Finding God's Grace in our Every
Day Lives:
Reflections of a High School Teacher
A Celebration of the Life and Work of
Father Lucien Longtin, S.J.
Fr. Lucien Longtin
On August 20th, 2003, the Woodstock
Theological Center and Jeanne and Otto Ruesch hosted a luncheon and
conversation to celebrate the life and work of Father Lucien Longtin,
S.J., who is beginning a new assignment after 33 years as a teacher at
Loyola High School in Baltimore and Gonzaga College High School in
Washington, D.C. Approximately 30 guests were invited, and among
the attendees were officials from Georgetown University and Gonzaga
College High School, Board members and fellows of the Woodstock
Theological Center, former students of Father Longtin, and
representatives of the National Catholic Educational Association.
The event was held in the Suber Room in
the Georgetown Jesuit Community, on the campus of Georgetown University,
and also marked Father Longtin's birthday. The highlight of the
gathering was Father Longtin's presentation on "Finding
God's Grace in our Every Day Lives." His text is preceded by a
welcome from Father Gasper Lo Biondo, S.J., a
prayer by Father James Conroy, S.J., and an
introduction by Ms. Jeanne Weaver Ruesch.
Welcome
by Gasper F. Lo Biondo, S.J.
Director, Woodstock Theological Center, Washington, D.C.
On behalf of Jeanne and Otto Ruesch and the Board and
Fellows of the Woodstock Theological Center, I extend a
Fr. Gasper Lo Biondo
warm welcome to
each of you. Thank you for coming. You represent Gonzaga High School, the
Washington Jesuit Academy, Georgetown University, and the Woodstock
Theological Center.
The idea for this lunch and conversation started with
Jeanne Ruesch. She called and mentioned that she had gotten an insight:
there is a connection between what Lucien has been doing, and Woodstock's
mission of theological reflection - i.e., of reflection on how God's
grace is at work in our lives and world. So here we are to celebrate that!
Our lunch and conversation honors one of today's
outstanding Jesuit high school religion teachers, Father Lucien Longtin,
S.J. as he leaves Gonzaga High School and moves on to become the Director
of the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth in Wernersville, Pennsylvania.
This great Jesuit has spent thirty-three years teaching
adolescent boys how to think clearly about their Faith. With a Masters of
Arts in Religious Education from the Catholic University of America,
Lucien taught for sixteen years at Loyola High School in Baltimore
(1959-1962 and 1967-1980) and for seventeen years here at Gonzaga High
School (1980-1985 and 1991-2003). At both institutions he also served as
Rector of the Jesuit Community.
We honor Lucien as an author as well. His labors are
enshrined in the text book just published by the National Catholic
Education Association, Introduction to Catholic Ethics, co-authored
with Andrew Peach a fellow Gonzaga teacher. Generations to come will reap
the benefits of Lucien's scholarship and pedagogy.
Grace
by James Conroy, S.J.
Rector, Jesuit Community of St.
Aloysius Gonzaga, Washington, D.C.
Let us pray. Gracious God, we thank you for Lucien
Longtin, beloved high school teacher. Bless our food and those through
whose generosity we receive it. And keep us always mindful of those in
need through an appreciation of how your grace is working in our every day
lives. We pray through Christ our Lord.
Introduction
by Jeanne Weaver Ruesch
Ruesch International, Inc., Washington, D.C.
Otto and I would like to join Father Lo Biondo and the
Woodstock Theological Center in welcoming you to this luncheon in honor of
Father Lucien Longtin and his remarkable career as a Classroom Teacher.
Several weeks ago, I mentioned to a number of Gonzaga
graduates - many of whom are in this room - that Otto and I, in
conjunction with Woodstock, were hosting a luncheon for Father Longtin as
he left Gonzaga for a new assignment. After agreeing that his departure
would be a real loss for this remarkable inner-city Jesuit high school, I
mentioned that we wanted to have this luncheon to create a forum to hear
his reflections on teaching - particularly teaching as an opportunity to
find God's grace among teenagers in their daily lives.
