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Resources

Reading

  • The Idea of a University, Cardinal John Henry Newman
  • Ex Corde Ecclesiae
  • Becoming Beholders: Cultivating Sacramental Imagination and Actions in College Classrooms, edited by Karen Eifler and Thomas Landy
  • Does Basic Research Have Meaning? Remarks from Catholic Mathematician Laurent Lafforgue

Websites and videos

Prayers for use in class/syllabi/exams

Mar Abba:
“Sow, oh Lord, your good teaching within our hearts and let drops of your grace rain upon us that we may grow according to your word, all the days of our lives, Lord of all, forever, amen”

Prayer of St. Thomas More
O Lord, give us a mind that is humble, quiet, peacable, patient, and charitable, and a taste of Your Holy Spirit in all our thoughts, words, and deeds. O Lord, give us a lively faith, a firm hope, a firm charity, a love of You. Take from us all lukewarmness in meditation and all dullness in prayer. Give us fervor and delight in thinking of You, Your grace, and Your tender compassion towards us. Give us, good Lord, the grace to work for the things we pray for. Amen.

A Student’s Prayer by St. Thomas Aquinas
Come, Holy Spirit, Divine Creator, true source of light and fountain of wisdom! Pour forth your brilliance upon my dense intellect, dissipate the darkness which covers me, that of sin and of ignorance. Grant me a penetrating mind to understand, a retentive memory, method and ease in learning, the lucidity to comprehend, and abundant grace in expressing myself. Guide the beginning of my work, direct its progress, and bring it to successful completion. This I ask through Jesus Christ, true God and true man, living and reigning with You and the Father, forever and ever. Amen.

Prayer of St. Albert the Great, patron of scientists
God, source of all life and truth, you inspired St. Albert the Great with a love of you and wonder to understand the natural world through the light of reason. Grant that through his intercession, we may unite faith and reason in our search for the truth. May our study of the natural world lead us to knowledge and love of you and may we wisely apply our knowledge and creativity to design and build structures and processes that glorify you and help us flourish. Grant this through Christ our Lord, Amen.

Excerpt from St. Augustine’s Confessions
My mind is on fire to solve this very intricate enigma. Do not shut the door, Lord my God. Good Father, through Christ I beg you, do not shut the door on my longing to understand these things which are both familiar and obscure. Do not prevent me, Lord, from penetrating them and seeing them illuminated by the light of your mercy. Whom shall I ask about them? And to whom but you shall I more profitably confess my incompetence? You are not irritated by the burning zeal with which I study your scriptures. Grant what I love. For I love, and this love was your gift.

St. Thomas Aquinas’ Prayer Before Study
Ineffable Creator,
Who, from the treasures of your wisdom,
has established three hierarchies of angels,
has arrayed them in marvelous order above the fiery heavens,
and has marshaled the regions of the universe with such artful skill,
You are proclaimed the true font of light and wisdom,
and the primal origin raised high beyond all things.
Pour forth a ray of your brightness
into the darkened places of my mind;
disperse from my soul the twofold darkness
into which I was born: sin and ignorance.
You make eloquent the tongues of infants.
Refine my speech and pour forth upon my lips
the goodness of your blessing.
You make eloquent the tongues of infants.
Refine my speech and pour forth upon my lips
the goodness of your blessing.
Grant to me keenness of mind,
capacity to remember, skill in learning,
subtlety to interpret, and eloquence in speech.
May You guide the beginning of my work,
direct its progress, and bring it to completion.
You who are true God and true Man,
Who live and reign, world without end. Amen.