Reflections on Faith and Higher Education
Reflections from The Reverend Henry Carter Finch, S.T.L.
Missa Votiva de Spiritu Sancto
2 Thes 3:6-10, 16-18
Ps 128:1-2, 4-5
Mt 23:27-32
In one of the retreat conferences he presented to the Holy Father and the curia this past Lent, Bishop Erik Varden reflected on learning and freedom. He took as his inspiration part of a rather lengthy sermon on Psalm 91 preached by the great Cistercian abbot St. Bernard of Clairvaux, in particular this verse: “For he has freed me from the snare of the hunters and from the bitter word.” In deliciously vivid language that I will merely summarize, Bernard suggests that it’s hard to stomach the truth that in the eyes of this verse, we humans are not hunters…we are the hunted…like common animals…beasts…simple beasts who are easily lured into traps, even the same old snares of sin and vice over and over again, despite knowing what they are and what little they offer. Bernard suggests this is proof we aren’t quite as free as we usually like to think we are…we are rather “unfree”; incapable on our own of making steady progress towards our life’s true goal, drawn instead to all manner of obfuscation and distraction. The Second Vatican Council describes this same phenomenon as “unsteadiness,” and it is an effective of the fall. Commenting on Bernard, Bishop Varden writes, “The task before us is twofold: 1) first to develop a lucid understanding of the hunters who are out to ensnare us; then 2) to seek a cure for our wretched self-enthrallment.”
It is Bernard’s proposed “cure” that I would suggest is of interest to us as we embark upon a new academic year, invoking the blessing and guidance of the Holy Spirit. You see, Bernard suggests that we remain susceptible to the ensnaring tactics of the hunters of sin out to trap us “as long as we remain “rudes.” Now we tend to more or less transliterate this Latin word into English as “rude,” which these days suggests either meanness, usually expressed curtly and verbally (you know, in the vein of “That was rude!”)…or as a synonym for “uncouth,” a word frequently deployed by my grandmother to describe the ill-bred manners of youth. To be uncouth is to be impolite, of poor manners…you know, to burp at the table, or to slurp soup, or clatter your spoon noisily. However, Bernard means something else by “rudes.” Bishop Varden explains, “Bernard’s concern, however, is not with table manners. In Latin, rudes is an earthy word connected with the soil. It means untilled. Land that is ‘rudes’ is like that hard soil on which the Sower sowed seed that sprang up at once, then perished, for it had not much soil…[it wasn’t plowed; it was shallow and hard; it wasn’t ready to receive seed – my words]. For the seed to have a chance, the farmer must first prepare the ground: plough and harrow it, then walk up and down it, furrow after furrow, picking up and throwing away every last stone.” When applied to the soul, this time-consuming, back-breaking labor is what we call erudition.
Now, these days erudition has come to be synonymous with “intelligence.” To say that someone is a man of “erudition” is to suggest that he is a man of great intelligence, or great learning – a smart person. But for Bernard – and I suspect for the medieval tradition of scholarship more broadly, erudition had less to do with how much one knows and far more to do with one’s commitment to the work – the task - the ploughing of the mind, that is learning…and most importantly the character formation that accompanies it. For Bernard, learning is a task not unlike the agricultural tasks of the farmer. Learning is an embodied process, involving toil and exertion, like farming. Like soil, the mind needs to be ploughed. The mind needs to be tilled and its soil quality improved by removing rocks and rubbish. Fresh seeds need to be sown. Weeds need to be pulled. Sprouts need to be carefully watered and fertilized and so on. These are the tasks that produce the harvest of wisdom both theoretical and practical, that grow not only the mind…but our character as well. This approach to learning is an approach that recognizes learning isn’t merely about amassing information. It’s about the formation of the whole person in freedom, responsibility, virtue, and therefore holiness. It’s about character development. Viewed in this way, learning ought to be a never-ending process, one that is repetitive and cyclical so that the mind never becomes either infertile and unproductive or a mere repository of data.
The modern approach to education tends to view education less as cultivation and more as formatting, using the technical language of programming rather than organic imagery. This is nowhere more apparent than in those questions students love and teachers hate: “but what’s going to be on the test?” The mentality that stands behind this question is this: “Just download for me the data I need to vomit forth when asked to do so.” Bishop Varden put it this way in a commencement address back in May. “Nowadays there is a tendency to think of universities as degree-factories. People sign up for courses they are not terribly interested in. They follow lectures online while doing their ironing, produce a few written assignments with the discreet collaboration of ChatGPT, then emerge with a hood and an acronym after their name, hoping to further their career and salary prospects. There is nothing wrong about this in the sense that it is morally culpable. But this approach is hardly likely to generate intellectual joy, intellectual freedom.” There is no toil, no tillage, no formation of the mind here. Formatting and downloading are not embodied processes. They are not human processes. They are not respectful of freedom; and, even as they fail to form the mind, they also fail to form the conscience in principles of right reason; they fail to cultivate wisdom, and they do very little to improve character.
My challenge to all of us – faculty and students – at the beginning of a new academic year is to make this year an erudite year. Insofar as erudition is an aspect of growing in holiness, it ought to shape and form our intellectual endeavors. Erudition is about preventing our minds from petrifying. Bishop Varden again, “There is stone-picking to be done as well as digging and manuring. The Church uses human, concrete imagery redolent of sweat and soil and sun to describe intellectual awakening…this embodied, Catholic approach is encouraging and joyful.” The result of this genuine education, erudition, is, in the words of Cardinal Newman, the perfection of the intellect. Newman describes this perfection in his Idea of a University in poignant words. It is “the clear, calm, accurate vision and comprehension of all things, as far as the finite mind can embrace them, each in its place, and with its own characteristics upon it. It is almost prophetic from its knowledge of history; it is almost heart-searching from its knowledge of human nature; it is almost supernatural clarity from its freedom from littleness and prejudice; it has almost the repose of faith, because nothing can startle it; it has almost the beauty and harmony of heavenly contemplation, so intimate is it with the eternal order of things and the music of the spheres.” That is true erudition…genuine learning…and we ought to commit not only to its pursuit but to awakening the desire for it in others. That is, especially, the vocation of the Catholic educator, and it is an expression of charity.
You see, the erudite Christian – the one who has been formed according to that intellectual perfection described by Newman – the erudite Christian is able to step into the modern mission field as a charitably ordering presence, of noble character, keenly attuned to the divine ordering of things.
At the beginning of a new academic year, we invoke the Holy Spirit’s blessing on this endeavor and seek His aid as the one who alone is able to attune us to the music of the spheres, who attunes us to the divine order in all of creation. Again, Bishop Varden: “To hear the music of the spheres is to note the cantus firmus voiced in all creation: in the helix of DNA as well as in the galaxies above. The music is that of God’s Creator Word singing itself as praise to the Father through the Spirit. It resonates, too, in the heart and mind of Christians washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb.”
We invoke the Holy Spirit’s guidance and blessing at the beginning of this new academic year as the source of all true wisdom and knowledge, the One who orders all our intellectual endeavors to the higher things, the One who transforms environments of learning into fields of witness, and the One who enlivens all our learning with the warm and bright burning flame of perfect charity such that in all things we not only come to know God but also to love Him…to be overcome with the passionate desire to become His instrument, echoing with the ordered harmony and beautiful melody which uplift and edify weary hearts and droopy minds, instilling the clarity of hope and the true gladness found in life with Christ.
26 August 2026
The Rev. Henry Carter Finch, S.T.L.
Given at St. Peter Catholic Student Center, #1633
St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Norbert, pray for us.