The Proof: 30 years, 30 Days, 30 Stories. Day 9 out of 30

Holy Cross on one winter day, the bell tower of O'Kane Hall.  

The email popped up on my Holy Cross Groupwise account one overcast winter day in Worcester. “To all philosophy majors:” it read, “This year’s Markham Prize philosophy contest topic is the existence of God.” The Markham prize was given out every year for the best essay on a chosen topic, it carried with it a nifty medal, and a cash prize.

Convinced of my own magnificence in the field of philosophy I began to sketch out my argument. I remember sitting in the old philosophy seminar room on the upper floors of O’Kane Hall sketching out my argument during a particularly boring seminar, and in one moment I found what I wanted to say. There on top of a large oak table I sat scribbling on a legal pad as the pale light of an overcast day spilled in through the gabled window. I got home to my room in Lehigh Hall and began to type, and type, and type. I spent all night on it, and I remember sitting at my desk, which faced the window and from which you could see the chapel, as the sun rose over the other side of the hill and lit up the cross on top of the chapel, turning it a bright gold.

            I had done it. I was convinced that I had proven, in a new way, the existence of God. I sat there and soaked it all in. I thought to myself… I am just that good. I followed the contest rules, put a fake name on the cover (I think I even had the audacity to take the pseudonym Neo-Thomas, as in the new Thomas Aquinas) and submitted the essay. Then I waited, and waited, and waited.

The group in Mexico on the day off that we had, we were all
so young.. (I am third from the left standing)
Photo Courtesy of Laura Peynado's facebook page.

            At the same time, I was applying for the Mexico program that Holy Cross had for that following summer. I t was two weeks in the south of Mexico going from one little village to another, spending time among the poor and listening to their stories. I was all set to go, but the problem was that it cost $1400, and I had fundraised nothing. The truth was that I found it hard to approach people to ask for money. We had always been raised to be self-reliant in my family, you do our best to make your way and only if you absolutely have to, you turn to immediate family, and only to immediate family. There is value in having that sort of work ethic, it has been the source of a great deal of good in my life, but it can also be a temptation. That kind of thinking can also sometimes lead us to a place of arrogance, to a place where one feels that they can always make their own way on their own. I was definitely there. I would make my own way, I would find my own way to go on this trip, I didn’t even want to ask my parents for money. It very well could have meant that in the end I wouldn’t have been able to go on the trip, but then grace intervened.

            With three days to go before the deadline to get money in for the trip to Mexico, I went to my mailbox in the student center. I went down the small back hallway where my mailbox was, put in the code, and saw a letter sitting there that had come through campus post. It was from the Dean. I had never received a letter from the dean before. In truth I had never had reason to hear from the Dean. I had always done all of my work, passed all of my exams, maintained a good GPA, why now? With some fear, I opened the letter. “Dear Michael,” it read, “Congratulations, I am pleased to inform you that…” I had almost forgotten about the contest, I was so nervous about not being able to pay for the Mexico trip. The letter continued to tell me that I had won, and that there would be an awards ceremony in a week’s time. The first words out of my mouth were the first words of the Benedictus. I am not being super sappy here, that is true. I had been using the office for prayer for a long time at that point and “Blessed be the Lord” was the first thing to come out of my mouth. I ran down to the philosophy department, where the secretary told me, “You know that you just won $2000 right?” Relief flooded over me, I had the money to pay to go to Mexico on our immersion trip, and everything was going to be ok.

            Almost as quickly a new pride swept over me, I was all too quick to say publicly that I had proven God’s existence, which in fact I didn’t. My proof wasn’t that great, it was just better than the other ones that the committee read. After I put it down and read it years later I have actually become ashamed of it a little, and looking at it I am humbled by the folly of my own pride. What happened? I went to Mexico.

Fording a river in Mexico...while in the back of a truck. 

            The irony of that essay was that the prize that I won for writing it provided me with the money to go to a place and be among a people who, in ways both joyful and sorrowful, rendered my answers useless. One of the great joys of finding faith, of finding God, is that we feel like we have found the pearl of great price.  When we arrive in that new place we feel like we have gained no small measure of wisdom for having done that, and that is true. The problem becomes when we use that pride, knowledge, and wisdom the way that the Pharisees did. Our words become weapons rather than invitations; our words become judgments rather than proclamations. Mine certainly did for a long time. The question always has to be one of whether we find ourselves humbled enough by our knowledge of the scriptures and traditions of the Church to let them be things which help people experience the love of God or whether we are made foolishly proud by what is a only really ever a miniscule knowledge of the divine.

            The truth is that my pride became its own undoing, and that is something that can only be attributed to grace. I thought I knew the answers, I thought that I could give reasons to an unbelieving world. That is why I wrote that essay, but in the prize I received I found questions which I struggle with to this very day. In front of the face of the poor and suffering the pride of my own answers faded, and the fidelity and love of God that I encountered in so many who had so little made me begin to want to know who this person was more and more, not in the context of a book, but in the context of relationship. As the Benedictus says, in that moment I was set free. 


By the way, to further illustrate the point above, here is a link to that essay.