Video: A PRAYER TO TRUTH: Dr. Ortiz on education
This Spring, director of the Saint Benedict Institute and Hope College theology professor, Dr. Jared Ortiz gave a lecture for the Lumen Christi Institute at the University of Chicago on "All Things Hold Together: A Great Books Education and the Catholic Tradition.”
Dr. Ortiz discussed his involvement as a University of Chicago student with the Lumen Christi Institute and offered this advice to current students:
"With the exception of a handful of religiously-motivated schools, very few universities will provide such an education. So, it is up to the student to do it through the guidance of sympathetic professors, the wise selection of courses, the reading of select theological literature, and, of course, regular attendance at Lumen Christi events.
But more than this educational dimension, the student who wants such an education must be deeply formed by prayer .... In The Intellectual Life, the Dominican A.G. Sertillanges says, 'Study is a prayer to truth.'
Prayer is a lifting of the heart and mind up to God. Prayer is our source of intimacy with him; it is the disposition of receptivity that we need to hear God speaking to us. Our desk can be an altar and our study a prayer to truth."
One encounter with the wellsprings of truth, discovered in the great texts handed down through the Church, can impact a student for a lifetime. Just as the Lumen Christi Institute had a great impact on Dr. Ortiz during his undergraduate years we, at the Saint Benedict Institute, hope to offer students a way into the great tradition of the Catholic Church.