Relationships at heart of religion and humanity, graduates told

Sydney
27 April 2003

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Relationships at heart of religion and humanity, graduates told

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Relationships at heart of religion and humanity, graduates told

Aquinas Academy religious studies graduation ceremony ... the blessing

The primary domain of religion is the primary domain of humanity: relationships, not rituals, rules and dogmas, says Fr Michael Whelan, director of the Aquinas Academy.

He told a Religious Studies graduating class at the academy that rituals, rules and dogmas were important - in fact, essential - but were not the primary focus of religion.

He said the more aggressive forms of conservatism as found in both politics and religion tended to shift the focus from relationships towards rituals, rules and dogmas.

This produced “reductionist” thinking, “the complex issues of life tend to be reduced to straightforward matters that have simple right/wrong, black/white solutions and answers”, he said.

“Ambiguities are dismissed, confusion and uncertainty mocked.”

Fr Michael told the graduates that if they wanted to be good Christians, faithful followers of Jesus, they should:

• Pay attention to what is going in with themselves in any and all circumstances; be honest, lovingly, but ruthlessly honest with themselves;
• Do something on a regular basis to deepen their relationship with God - learn to pray and pray consistently;
• Engage with the Christian community, participate in the breaking of the bread and sharing of the cup and various other activities;
• Continue to feed their minds with good scholarship and their imagination with good images - submit to the wisdom of the tradition;
• Remember the primacy of relationships - “with God who calls you by name and seeks to love you into freedom, with yourself because you are made in the image and likeness of the infinitely lovable and infinitely good and infinitely true One, with others because you and they share the same origins and destiny, and the world which is the sacrament of God’s liberating love”.

The two-year certificate of religious studies course covers a range of theological disciplines, including Catholic faith and theology, Church and sacraments, Christian ethics, Church in history and society, Jewish scriptures, liturgy, pastoral care and religious education.