What's God Doing in Your Classroom?

by Deacon James Keating, Ph.D.

A number of years ago I was a professor at a small Catholic college. I had progressed far enough in the preliminary lectures during the fall semester to begin the very difficult task of lecturing on the doctrine of the Trinity. I began the lecture and was soon lost in my own thoughts, blissfully trying to find words that would express the wonder and mystery of this great reality: God is One in three persons, God is love, and this love was revealed to us in Christ. I soon noticed a hand go up in the back of the classroom. I recognized the student, and in a pleading tone he said, "Would you please slow down or give us a moment of silence to simply take this teaching into our minds, you give it too fast, I can't keep up with my feelings of awe in my heart. I need time." I had been teaching college students for several years by then and I knew I had never led any class into "awe." What was happening in this young man's heart during class? Could it be possible that he was actually being taken into prayer?

Can college classroom teaching (lecture, discussion, and seminar) be a forum that intentionally evokes a love of God? Of course both student and professor can become conscious of the stirrings of wonder within their hearts as classroom teaching is received or shared. Is there, however, a valid reason to ever make these stirrings a public reality in class or to invite students to appropriate the content of a lecture at a deeper, more personal level of divine encounter? Pope Benedict XVI called for Catholic colleges to become places where "God's active presence . . . is recognized."

A university's . . . Catholic identity is not simply a question of the number of Catholic students. It is a question of conviction — do we really believe that only in the mystery of the Word made flesh does the mystery of man truly become clear (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22)? Are we ready to commit our entire self — intellect and will, mind and heart — to God? Do we accept the truth Christ reveals? Is the faith tangible in our universities . . .? Is it given fervent expression . . . through prayer . . .? Only in this way do we really bear witness to the meaning of who we are and what we uphold . . . . Catholic identity is not dependent upon statistics. Neither can it be equated simply with the orthodoxy of course content. It demands and inspires much more: namely that each and every aspect of [the college] reverberates within the ecclesial life of faith. Only in faith can truth become incarnate and reason truly human, capable of directing the will along the path of freedom. In this way [Catholic Colleges] . . . become places in which God's active presence . . . is recognized . . . (Benedict VXI, Address to Academic Leaders, CUA, April 2008).

Can a college classroom promote a dialogue that actually includes a conscious referent to God's active presence in the learning process? We know that many Catholic college graduates do not read theology after they leave campus. Why is that? Could it be that they endured faculty lectures and books simply because they were necessary for graduation? If the professors haven't instilled a love for lifelong learning in the faith, why do they labor so long at their desks and podiums? Maybe the way we understand the teaching of theology is wrong? Maybe we need to contextualize it within a student's affective response to the active presence of God? One doesn't simply want to know about truth. When tutored correctly, students desire the freedom of knowing and loving the Truth. The Truth is Christ and such knowledge always serves the ends of theology.

Encounter

We all know the caricature of the graduate professor who simply pushes content at the students who then dutifully write down whatever is said. When pressed to slow his or her lectures down for review the professor laments, "There is so much for the class to learn, I have no time to linger over the needs of individual persons, only time to share ideas." In fact, except for those with photographic memories, most of us cannot remember the lectures from our own university education. There are, of course, stellar lectures that mark our minds, wisdom that is retained by us to this very day. Why is that?

Retaining such a memory indicates that the professor did not simply utter truth, but the professor uttered truth for me. This professor taught in such a way that the content became personal for me, and my mind grew in the process with clarity, healing, or concern for the welfare of others. Through the words of the professor I was able to cooperate with the movements of the Holy Spirit within me. Making students more aware of these interior movements is a missing part of college education. Doctrine is living; theologians have to find ways to allow those doctrines, the mysteries of Christ, to live both intellectually and affectively within students.

Some might think it risks corrupting academic objectivity to develop a teaching method that encourages students to absorb lecture material by means of prayer. The only encounter one is suppose to have in a classroom in a public way is the contact one has with class notes, notes as objects of study. Also encouraged is the welcoming of friendships in the pursuit of such study. But beyond these human contacts, contact with God is to remain private.

