"The University is the place where culture becomes a service to man"

Since its inception, the University has always proposed to place the person at the center of all its activities, aware that they are performing a service to the public good and the common good.

This principle is so important that it is present in all the fundamental documents, from the Statute, where it is recalled that every activity draws its foundation and inspiration from the Charter of Purposes (see Statute UCBM, art. 1.2), initiatives are offered to students, teaching staff, researchers and staff aimed at ensuring the integral formation of the person (cf. Statute UCBM, art. 6.1); and in the Charter of Purposes itself which recalls how everything must be oriented in order to achieve a service to the person, the family and society (cf. Charter of Purposes, n. 1).

We find an echo of all this in the speech that the Prelate of the Work made here on the Campus on 3 October 2018 on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the University (he said on that occasion the University is a place where culture becomes a service to man and not a pretext for self-affirmation or exercise of power.); but also in the recent speech that Pope Francis addressed to the members of the Max Planck Society, in which he warned against a certain thought that is spreading in the ambit of the great science of "a principle of "technical" responsibility, which does not admit the moral judgment of what is good and bad. Action should be evaluated in purely functional terms, as if everything that is possible were, for that very reason, ethically licit" (Address to a delegation of the Max Planck Society, February 23, 2023).

Also in that speech, the Holy Father recalled how the position of the Church, and therefore Christian, was instead that of feeling the responsibility of taking care of the other, and not only giving an account of what has been done, "because you are responsible not only for what you do, but also and above all for what you don't do, even though you can do it".

Recalling these principles in which we recognize ourselves does not mean that we have always succeeded, aware that we all have limits, which we must try to overcome, correcting each other and learning to apologize when we are wrong.

At the centre, therefore, is the person, towards whom we are called to live the spirit of service and to take care of many little things in our daily actions. And we're not just talking about the sick, the students, but all those who - whatever their function - work alongside us. The people who pass through the Campus, those who will leave their jobs here to go to work elsewhere or because they will retire, will not remember this place because everything worked well, they must remember it for the way they were treated, for the attention that they have received as a person for the availability they have always found in the other.

Even in the workplace, life is made up of little things, in which we exercise Jesus' commandment of love: to love one's neighbor. One of the most quoted parables is that of the prodigal son, or as it is also called of the two sons. We know her, but perhaps we have not caught a detail in both meetings with the two children the Gospel says that the father "went out to meet them". He was the father and had been in a certain sense abandoned by one son, challenged by the other, yet it is he who comes out to meet! It is the great teaching of this Gospel passage. It is a message for us; when a sick person or a student needs us, when a colleague looks for me or asks me for something, what is my attitude? Do I convey haste, do I give the impression that my things at that moment are more important than his? Many people have reported that when they had to go and ask St. Josemaría something while he was working at his desk, he would stop and give that person his full attention, as if he had nothing else to do, then as he went out and closed the door he saw that he had plunged back into his papers. Of course it is holiness, it is attention to the person, but it is also love for that person.

Daily life is made up of little things which, if taken care of, can change the working atmosphere. A smile (St. Josemaría said in the Way n.173: That well-found word, the joke that didn't come out of your mouth; the amiable smile for the one who bores you; that silence in the face of an unjust accusation; the benevolent conversation with the annoyances and importuners; that not giving importance, on a daily basis, to the thousand annoying and impertinent details of the people who live with you... All this, with perseverance, is really solid inner mortification.), a stop to listen, always give some answer – interlocutory or even negative if there are no others, but politely-; they are just some attitudes that can be taken care of more.

Of course these are things that always apply, even at home with the people we live with. We must remember that when we speak of formation we cannot think only of the students; our whole life is a journey – of holiness for those who have faith, of improvement as a human being for everyone – that we travel together with others. This is why we speak of the university community, because there is a bond that unites and which must lead everyone to feel responsible towards the others.

Return to the Pope's words: the University is a place where culture becomes a service to man and not a pretext for self-affirmation or exercise of power. The university is a place where everyone lives at the service of others, where the other is not a "medium", but a person, with a first and last name, with his or her own story, with affections and feelings, a person who – the Bible teaches us - it is made in the image and likeness of God; for this Jesus comes to say, when he speaks of the works of mercy (see Mt, 25, 45) whatever you did to just one of these younger brothers of mine, you did to me (small not of age but because they are in need and we are all in need of something).

We entrust this 30th academic year of the University to Our Lady. She, ancilla dominios, it remains for us the example of how one puts oneself at the service of others, of a project. We ask that the progress of the university always go hand in hand with the human and spiritual progress of those who work there.