A matter of Degrees-Called to be Saints

When I was age three and taking a much needed break from my Latin/Irish lessons from my teacher/seanmháthair [Grandmother I would never use the informal term grandma máthair mhór (maw her aWOR), and máthair Chríona (MAW her KHREE un na). These literally mean "old mother", "great mother" and "mother of the heart."] I would run outside and stand on the hill and call out to passers by " My name is Denis O’Callghan, what is your nomenclature?. Education was what I was raised for and expected to become, Educated!

We never practiced the vernacular (the everyday language of people around us). I had to learn a new word to add to my vocabulary each day, I learned to love this exercise and to this day I still love to learn words, as you may have already guessed, I became a logophile ( a lover of words) at a very early age. William F. Buckley was one of my favorites to listen and learn. He would speak so that you would need a dictionary at your side just to understand his turn of a phrase. "A good debater is not necessarily an effective vote-getter: you can find a hole in your opponent's argument through which you could drive a coach and four ringing jingle bells all the way, and thrill at the crystallization of a truth wrung out from a bloody dialogue - which, however, may warm only you and your muse, while the smiling paradoxist ( one who uses reasoning that begs the question ) has in the meantime made votes by the tens of thousands."

And as a result I became educated at an early age and continued on to learn throughout my life. Occasionally I am confronted by two different types of people. There are those who enquire how I became one of the scholarly academia to those I try to give a reasonable answer. Then of course we have to deal with the opposite group of individuals who make light of the educated and attempt to challenge education. We call them mumpsimus. Those who hold views stubbornly held in spite of clear evidence that it's wrong. Those are the ones who try the patience of Job and remind us. " And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; (2 Timothy 2:24-25)

Men should strive to learn as much as they are able and if a degree becomes your goal then that is well and good. But It is my belief that the degree we should all strive after comes not after ones name but in front. That is SAINT and that is the degree that God seeks for all of His children.