The development of a more prayerful theology helps students to see the Word of God as a transformative event. This transformation is not usually dramatic or immediate in its expression, but it should be expected. In other words, college professors ought to have the spiritual conversion of their students as a conscious goal in teaching theology. Professors must actively listen to God, in order to lead their students to conversion and trust in Christ (students of other faiths notwithstanding). To order the class otherwise is to admit that the study of theology is a fantasy. There is no real Divine Person calling us to meet Him in His Revelation, there are only more or less helpful philosophies.

Hosting the Truth

To place prayerful discernment at the core of theology makes professors wary that student freedom may be undermined. One can only present facts, ideas, and data; one cannot try to persuade or argue for theology being a conveyance of truth, and more, a reality that facilitates an encounter with the Divine. Instead, it is argued that we have to be tolerant of all beliefs in order to be non-judgmental, and so for a theology department to claim that what it reflects upon is THE truth (John 14:6) it would be at odds with the prevailing culture of tolerance. Analogously, I would counter that, while I welcome members of all faiths to my home, our prayers at meals are to Christ. Or, alternately, when single men visit my home, I don't downplay that I am a father. I still show affection for my sons and daughter, even at times favoring them and giving them rapt attention since my fatherhood demands such. In theology class at a Catholic college the professor stands in the faith and endeavors to explicate its mysteries to all who register for class. This is done in both an objective way, and, as I am arguing, an invitatory way. There is nothing anti-intellectual about one's faith being deepened by the study of theology. There is nothing unreasonable about prayer assisting reason in purifying its egocentricity or ideology. There is nothing coercive about students being converted by the beauty of theology, either. Christ taught us to "compel" persons to come to the banquet (Luke 14:23). This "compelling" refers not to the use of force but to the persuasive beauty of the truth of Christ's mysteries when formally contemplated. Upon registration, students of other faiths know they are entering a Catholic college unless, of course, the administration and faculty have purposely muted such identity in favor of "tolerance."

Theology assists the student to learn about God, but in its processes also allows them and their professors to be visited by God in the form of reverence before truth, in a silence which invites contemplation, and in beholding the beauty found in doctrine and tradition. In other words, theology welcomes an encounter with God and not simply tenets about God. To separate intimacy with God from the contemplation known as theology further advances the impotent trend of privatizing faith. In so doing, we relegate faith to the small places of the heart, stifling the development of a language of public faith born of an interior love of God. To keep faith private is to drain the life out of the deepest convictions of the heart; convictions that give birth to the transformation of culture.

Both the theologian and the collegian stand to benefit from not artificially preventing, or alternately, conjuring the presence of God which manifests itself when two or more are gathered (Matt. 18:20). If the Catholic faith is to penetrate the culture by way of an educated laity, then the church needs theologians to guide students not simply into critical approaches to academic theology but into healing encounters with the living Spirit. Public witnesses (martyrs) need the courage that comes from loving doctrine as an interior and animating principle; otherwise culture remains simply a reflection of the most potent forces of expediency (e.g., economic, political), and the deepest convictions of our hearts remain untapped as wellsprings of cultural transformation.

Prayer Opens Reason

Prayer can guide thought; prayer is a form of love-imbued thinking ordered toward God, Whom the theologian longs to know. In this way a direction can open up for the theologian to speak of intimacy with God in a prudent way in class, as a husband would not deny, but affirm in so many ways throughout a day that he loves his wife. Love is public even if its roots and unutterable truths many times, correctly, remain private. Theology is not self-revelation but contemplation of what God has revealed, albeit personally received for the benefit of the Church. Collegians can bear the fruits of this intimacy and such fruits can be uttered, known, and shared to edify and serve the spiritual needs of others. Recently Benedict XVI noted that receiving the love of God with affection actually serves the ends of reason. "We can touch Christ's heart and feel him touch ours. Only in this personal relationship with Christ, only in this encounter with the Risen One do we really become Christians. And in this way our reason opens, the whole of Christ's wisdom opens as do all the riches of truth."¹