Fr. Longtin and Jeanne Ruesch
These brief comments unleashed a set of memories from
each of these former Gonzaga students. I think their thoughts express -
with far more eloquence than I could - the unique gifts Father Longtin
shared with those around him. Their words describe the Lucien Longtin that
his young students saw and the reasons that his reflections can provide
encouragement for us to better understand the way that God works in our
lives.
Our son, Matt, reminded me of the evening he and his
friends stayed up until 3:00 in the morning studying for Father Longtin's
Systematic Theology final. It wasn't unusual that they stayed up until
3:00. Anyone who is the parent of a high school student knows that is
fairly routine. But it is unusual that they spent the hours aggressively
debating with each other the reality of Marx's assertion that religion
is the opiate for the masses.
Chris Lucey - who is here today - talked about
Father Longtin as being one of his three great "teachers" -
not necessarily about classroom content - but about life. According to
Chris, "he was always encouraging us to approach an idea openly and
to form our own opinions, grounded in fact with a thinking mind. I still
try to use that approach in my life today."
Tim Reardon provided another look at Father Longtin's
classroom. "It was filled with energy and activity - there was
always debate. Father Longtin had the compelling ability to teach as an
authority but he always encouraged, permitted and - in fact - demanded
- that his students question his logic and assumptions. He created a
classroom where discussions were lively, the topics varied, and the
lessons not easy. But we always looked forward to his class."
Brendan Hart recalled Father Longtin's ability to
recognize a student in need and offer an accepting heart. "This
demanding, challenging priest was an open, caring teacher. He was a role
model for us on how to be a man for others, how to choose the greater
good."
All of these memories. So who is Father Longtin?
Father Longtin is a teacher who filled his
classes with lively discussion and debate, guided by gentle
encouragement and devotion to his students.
Father Longtin is a great man who gave his
students the courage and the capability to vigorously debate the great
philosophical and religious concepts of our time.
Father Longtin is a Jesuit priest who prepared
these young men for a lifelong journey of learning and spirituality.
Father Longtin is a friend who is witty, devoted,
dedicated, patient and loyal.
Perhaps this brief note provides a summary.
"It is difficult to describe Father Longtin. He
was admired by all of us as one of the most engaging, yet intellectually
challenging teachers at Gonzaga. He instilled in us - his young students
- knowledge presented by the great religious and philosophical minds of
our time. But - it wasn't just the knowledge, he provided the tools
for us to arrive at our own understanding of spirituality. He relished
debate with skeptics - proving himself to us pessimistic teenage boys
by engaging us,
by encouraging us to question - and most
importantly -
by listening to us.
"I know I speak for so many of my classmates, I
will always remember Father Longtin as a teacher in the true sense of the
word: one that not only gives the gift of knowledge - but prepares us to
learn and discover truth throughout our lives. We learned from a gifted
man, a dedicated teacher, a true Catholic and one of the greatest thinking
minds at Gonzaga. How fortunate we were!" -Matthew Ruesch (Class of
'98)
Father Longtin, you have touched their lives in a deep
and most profound way. You guided their journey for the years to come.
They - through you - found God at work in your classroom.
Finding God's Grace in our
Every Day Live
by Lucien Longtin, S.J.
Gonzaga College High School, Washington, D.C.
Unless our thinking has been impeded by some distorted religious
teaching, or an experience of abuse by some religious figure in our lives,
or the trauma of some recent personal tragedy, . you and I have come to
understand that more than the person or persons in the world who love or
have loved us most passionately, most unconditionally, most intimately, God
does love us MORE. Just as we are, we are precious to God's
heart.
God wishes to have communion with us and to have us know that He (God)
is beside us in all of our endeavors, forgiving us wholeheartedly
when we fall into selfishness but repent, and compassionately laboring
with us when we struggle to do good.
