Spirit,
for all God's children. Rather, He was a political leader
sent to achieve the temporal liberation of His people.
Christ responds clearly to the objection of the Pharisees
by referring to His mission as the Truth Incarnate and, therefore,
as the healer of souls:
People who are in good health do not need a doctor; sick
people do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, "It
is mercy I desire and not sacrifice." I have come to
call not the self-righteous, but sinners.
God's truth is radiant upon the Face of Christ. It is healing
for the sickness of the human soul. It shines forth in the
Church because Christ is alive for us in the Church through
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. God made our souls to receive
the light of His truth. In Christ, He has communicated His
truth to us. With Christ, we show forth the light of the divine
truth to others, to the world.
We therefore see in the life of St. Matthew a most striking
example of the relationship of our soul to the Truth Incarnate
in Christ. Christ called out to Matthew who was sitting at
his tax collector's booth: "Follow me." Regarding
Matthew's response, the Gospel tells us simply: "Matthew
got up and followed him." Matthew, though a sinner, could
not resist the attraction of Christ, of God's Truth Incarnate.
Truth As the College's Foundation
The reflection upon the relationship of the Truth Incarnate
to the deepest desires of the human soul, prompted by our
memory of St. Matthew and opened up for us in the Holy Scriptures
for his feast, is most apt for our celebration of the 30th
Anniversary of the founding of Thomas Aquinas College. For
this College was founded upon the conviction of the essential
relationship between the Divine Truth Incarnate in Christ,
transmitted to us through the Magisterium of the Church, and
the human soul of the student.
The College's founding document makes clear the essential
place of Christ and His Church in the truly liberal education
of the student:
The Catholic school, therefore, if it is to be faithful to
the teaching of Christ, will differ from its secular counterpart
in two essential respects. First, it will not define itself
by academic freedom, but by the divinely revealed truth, and
second, that truth will be the chief object of study as well
as the governing principle of the whole institution, giving
order and purpose even to the teaching and learning of the
secular disciplines.
In other words, the source and destiny of the pursuit of
the truth is Christ, Christ who seeks our souls, knowing their
profound hunger for the truth, and the attraction of our souls
to Him who is Truth Incarnate, the fulfillment of our deepest
desire. Every branch of study, if it reaches its proper completion,
looks in some way upon the Face of Christ who illumines all
things, uncovering their proper place in the divine plan.
All the branches of study ultimately point to the study of
the source and destiny of all truth - theology (the study
of God and divine things, which proceeds in the divine light
of faith) and metaphysics (the knowledge of God and divine
things which proceeds in the natural light of human reason).
Pharisee University
Not unlike the case of the Pharisees in today's Gospel account,
there are those who have devised their own idea of liberal
Catholic education, in which the essential relationship between
the truth and the soul of the student is viewed as extrinsic
to the work of the Catholic university.
For these reputed intellectuals, Christ, the Truth Incarnate
and alive in the Magisterium of the Church, must be viewed
as a third party to the Catholic university, otherwise He
would destroy the freedom of teachers and students to ponder
creation and its history according to their own minds without
reference to the true origin and destiny of all beings in
God. According to their way of thinking, the university, in
order to be true to itself, must be completely secular, that
is without God, distancing itself from any direct relationship
with Christ and His Body, the Church.
It is a completely erroneous way of thinking, which sadly
is accepted by many people who have not pondered the relationship
of the truth to the soul of the university student. According
to this false way of thinking, we find the truth by the exercise
of human freedom. According to the Church's teaching, we become
free by Christ finding us, by the truth finding us and abiding
with us, by our conforming our life to the truth.
This false intellectualism models precisely the attitude
of our First Parents who thought to achieve their freedom
through a so-called knowledge obtained by their own design,
in disobedience to God. Such is a deadly attitude informed
by the sin of pride.
Christ, the Teacher
As Thomas Aquinas College has understood from its beginning,
Christ is the ever-present Teacher in the Catholic university.
He is no third party. Catholic education is first and foremost
a school of evangelization, of the teaching and living of
the truth, incarnate in Christ and handed on to us in the
Church. In his Apostolic Constitution on Catholic Universities,
Ex Corde Ecclesiae, our Holy Father Pope John Paul II instructs
that, "By its very nature, each Catholic university makes
an important contribution to the Church's work of evangelization.
It is a living institutional witness to Christ and His message,
so vitally important in cultures marked by secularism, or
where Christ and His message are still virtually unknown."
The fundamental mission of the Church is evangelization,
the announcement of the truth, in fidelity to the mission
of Christ, the Truth Incarnate, to every man, and in every
dimension of human life. The Catholic university, "[b]orn
from the heart of the Church," necessarily participates
fully in Her mission of evangelization.
Evangelization conveys the truth, which forms man's reason
in accord with the Gospel, the right reason which is the mind
of Christ and which leads man into all truth. Catholic liberal
education, devoted to the pursuit of truth, dedicated to developing
the essential relationship of the Truth Incarnate to the soul
of the student, is key to evangelization, which is our primary
mission in Christ, in His Church.
Students whose reason is formed in the light of the Faith
through a Catholic liberal education become, in fact, a beacon
of Christ's light, leading others to the truth and transforming
our world. The apostolate of Catholic liberal education is
therefore most humbling. It is carried out by the grace of
God, in Christ the Teacher, for our salvation and the salvation
of the world.
The Holy Mass we now celebrate is our most perfect communion
with Christ, the source and destiny of our pursuit of truth.
It is communion in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. It
is the Heavenly Bread which is Christ Himself, leading us
into all truth.
It is union with Christ in the mystery of His suffering,
dying, and rising from the dead, through which we come to
know the truth and to live the truth in divine love. May the
Holy Eucharist, which is the Word made flesh for us, heal
and strengthen us today and always, so that Christ may find
us whom He seeks and we may respond to His call, "Follow
me."
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Winter 2002
|
