Go forth and set the world of (ignorance) on fire
Let us take a moment and do time travel into the past: Look back and recollect your dream when you came to Loyola two years ago and think of your studies and formation received in Loyola College of Education. Recollect the areas of enlightenment and growth. Think of winning so many friends and making so many useful contacts for profession and life. And also look into the future: What is your goal now? Is it different from the dream which brought you to Loyola? Is there any continuity? If so, good, if not, all the more better – For you are launching upon a different route – It might be a road less travelled but with confidence begin. May it bring you to your destination with fulness of life.
Jesuit education, by now you might agree, is formation. Formation of Head, Heart, and Hand. It is said: A person’s most valuable asset is not a brain loaded with knowledge. But a heart full of love, with an ear open to listen, and a hand willing to help others, especially the needy.
After getting holistic formation in Loyola, today we repeat the words of St Ignatius of Loyola, ite inflammate omnia, that is, go forth and set the world (of ignorance) on fire (of knowledge and compassion). Buddha said two millennia ago: “The Mind knows no answers – The heart knows no questions”. You, henceforth, follow your heart. The heart may be at the left but what it says is always right. Listen to your inner voice: when you are alone and when you feel lonely, left out or helpless, just listen to your heart, get in touch with your predominant feeling, and draw direction and strength from your inner self. Then, you would be on the right path.
As you leave the portals of Loyola Campus, you go with a degree. It is a proof of your picking up teaching skills and it is a license that you could teach on your own. And now you are stepping back into the world again. You came in two years ago, as students, and today you step out as teachers. We salute you and pay our respect to you, the future teachers. But then we want to give you a caution as well: As you merge with the currents in the world, are you going to be washed away in the current of the world or are you going to swim upstream? Only dead fish will float along the current of the river but live fish would face the upstream as they have the courage, confidence, direction, and purpose. We believe that the values you have imbibed here would help you swim upstream as well as make you fly high against any wind or storm in the world, provided your convictions are clear and meaningful to yourself and to others. Just think of one value that is most precious for you in the world, such as fairness, honesty, friendship, compassion, any one. This value would be the rudder to steer you through in life. You have seen the little rudder in a big boat, but it steers the boat altogether. And your value is that life-rudder in your life-stream. Whenever you face, in your profession, the dilemma of success or values, choose values. Success is temporary but values are permanent. Other-centered values would help you surf any storm in life.
Remember education has no end. You could never sit back and say, “I have learnt everything”. Be a professional learner in heart and mind, even though your title would be ‘teacher’. Be convinced that education will be your father and mother, even after your parents leave you for their eternal reward. And the values you have ingested and the skills you have picked up in Loyola College of Education would see you through rain or shine.
You are jumping into a world that thinks of profit and power. But we want you to give more importance to people – Put people before profit; and service before power. Your profession may push you into competition. But you have the choice whether to compete with others or with yourself. When you compete with others, if they happen to outsmart you, you might feel jealous or depressed. But when you find someone better than you, learn from him or her what makes that person perform better than you. I shall give you another tip to be free from disappointment in comparison. Instead of comparing yourself with others, you compare yourself with yourself. Try to do everything better than the previous time. That way, you would live the dynamism of Jesuit education, namely magis, to do ever more and ever better.
As you leave LCE, you are taking a part of LCE with you! And you would be the face and ambassador of this great institution. You have heard hundreds of times: Let your light shine. It is time now that your values and your personality would shed light on the world. Let the light of your education with enlightenment set the world on fire; let it burn to ashes ignorance, inequality, injustice in the world. Let your light of love and compassion enlighten and enliven the rest of the world for the better. You are the fountain and foundation of a new world of unity and harmony. The new world begins with you.
Keep alive the spirit of learning. One of the effective ways is to keep reading. Reading should lead you to doing. Know more and more, whether through newspapers, or media, or books, and make your knowledge application-oriented. This would help you face any situation. When you face a problem try to be calm as clam and not to be calm before storm. Keep the inner peace and be happy always. And radiate your peace and joy to everyone you come across in your life. As a teacher treat all your students alike and equally: Help them to move from poverty to prosperity; lead them from feeling diffident to becoming confident of living; and make them leaders with social responsibility.
Your alma mater is proud of you. All the best in your life. Come back to LCE and tell the future students about your life – the challenges and successes you have faced and achieved. Motivate them and inspire them. All the best always.
Francis P Xavier SJ
28May2022