You have opportunities to spread the message of God’s love and God’s justice. But you have to have something to say, and in more than just a “meme.”

Dennis Holtschneider, C.M., recently took the opportunity to address the graduates of Shimer College, a small mid-western institution that “provides and preserves education centered on discussion of enduring questions and issues.” He said, in part

No, I have come to believe there is nothing inevitable about justice – either in the public sphere or within highly educated, individual lives. The world morally advances. The world backtracks. Individuals emerge of great courage and wisdom, while others would lead us to the lowest common denominator for their own political or financial gain.

And yet, I assume you’ve noticed two great questions laced through everything you’ve read and discussed here at Shimer: “What constitutes a well-lived life?” and “How will we live together on this shared earth?” The personal question and the communitarian one.

Every great novel considers one or both of these questions. You see the drama of those questions as you read history. You hear it in the observations of psychology and sociology. It’s in the honest assessments of art and poetry, and the aspirations of philosophy and the world’s religions. Our institutions of business, trade, education policy, social development, and more, all rise and fall on our answers to those two questions. I dare say, in nearly every book you read and discussed together, you discussed the well-lived life or the rightly ordered society, or both. I wonder, though: After all this, are you committed to those two questions going forward?

Feed your spirit with great literature. Don’t live only on Facebook or on .famvin! Prepare yourself to spread the message so you will have something to say.

Dennis H. Holtschneider, CM, is the president of DePaul University, the nation’s largest Catholic university and the largest private university in the Midwest, and chairman of Ascension, the nation’s largest Catholic and non-profit health system.

Read the entire address at the source: Shimer College web site.