Retiring UNDA Professor reminds graduates of centrality of Christ in daily work.
By Anthony Barich
Jesus Christ can elevate work through the Holy Spirit’s “sanctifying energy” if it is asked for, Prof. Peter Black told mid-year graduates of University of Notre Dame Australia’s Fremantle campus on July 26.
Prof. Black, a Perth diocesan priest and recently retired Dean of Philosophy and Theology at UNDA Fremantle, said in his homily during the graduation of over 280 students at the Catholic university that Christ’s act of feeding over 5000 with five barley loaves and two fish proves His ability, compassion and willingness to help if called upon, even today.
As crowds had followed Jesus all day in the Gospel reading, listening to his teachings and hoping for healings, they became hungry as the day wore on, Prof. Black said, and out of compassion Jesus fed them. But this miraculous feeding is really a sign of greater miracles He can perform for them – satisfying their deeper hungers.
Prof. Black paralleled this with Trappist author Thomas Merton’s suggestion that professional expertise and academic degrees can be mistakenly substituted for the “full meal” of education – namely the “cultivation of a certain type of person, the formation of a particular character, the schooling of a right attitude so the student sees self, others, life and God in a particular light”.
“The light Merton suggests is a passion for knowledge and goodness and a heart open to service and compassion,” Prof. Black said during the graduation Mass prior to the graduation ceremony.
He said the graduates would have, throughout their rigorous studies, doubted themselves, yet persisted and succeeded through UNDA’s belief in what the early Greek theologians of the Church called ‘energeia hagiastike’ – sanctifying energy.
“In other words, the Holy Spirit of God is at work within us and our university community,” Prof. Black said, adding that the University Cross each graduate was presented with was a concrete reminder of the “deepest realities” they touched during their time at UNDA – “especially the mysterious hand of the Lord at work in the journey you have just completed and the adventure you are about to start”.
He urged the graduates to ask for help if they doubt their ability to overcome future challenges, “then have faith and believe that Christ can work with the little we bring, even with our limitations and apprehensions, and turn our efforts not only into sufficiency for the day but abundance for the future”.
UNDA Vice Chancellor Prof. Celia Hammond said that Prof. Black’s homily “gave a profound significance to the occasion because it made Christ present today in their achievements”.