We do good, we are good, when we work to transform the world into a
place where peace and justice prevail, and when, with God's help, we
transform our own hearts so that gradually they become dominated by the
instinct to give and to serve . rather than by the impulse to be
self-centered.
Most of us have come to such an understanding and such a conviction
about the world and our place in it, by reason of our encounter with the
wisdom of the Christian tradition. We have experienced that wisdom in good
preaching, in holy religious conversation, in serious prayer, in the
celebrations of our religious tradition, in Catholic or Christian
schooling. Moments of insight have come, then sometimes unpredictably,
sometimes by reason of our practice of regular prayer - each day, a
daily morning offering and a nightly examination of conscience; each week,
a participation in a community celebration of the Eucharist, where we
proclaim with others our shared faith in the core Christian mystery, the
power of Jesus' dying and rising to transform us and our world.
Lately, our church has tried to convince each of us that intimacy with
God is not the solitary preserve of dedicated celibates. It is the
birthright of each of us.
But we have learned that such a birthright requires that all of us
choose to embrace Jesus' cross. If His willingness to pour out His life
for the transformation of the world is to become our willingness to offer
such a sacrifice to our Father, then we, like Him, must bow before the
cross and each day throw ourselves there, upon His Father, for support and
courage, conscious that by ourselves, we are powerless to do what we know
we ought to do and what we want to do.
Adolescents do not come to such understandings quickly. Theirs is an
age for questioning and exploration. Both in a Junior course on Catholic
ethics, but more especially, in a Senior course entitled "Systematic
Theology," which I developed and taught for a number of years, I
tried to give students some tools for reflection about God, about
Christian tradition, and about Christian living. Very briefly, I will try
to explain the approach I took to this project in the Senior course
entitled "Systematic Theology."
In classes conducted in a seminar fashion, emphasis was upon
theological thinking and conversation. Students were graded not on
orthodoxy, but on reasoning, and upon their mastery of the theories -
for and against the Catholic Christian tradition - which we explored
together.
Before we could examine the Catholic Christian tradition critically,
however, there were important preliminary issues to be settled: Are there
objectively correct and incorrect answers in the sphere of religion as
there are in other areas of knowledge, and how do we know? Is there a
necessary connection between reasoning and believing? What is the worth of
each of the generic sources of evidence that can be employed in religious
discussion - personal experience, logic, authoritative tradition,
scientific knowledge - and what are the limits of each of those sources?
Such a great welter of religious viewpoints confront us; why should we not
give up hope of finding correct answers to our religious questions?
The answers to these four questions established parameters and a motive
for engaging in reasonable conversation about religion. It became possible
then to address and to discuss with students some problematic areas to
Christian belief in God which students will face or have already faced,
areas that might be stumbling blocks to faith. Here are most of the issues
we tackled: the question raised by Feuerbach and Freud of whether religion
is a mistaken projection promoted by humanity's cowardly fear of death;
Marx's claim that religion and Christianity are "opium for the
masses" and "pie in the sky" which distract practitioners
from their earthly responsibility to promote social justice; the problem
which evil and human suffering raise for one who believes in an
omnipotent, benevolent deity; the compatibility of the Christian notion of
hell with the concept of a merciful God (for adolescents, a very important
issue), the compatibility of Genesis' story of creation with science's
theories concerning the world's origin and its evolutionary development;
the logical validity of the Trinitarian notion of a monotheistic God,
found in Christian teaching.
If these issues which raise doubts and are roadblocks to belief could
be resolved, then, we could move to a more positive consideration: How do
we learn what is true in the study of God? Do we rely mainly upon Anselm
and Aquinas' method of metaphysical reflection or was Newman correct
when he said that it is through the convergence of existential judgments
about the more likely probabilities that we are led to a conclusive
judgment about major religious questions? If the latter, then we need to
learn more about religious experience and to study the evidence for the
claim that God became human in Jesus of Nazareth. Does that claim with all
that it entails resonate with our instinctual hunger for the true meaning
of life?
