work always for balance - closing remarks, convocation 2013

I would like to emphasize two things in these closing remarks.  First, there is a need to balance things and in the seminary program this is helped by identifying the different dimensions of formation which are CASA and the activities that fall underneath each dimension.  This balance is further made practicable by our schedule – there is a time for the activities falling under spiritual life, there is a time for academic life, for activities falling under apostolic life and there is a time for community life.  The dimensions establish balance and the daily schedule makes this balance concrete.  Individuals in our community become sick when they lose balance.  Our community becomes sick when a large part of individuals in our community loses their balance.  When you spend the whole night until the wee hours of the morning doing an assignment, and in the process miss your prayers in the morning or spend most of it asleep, then you lose balance.  When several in the community do this frequently then the community loses also its balance and it becomes sick in the process.  In oriental medicine sickness is not primarily infections and viruses; it is losing balance and healing is restoring balance.

I believe this is one implication we can glean from the paper presented by Sir Jess this morning.  In fact this is not just paper for Sir Jess.  It is his life and subject matter as well.  Being our computer teacher he is tech savvy who knows the inner workings of a computer and being our TLE teacher he teaches you gardening and how to dress a chicken.  As a priest balance is important.  In electing an abbot the monks have a saying as to who should be elected ne numis sapiens, ne nimis sanctus, et ne nimis sanus - not too wise, not too holy, and not too healthy.

Second point, we need to recover the manual, we need to recover this even in penmanship and the techniques of note taking, we need to recover dexterity in the hand including rosary making which Sir Jess is teaching you, and also in the arts which Sir Pogi is teaching you.  Manual dexterity and practical skills are important in learning especially in boys and men.  in fact this is one advantage of having an all boys schools over a coed.  Boys tend to learn more with hands on projects, experiments, games and even by just moving around.

This paper by Sir Jess is an encouragement to us to rethink our methods and ways of doing things so that we can produce not just good and godly men in the future  but above all good priests.