"Jesus said to Thomas, `I am the way, the truth, and the life."
--John 14:6

"DO NOT GO TO GOD ALONE":  FAITH AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Today is our seniors' last class day, and soon it will be time for them to graduate.  Our hopes are for their happiness and future success, but we especially hope their idea of success includes a well-lived life of a faith committed to justice and service.  The world needs talented people willing to use their gifts for the good of others.

Good Christians often disagree about the best solutions to complicated social questions, but all Christians should agree on one thing:  love of God is intricately linked to love and care for one's neighbor.  To paraphrase the French Catholic poet Charles Peguy, we should not try to go to God alone for surely His first question to us will be, "Where are your brothers and sisters?"  We go to God together, in all our diversity and struggle, as the People of God.

Since the Second Vatican Council, Catholics have deepened their understanding for the social implications of their faith commitment.  The Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) reminded the Church that we share the joys and hopes, the fears and anxieties, of the people of our time.  The Jesuits, at their 32nd General Congregation (1975), noted that the "service of faith and the promotion of justice cannot be for us simply one ministry among others.  It must be the integrating factor of all our ministries; and not only of our ministries but also of our inner life as individuals, as communities, and as a worldwide brotherhood" (Decree 4, [14]). Justice here means more than "fairness."  Biblical justice or "righteousness" is that state when we are in right relationship with self, others, God, and God's creation.  A religious faith unconcerned with others, especially the vulnerable, is not biblical.

As our young men prepare to leave us and continue their way in the world, may they always remember there is no success without social responsibility, and no faith without a dedication to biblical justice.

Petitions
For our seniors, on this their last class day; for the success of our Student Senate Convention tomorrow; for our grads who serve their communities as "Men For Others."


Reflection
"The Gritty Reality of This World"
by Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, SJ,
former Superior General of the Society of Jesus

"Students
in the course of their formation
must let the gritty reality
of this world in to their lives,
so they can learn to feel it,
think about it critically,
respond to its suffering
and engage it constructively.
They should learn to perceive,
think, judge, choose and act
for the rights of others,
especially the disadvantaged
and the oppressed."