Theology is an affective science, meaning that one receives wisdom not simply through discursive knowing but through a knowing that is informed by our affection toward God. Theology has to be an affective science so that it can move the will and open persons to transformation. "Let the experience of the saint and not the average sinner be taken as the norm for understanding the grace of the sacraments . . . [T]heology in the church proceeds always as continuous dialogue between bride and Bridegroom."² Theology ultimately belongs to a church that is disposed toward the contemplative life. The Bride wants to listen to Christ the Bridegroom, not simply for information but for formation (see Rom. 12:1-2). We study revelation in a way that is intentionally formational and structured to assist the student and teacher in their call to become holy in and through the mystery of Christ in the midst of His Church. In what way ought professors to study, teach, and publish theology so as to deepen the spiritual lives of their students? In what way ought collegians to receive the study, teachings, and publications of professors so as to deepen their appropriation of revelation unto their own public holiness? Reason itself, the Logos, has taken on flesh. Reason, therefore, is not an abandonment of prayer, but reasonableness is prayer's object — the Christ, the Logos. As Justin Martyr said, "Reason became Man and was called Jesus Christ." Now one reasons from Christ to other things, not from other things to Christ.³

In his address at the Gregorian University in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI gives good direction about teaching theology:

"[T]he immediate object of the different branches of theological knowledge is God himself, revealed in Jesus Christ, God with a human face . . . knowing God is not enough. For a true encounter with him one must also love him. Knowledge must become love.

. . . The Spirit alone searches the depths of God (cf. I Cor. 2:10); thus, only in listening to the Spirit can one search the depths of the riches, wisdom, and knowledge of God (cf. Rom. 11:33). We listen to the Spirit in prayer, when the heart opens to contemplation of God's mystery which was revealed to us in Jesus Christ the Son, image of the invisible God (cf. Col. 1:15), constituted Head of the Church and Lord of all things"⁴ (cf. Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:18).

Silence

It might appear to some that prayer would be impossible within the structure of class, a structure that is a rhythm of lecture on the theologian's part and listening on the part of the student. There are, of course, moments of conversation and questioning. I am, however, advocating for another element to enter the classroom: silence. In this silence the truth can be more deeply appropriated. Questions arising from the class material and our communion with the Spirit can be more fully grasped and articulated. Isn't awareness of our interior communion with God a detriment to teaching and learning? A professor is not a carpenter who can fashion his or her wood while the mind is occupied with the psalms or a series of Hail Mary's. The very profession of teaching demands that the mind be occupied like the hands of a laborer. Where is the "space" for prayer then in teaching and learning?

Clement of Alexandria (d. 215), early in the Christian tradition, noted how one might be occupied with activity but have prayer still present within the soul. "He prays, though, in all situations, whether he is taking a walk or with company or is resting or reading or beginning a task requiring thought. And when in the very chamber of his soul he harbors just one thought and with sighs too deep for words invokes the Father [prayer is sustained]."⁵ These sighs too deep for words run at a subconscious level, yet ever ready to be received as the Spirit "stirs the waters" of our soul (John 5:7). From this living stream come all sorts of questions and reflections that benefit both teacher and student. The truths of revelation carry great potential to stir the waters of our soul. Within the very act of teaching, at the moment of speaking, descriptions of mystery, questions to further understanding, and deep attentive responses to the collegians' own inquiries or summations can bring these "sighs" of the Spirit to consciousness.

Normally we would resist such an invitation as not being appropriate or prudent. Certainly not all movements toward prayer have to become public in the classroom. A professor can silently give praise to God for the graces being received from his or her own lectures without any student ever knowing of such. But now we come to the white-hot center of our meditation. Is there a time during a public lecture when the professor, having already accepted the invitation to pray, invites the collegians into prayer as well? What would such a prayerful reception of doctrine mean academically? How would we protect individual freedom within the class? Alternately, how would we delight in the fact that the prayer can guide the intellect?

If reason is to be exercised properly, it must undergo constant purification, since it can never be completely free of the danger of a certain ethical blindness caused by the dazzling effect of power and special interests . . . Faith by its specific nature is an encounter with the living God — an encounter opening up new horizons extending beyond the sphere of reason. But it is also a purifying force for reason itself. From God's standpoint, faith liberates reason from its blind spots and therefore helps it to be ever more fully itself. Faith enables reason to do its work more effectively and to see its proper object more clearly (Deus Caritas Est, n.28).

