We are back from Thanksgiving break, and soon we will be away again for Christmas break. Traveling back and forth from Notre Dame to home gives us occasion to reflect on our life at Notre Dame. A (hopefully) loving and simple home can teach us how to bring the same love and simplicity into a campus environment that can be ambitious and chaotic.
What is it all for? It can sometimes be hard for me to find the purpose of my academic work, internships and many miscellaneous responsibilities at school. Not that I am constantly asking existential questions; just that I don’t always see clearly the meaning behind my work here. Worse — sometimes I see a mirage.
It is for me — for my success, my reputation, my comfort. Not that I consciously think this to myself; just that I tend to assume this self-centered perspective. I can hardly blame myself for wanting success, respect and comfort. But the mirage gives way to the truth when I arrive home.
Success and reputation do not matter. My family cares relatively little about my grades, my job, my thesis, my career aspirations, etc. Of course, they ask about it and I share about it, but it is small talk compared to the much bigger talk of Thanksgiving dinner, the Christmas tree, old memories, etc. My “status” in the family is not linked to my ability to perform well in school but to my ability to (at the very least) get along and (at best) to love.
Material comfort matters little. A day at home is made pleasant not so much by material pleasantries as by everyone’s moods and choices to love or not to love. Thanksgiving, despite the feast, can be miserable when the day is rife with conflict. My home is quite comfortable, and I am grateful for that. So, I do not say material comfort does not matter, but that it matters little — at least, less than my professional ambition would like me to believe.
Love matters. Love is the currency of a good home. Love is the delight and the depth of a good home. And love is simple — not a gargantuan effort but a simple movement of the will out of oneself and toward another.
These observations, I take it, are almost as empirical as the fact that any two objects, regardless of how heavy they are, fall at the same rate. But like the latter fact, they can be counterintuitive. They are less obvious than the fact that the sky is blue; they take some experience and reflection to stumble upon. They are also, by the way, some of the best “proofs” I know for Christianity, since Christianity is the religion of love and of personal relationships. I am reminded of the Thomas Merton quote written by my old rector on a whiteboard in Keenan: “In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that changes everything.”
Work is for love — of Christ, of others, of myself. I work to love myself: to educate my mind and heart. I work to love others: to gain skills and so that I can work to help others. I think work in college has an indirectness that makes it difficult to see its purpose. I mean that work in college is work for the sake of work, which is ideally for the sake of love of neighbor. It is hard to see how studying for an exam is a work of love of neighbor; but, indirectly, it just may be, since that knowledge or that grade my grant the ability to work for the betterment of others, to be a “force for good in the world.” I work to love Christ: to understand because truth is good, and in the truth, I encounter Christ.
We are all called to place love at the center of our lives, but — as family also teaches — we can love in different ways. Our love can work as a traditional father loves his family (providing, protecting, correcting, striving), as a traditional mother loves her family (comforting, nourishing, tender, accepting), as a child loves his or her parent (obediently, naturally, dependently) or as siblings love each other (playfully, honestly, ordinarily). We do not need to be sentimental to love deeply, but we do need to be intentional about what moves in and out of our will. We do need to have a deep heart rooted in the infinite expanses of heart of Christ.
May our time and experiences at home breathe simple truths of love into our time at Notre Dame. May our hidden life at home prompt us to be humble, diligent workers for the human family and for the hidden heavenly, rather than (or at least along with) the visible earthly, kingdom. May our love at home urge us to pour love into our work, to take up our education as a work of the resurrection, as Moreau put it, and, through it, to lead others with us to new life in Christ.
Richard Taylor is a senior from St. Louis living in Keenan Hall. He studies physics and also has an interest in theology. He encourages all readers to send reactions, reflections or refutations to rtaylo23@nd.edu.