The small Christological primer by the Dominican Albert Nolan, Jesus
Before Christianity, which we read together, laid out rather well
the philosophy of Jesus on the central human issues of money, power, and
class. And it allows students to weigh his teachings on the power of
faith, the role of forgiveness, and the call to service, and to think
about whether his final choice to expose Himself to suffering and death
for the sake of others offers us a paradigm to be followed in our own
quest for human integrity.
And if the final reliability of this Jesus-story rests to a major
degree, as St. Paul said, upon the truth of the resurrectional accounts,
then students need to examine those accounts in depth. We studied the
cases for the veracity of the resurrectional story made by theologians
Avery Dulles, Gerald O'Collins, and Hans Kung. What do we make of the
testimonies of the first Christians, martyred for their claims (for
example, the testimony of James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem in
63 A.D., who Josephus tells us was stoned to death by the Jewish leaders
of that city in 63 A.D.) and what do we make of the rapid spread of
Christian faith during the first three centuries despite repeated
persecution, three million persons converted to Christianity by the year
300 A.D. ? Do these facts not point to the reality of the resurrectional
story?
Perhaps, more than the credibility of Jesus, for most students the
credibility of the Church is at issue. What does the Bible tell us about
the significance of Jesus' manifest desire that His followers form and
participate in a community that worships together, that carries on His
ideals, that has some structure of authority, and what does our own
experience of our sinfulness tell us about the need for patience with the
Church?
Finally, if one decides to commit oneself to Jesus' philosophy and
discipleship, may the disciple not wonder whether this is not all TOO GOOD
to be true? How can Jesus be both truly God and truly human? How can it be
said that one who is equal with the infinite, all-knowing Father
experienced what it is to be limited as we humans are God? How much
will we say that the baby Jesus knew? Did God in Jesus really
experience what it is to be limited and bear the cross of ignorance and
powerlessness that we must take up? Resolving this dilemma is very
important if one is to appreciate the wonder of God's love for the world
.This question of Jesus' identity was the final issue we explored.
If students see that the weight of evidence in this inquiry favors the
conclusion that God is NOT an illusory projection of our own need for
assurance, and that His way is not punitive but wholly and wildly loving,
and that the story of His descent into our human condition is true, then
they may begin to understand, as we do, that the principal task of life is
to join a community of believers in the struggle against evil, hatred and
injustice, under the banner of Christ's cross, and that by so doing they
will demonstrate to others the real presence of God's love in the world
.
By course's end, most students have achieved a fair comprehension of
the issues connected with Christian religion and have acquired some sense
of how to think about them honestly. Even if they do not fully master all
the questions and theories and come to the right answers, they come away,
I think, with some sense that the Christian tradition is not foolish, and
that there is a depth to it that they may someday want to study further. I
feel rather confident therefore that like the birds in the movie
"Winged Migration," most of them will choose to ."fly
south"1. again in a personal quest for their soul's
true haven.
1 The principal text supplied for
the course is entitled FLYING SOUTH.
Closing Remarks
by Gasper F. Lo Biondo, S.J.
Guests enjoying Fr. Longtin's presentation
You may have been wondering why Jeanne and Otto Ruesch
and the Woodstock Theological Center would be interested in honoring
Lucien Longtin. At first, you probably were thinking that it was because
he's one of my best friends! That is, until you heard his students'
stories from Jeanne, and Lucien's own reflections.
Lucien has been teaching the boys how to do theological reflection
because he has been giving them the tools to discover for themselves how
to use their powers of reasoning to find God's Grace working in their
own every day lives! It's as simple as that.
Lucien, may the love of God that has inflamed your heart and enlightened
your mind continue to shine for all those whom you will be serving for
years to come.
Thanks be to God for this lunch and conversation. God bless Jeanne and
Otto Ruesch! And Lucien, God bless YOU!