Here we see the great truth: prayer, entered into in faith, helps us to think clearly. Could it be that prayer and faith are the authentic sources of objective theological thinking and that our current effort to drum them out of academia is thoroughly wrongheaded?

A Contemplative Theology

In a contemplative theology that is at home in the university, we would find the presence of God emerging from the material taught and from the common search for truth between teacher and student. In this approach to teaching, one is not only or always arguing a case but instead one is welcoming a Presence, "quite different from scientific argument but not anti-intellectual."⁶ In a contemplative theology we become vulnerable to receive what emerges. This receptivity is not purely passive; mostly it is the fruit of a surrendered searching. In such surrender the professor is not looking to "tackle" concepts like prey, but actively wait for the prey to emerge as does a hunter in a blind. The professor watches and waits in hope that truth will emerge and be interiorized by his or her students. The professor wants truth to emerge in class and expose its elemental structure, a structure that invites one to participate in its reality and rest in its meaning.

To rest in the meaning of truth is to rest in Christ. It is this relationship with Christ that yields ultimate meaning. In our era the scientific method trumps the mysterious and religious. Catholic colleges embrace the mysterious so as to better serve their purposes, chief among them being the formation of spiritual lay leaders. The student suffers the Presence that emerges within his meditation upon the content of theology class. In this way, we call him not simply to "work" at study so as to achieve academic "success," but to watch and wait and receive the Presence in study so that he will find rest, a rest that gives birth to wisdom.

The vital prerequisite for allowing the Presence to emerge in teaching is found in the professor's own vulnerability to truth as it personally approaches and claims his heart. Simon Weil noted that truth is her guide, and that even if one were to turn away from Christ in faith and go only "toward truth, one will not go far before falling into His arms."⁷ Professors defend the truth as it is articulated and known in discursive reasoning, but they ought to put no obstacle to it explicitly leading collegians into communion with Christ. More positively they ought to encourage and facilitate such communion. At the end of class, or minimally at the end of each semester of teaching, the professor ought to ask the students: "What aspect of the class ignited a spiritual conversion within you?" Study ought to render the student and professor more vulnerable to the call of personal conversion, not less. Any teaching system or methodology employed ought to be reviewed with this end in mind; has such a method yielded deep personal conversions from intellectual error and sin, and oriented the teacher and student toward communion with Christ within His Church?

In college, such goals can be accomplished by both the professor and student when they enter the discipline of study in order to become weak before the promptings of the Holy Spirit. This way of learning combines the asceticism of precise research with the affection for yielding to interior promptings of the Spirit. In such yielding there is wisdom born of study but not identical to its content. In this kind of approach we are open to a more expansive mind, a mind that welcomes prayer in truth and truth in prayer. From such minds flows the imaginative freedom that signals the birth of lay leadership, a leadership that the church has been waiting for and yearned to see in its fullness since the close of the Second Vatican Council. With such an integrated method of studying theology we might hasten the day when true lay leaders emerge who are dedicated to the transformation of culture. These leaders will be formed with conviction which guides them in thinking, a thinking that is not partisan or simply expedient but filled with a love for God and truth, and familiar with the ways of discernment. Which colleges will turn out true contemplatives eager to enact the truth that was discovered when prayer opened their reason?

Notes

1. Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, Vatican City, September 3, 2008.
2. Gregory La Nave, Through Holiness to Wisdom: The Nature of Theology according to St. Bonaventure (Rome: Istituto storico dei cappuccini, 2005, p. 302).
3. See, Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2005, p.15).
4. Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI, Friday, November 3, 2006, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome.
5. See, Gabriel Bunges, Earthen Vessels: The Practice of Personal Prayer (San Francisco, Ignatius, 2002, p.112).
6. Michael J. Buckley, SJ, Denying and Disclosing God (New Haven: Yale 2004, p.125).
7. Buckley,132.

Deacon James Keating, Ph.D, is a frequent contributor to Envoy Magazine. He is the director of the Institute for Priestly Formation at Creighton University in Omaha. Contact him at [email protected].

© Envoy Institute of Belmont Abbey College

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