I teach theology at Villanova University. At the start of every semester, I distribute a survey to my students, hoping to learn a bit more about them. On the survey is a question that asks students about they want to cover in the class, e.g., Write down your hopes for this course (include here topics / questions you hope this class will address). Common responses include “learn more about my faith,” “learn more about the history of Catholicism,” “learn about the relationship between faith and science.” Invariably, there is at least one student in every class who mentions a hope that what the course covers will mean something in the “real world” or “to my life” or “to the world today.”
I appreciate this desire for relevance. At the same time, the frequency with which students express this desire for relevance leads me to wonder about the degree to which they have encountered theology that is relevant before stepping into my classroom. I suspect that this appeal for relevance reflects experiences with (or stereotypes of) theology that might best be characterized as dry or boring. I wonder what makes sacramental theology relevant “to the world of today,” at least in the eyes of the undergraduates I teach.
Recently, one of my classes read Desiderio Desideravi, the 2022 document from Pope Francis on liturgical formation. A student drew attention to paragraph 13, which holds that “God created water precisely with Baptism in mind.” We discussed what that claim might mean for the goodness of creation, the goodness of matter. If, in God’s view, all water is or should in principle be suitable for Baptism, what does that imply for Christian behavior with respect to water in its natural settings? If one would not want to be baptized in water that has a film of sludge on its surface, should one tolerate water with sludge on it in a lake or river?
College might be just the right time for rising generations to engage this kind of thinking about the sacramental symbolism of water. Still, given the number of students who regularly ask for relevance, I wonder what is happening in sacramental education before college.