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This is all the more important because our culture militates against giving thanks in a number of ways: an ideology of individualism which obscures our interdependence and our belonging to a larger whole; a technological mentality by which our doing and making become the measure of our lives; and a political discourse that gives principal attention to what is owed to us. Not only do these cultural forces isolate us from one another, they also make difficult a genuinely open-handed disposition toward life in all of its goodness. The early Christian community seemed to get this right. Understanding themselves as a Eucharistic community, they gathered regularly to celebrate the Eucharist, but more than that, their whole lives were a thanksgiving offering to a God to whom they owed everything. They were not closing their eyes to the darkness and sinfulness of the world—after all, the one who gathered them together, the greatest gift of all, had suffered through all of that for them—nor were they closing their eyes to their own particular responsibility for realizing the common good. What mattered most was the point of departure, that fundamental act of opening themselves in grateful awe to the very source of their life, created and recreated. And so we open our hearts in gratitude to teachers who help us to see more clearly the painful beauty of the world, the heights and depths of the human condition, and the wisdom contained in our religious tradition; to classmates and friends who accompanied us along the way; to parents and benefactors who made possible such an education; and to the God who has watched over Assumption College and inspired all that is best in her. If our centennial has reminded us of how much we have received, it also invites us to a more vigilant stewardship in the years ahead. |
The Mission