Recently I read about a professor who offered what she found to be helpful habits in building up her students. She was quick to affirm them, tell them they are a gift and have a gift to give to others. Students would often tell her that no one ever said that to them and in response, she simply said, “Well, no one may have been listening very close to you.”
It was a concern with the student retention puzzle that motivated her to develop three habits namely:
- To listen more because each person has value and worth
- To believe others more because we should not judge first and ask questions later
- To love more because this is how hearts connect in our daily encounters
She said she came to discover these habits from humble service and the love she found in her church.
I could see the fingerprints of the reading from the Letter to the Thessalonians in the habits that the professor developed. In that reading from Paul, Silvanus and Timothy to the people of Thessalonica, there is a rousing example of support and positive affirmation. The trio thanked the Thessalonians for their faith and said that in their travels they often boasted to other Christian groups about their perseverance and endurance in persecution, also assuring them of continued remembrance in prayer.
The gospel portrays the opposite of support. Jesus roundly reprimands the scribes and Pharisees for using hypocrisy and deceit to fulfill their own plans. They believed in themselves more than they believed in others.
We are commemorating today the Queenship of Mary. Though not a professor, Mary, the mother of Jesus, has certainly been affirming, listening, and loving us since the day God took her under his wings and asked her to give birth to Jesus and together with her son love each one of us for all eternity.
On Saturday, I concelebrated a mass for incoming first year students to the college staffed by my religious congregation. Not entirely certain how I would reference the memorial of the Queenship of Mary, I had my own eureka moment much like the professor I spoke of earlier had hers. My own happened while singing my Alma Mater, "Queen of the Summit," at the end of mass, the summit being the goal of our educational pursuit.
Queen of the summit, light and hope surround you,
Star on the hillside, our anchor, and our stay,
Queen of the summit, in labor and in love,
Watch over us from above; Watch over us in your love.
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