“It is not a question of being a genius, but of being true.”

Father SPICQ (1901-1992)
Dominican

“What does it mean to teach (in French: enseigner)? According to its etymology, this verb comes from the Latin vernacular insignire which means: to notice, to indicate, to point out, to make evident and to make known.
What should we make evident and make known to our students? The truth in the world as well as in the religious domain. This supposes that we ourselves have encountered it, that we possess it, that we have studied, contemplated, and meditated upon it and that we love it. It is at this price alone that we can communicate it to the children, and let them know and love it. We are at the service of the truth; we are its ministers; before it we should be effaced, and behind it, we disappear. We should give nothing else to our children; to substitute ourselves for it, to look for affection and admiration for ourselves instead of the truth is a profanation of our vocation. We must awaken the children’s minds. For this it suffices to love them and to love to communicate the truth to them. We must simply allow this love to penetrate our intelligence. Only at this point will we be ‘capable,’ according to the words of Fr. Calmel, ‘of communicating a harmonious and creative truth.’ We wish and we ought therefore to give our children, before all else, the desire and the taste for true knowledge, true culture, which is neither erudition, nor dilettantism, but a wisdom, a human and Christian wisdom.”

Mother Anne-Marie SIMOULIN (1928-2014)
Dominican