It’s a liturgical tradition in the Church, at the beginning of an academic year, to offer a votive Mass to the Holy Spirit, which we offer today.  As we begin another year of study and learning, we call upon God the Holy Spirit to come to our aid and to bless our efforts.

Each year in law school, as you know, is a major commitment – a time of focused attention and discipline.  It’s a time of serious investment of effort and energy and emotion and money – just to buy the books.  And, so we want to ask God to bless our efforts and to help us focus and concentrate and succeed.

It’s right and just to implore the assistance of the Holy Spirit in this endeavor, because He’s the One who comes to our aid with the gifts of wisdom and knowledge and understanding and fortitude.  These gifts are necessary in life, and also in law school, where, hopefully, we are seeking the truth – the truth about the purpose and the value of the law.

The night before He died, Christ spoke to His disciples about the Holy Spirit, whom He would send to assist them.  He said, “The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name – he will teach you everything and remind you of all that [I] told you” (Jn 14:26).  “[W]hen he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth” (Jn 16:13).  The Holy Spirit fulfils this mission in a particular way for the Magisterium of the Church, by guiding it to preserve and interpret properly the Revelation Christ made to the world in the Deposit of Faith.  But, each of us can also call upon the Holy Spirit to work in our lives and in our minds, to help us stay on the narrow path, as we pursue the truth.  We can ask Him to guide our understanding and to give us the fortitude that is necessary to persevere in long-term goals, such as law school.

One way, in particular, that we can ask the Holy Spirit to help us is in the effort to avoid distractions.  The study of law school requires prolonged periods of focused attention, which is always threatened and endangered by distractions.  The liturgical color for Masses of the Holy Spirit is red because the Spirit appeared as tongues of fire at Pentecost (cf. Acts 2:3), and this image of the Holy Spirit teaches us how He can purify us, “like a refiner’s fire” (Mal 3:2).  We can ask the Holy Spirit to bless our efforts by purifying us of all that would distract us from achieving our goals, beginning with the simple goal of completing a reading assignment.  I recently told one of the new students here that I don’t know how I ever would have graduated from law school if I had had a cell phone with constant incoming texts sitting on my desk while I tried to study.  I’m glad I went through law school before that invention arrived.

But distractions can take many forms, including thoughts of how we would rather spend our time.  And it can help to avoid these distractions if we call on the Holy Spirit to purify our minds when we set out to focus and concentrate.  It’s the same for us priests who make a solemn promise at ordination to pray all the hours of the breviary, the Divine Office, every day.  And there’s a short, traditional prayer that’s recommended to help us avoid distraction while we do so: “Lord, open my lips to praise your holy name.  Cleanse my heart of any worthless, evil or distracting thoughts.  Give me the wisdom and love necessary to pray this office with attention, reverence and devotion.  Father, let my prayer be heard in your presence, for it is offered through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

There’s also the recommended spiritual tradition of consecrated study.  Once, when I shared this recommendation, the other person said, “Did you mean concentrated study?”  I said, no, the suggestion is to consecrate our study by conducting it as an offering to God, especially if it might be difficult or unpleasant.  When you sit down to study, you can begin with a prayer, asking God to accept your efforts as a sacrifice that might merit graces for someone in need.  Our study, if intentionally offered to God, can become a spiritual sacrifice pleasing in His sight.  This was the teaching of Vatican II on how the lay faithful can participate in the priestly office of Christ: “For all their works, prayers and apostolic endeavors, their ordinary married and family life, their daily occupations, their physical and mental relaxation, if carried out in the Spirit, and even the hardships of life, if patiently borne – all these become ‘spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ’” (Lumen Gentium, 34).  So, even our study can be consecrated if we offer it to God as a sacrifice.

And, lastly, we can call on the Holy Spirit during law school to help us not lose sight of the forest through the trees.  The trees of law school are the separate courses of study and the rules of law that have to be committed to memory.  But the forest is the great and ultimate purpose of the law, which is, or should be, to lead us to virtue and help order our lives so that we live rightly and move toward the proper end or goal of life.  As you study the law, ask the Holy Spirit to help you not lose sight of the forest, the ultimate goal of our existence, which is eternal life with Him.

So, as we begin this new academic year here at Ave Maria School of Law, we call on the Holy Spirit to bless our efforts, to guide us to truth, to purify us of distractions, and to help us keep our minds on the ultimate goal and purpose of our work, which is to accept His gracious invitation to live with Him forever, and to help others do the same.