Abstract
There are four steps in this concluding chapter. First, key aspects of what is meant by consecrating oneself to learning are delineated. Central here are truth-seeking through research and scholarship and truth-sharing through teaching, mentoring and publications. Part two draws on two examples, the philosopher Edith Stein and the fictional scholar, Augustin Méridier, in order to illustrate what is meant by consecrating oneself to learning. Part three summarises the principal qualities that allow one to consecrating oneself to teaching. Part four offers some observations about what commitment to Christian scholarship entails.
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Notes
- 1.
These loves are linked: ‘The greatest good that one can do to his neighbour is lead him to the truth.’ Thomas Aquinas (precise source not known); quoted by James V. Schall, Docilitas (South Bend, IN: St Augustine’s Press, 2016), p. 110.
- 2.
The Ministry of the Printed Word, edited by John Broadley and Peter Phillips (Downside Abbey Press, Stratton-on-the-Fosse, UK: Downside Abbey Press), p. 20.
- 3.
Mike Higton , A Theology of Higher Education (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 160.
- 4.
Jaroslav Pelikan , The Idea of the University. A Reexamination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 55.
- 5.
Ibid., p. 51.
- 6.
Romans 12: 1–2.
- 7.
Recently canonized as St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
- 8.
De Rus provides extensive quotations from a talk given in 1930 by Edith Stein at a conference on the role of intellectuals in society. In this paragraph I have summarised points made by Stein . De Rus, Intériorité de la personne et education chez Edith Stein (Paris: Cerf, 2006), pp. 175–176.
- 9.
Ibid., p. 177. De Rus comments, ‘There can be no apostle without a deep interior life, that is, a life of prayer .… It is in his union with God that the educator will find the strength to sanctify his own work.’ Ibid.
- 10.
De Rus acknowledges that, for Stein , the work of education can be a form of worship rendered to God and offered in service of the human community. Ibid., p. 178.
- 11.
Joseph Malègue , Augustin ou le maitre est là (Paris: Spes, 1933 & Cerf, 2014).
- 12.
Victor Brombert , The Intellectual Hero (London: Faber and Faber, 1962), p. 225.
- 13.
Friedrich von Hügel (1852–1925); Maurice Blondel (1861–1949). Malègue acknowledged that Blondel was a major influence on his depiction of the qualities needed to bring scholarship and faith into harmony. Both Blondel and von Hügel have exerted an enduring and inspiring influence on my own sense of vocation as a Christian scholar.
- 14.
John Henry Newman , ‘The Rise and Progress of Universities’ in Historical Sketches III (London, 1909), p. 16.
- 15.
Stephen Rowland, ‘Collegiality and Intellectual Love’ British Journal of Sociology of Education 29 (3), 2008, pp. 353–360.
- 16.
Ibid., p. 354.
- 17.
Maurice Blondel , Carnets Intimes, II (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1966), p. 171.
- 18.
Yvette Périco, Prier 15 Jours Avec Maurice Blondel (Domaine d’Arny, Bruyères-le-Châtel: Nouvelle Cité, 2016), p. 47.
- 19.
Maurice Blondel , in a letter to his friend Laberthonnière, quoted in Blondel-Wehrlé Correspondance (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1969), p. 395, n.1.
- 20.
Dorothy Sayers, quoted by Janice B. Brown, ‘Unpopular Opinions: Dorothy L. Sayers on Education’ in Faith, Freedom, and Higher Education, edited by P. C. Kemeny (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013), p. 127.
- 21.
Christopher Shannon, ‘After Monographs’ in Confessing History, edited by John Fea, Jay Green , and Eric Miller (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), p. 168.
- 22.
Ibid., p. 176.
- 23.
Ibid., p. 177.
- 24.
Robert Tracy McKenzie, ‘Don’t Forget the Church: Reflections on the Forgotten Dimension of our Dual Calling’ in Confessing History, p. 282.
- 25.
Ibid., p. 287.
- 26.
Ibid., p. 290.
- 27.
Ibid., pp. 291–295.
- 28.
‘The Intelligence in the Service of the King’ in A Gilson Reader edited, with an introduction, by Anton C. Pegis (New York: Image Books, Doubleday, 1957), pp. 40–41.
- 29.
Kevin E. O’Reilly , ‘University Education Construed in the Light of Faith’, New Blackfriars, Vol. 98, No. 1076, July 2017, pp. 373–386.
- 30.
Ibid., pp. 375–376; 379.
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Sullivan, J. (2018). The Consecration of Learning. In: The Christian Academic in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69629-4_12
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