Luceat!

I would like to propose a question that is at the heart of education, building off Kelly’s post, The Purpose of Education. Is the purpose of the education to train successful people to go out into the world and influence the world through specific skills? Thoughts…

I would like to shape this discussion around a quote from Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa said, “We are not called to be successful, but faithful.” This quote is interesting to me, as I dive into the life of Mother Teresa and applying it to living in modern American society.

Mother Teresa, as we have found recently, lived in darkness in her relationship with God in the special grace to love God purely in the darkness, to be faithful to Him, even when it seemed hard. However, in those 40+ years, she formed one of the largest and fastest growing religious congregations in the world! She was successful in a worldly sense.

What Mother Teresa realized was that if the Missionaries of Charity failed and she was still faithful to God’s plan in her life, she would still be pleasing to God and therefore faithfulness is far greater than worldly success. But lets bring this back to the realm of education.

Here at UW-Madison this past week, there was held the Engineering Career Fair. UW-Madison is one of the best schools in the country for Engineers. Many of the students that I know that are pursuing this field of study were anxious all week, working on their best pitch to sell themselves for a prospective internship. They would lose their peace over getting a summer internship!

Who is the modern university teaching our students to be their god? It seems that they are teaching our students that the individual is his or her own god. That he or she is in control of his or her own destiny. There is some great truth in this, but there are also the sprinklings of a lie.

We do have free will, but that free will should not be used to try to overthrow God, because we want to be successful in the way we desire to successful, but that free will should be used to counter our selfish motivations with fidelity to the true God, putting Him at the heart of every decision of our lives. By placing our hearts in union with the True God’s heart, we find our answer. It is not world success that is the purpose of education, nor is it a weak passivity, but a magnanimous life, lived by the virtue of excellence. Excellence will give us the freedom to be faithful and then if given the grace of worldly success, the virtue to use that great responsibility that is a gift from God!