18.06.2022, Catholic News
Ms. Dora Goda, a graduate of our five-year Master of Sacred Theology program who came to the ITI from Hungary right after high school, was chosen by her fellow graduates to deliver a speech at the commencement ceremony on behalf of the graduating class of 2022.
Having studied the original texts of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, intensely, Ms. Goda skillfully implemented the famous pedagogical method of the ITI, addressing the graduation assembly with a composed Summa article that unfolded an essential question in the life of our graduates: Whether ITI graduates are destined to fail?
In the respondeo (“I answer”), that is, the main part of the question, she discussed three aspects of failure, which, according to her, occur at some point in each person’s life: failure in the eyes of the world, failure in the eyes of fellow believers, and failure in one’s own eyes. Presenting these possible forms of failure in human life, Ms. Goda still argues that, On the contrary,: “Failing in the first or the second way might be the means specifically chosen by God by which we participate in His life more fully - even if it remains hidden to our eyes until the end of time. Moreover, by this we are reminded that we are first and foremost loved by Him, and only in the total receptivity to His Love are we made capable to give our Fiat. Only by first being loved by Him we can love with His love. And in this way, even the first or the second type of failure can properly be regarded as success. For it does not matter what we do: if it does not flow from the love of Christ, it will not bear fruit. On the other hand, everything—regardless of any circumstance or situation, even the smallest acts which are regarded as a failure in the eyes of the world—if done with Love will be fruitful. It may not necessarily be successful, but fruitful!”
Ms. Dora closed her speech with an appeal to all the graduates not to give in to worry and the fear of failure that might occur in their lives, but instead to ‘open wide the doors for Christ’ to let Him enter their lives, for then their lives and deeds will definitely flourish and bear much fruit.