Resaluta ad scholam, discupli.

CARAVAGGIO. Narcissus. 1598-99.
Oil on canvas. Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome.

 Welcome back, discipuli. It is hard to return to school. Shakespeare compares it to leaving a loved one, "Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books,. But love from love, toward school with heavy looks."  So why do must we do it? Consider this meditation, and consider the painting.

Here we have Narcissus who, as Ovid tells us, after hunting, "stooped to quench his thirst another thirst increased. While he is drinking he beholds himself reflected in the mirrored pool—and loves; loves an imagined body which contains no substance, for he deems the mirrored shade a thing of life to love. He cannot move, for so he marvels at himself, and lies with countenance unchanged, as if indeed a statue carved of Parian marble." Trying to relate to his own image, he dies there. Tiresias, the seer, prophecies his doom: "If he but fail to recognize himself, a long life he may have, beneath the sun." But Narcissus couldn't tear himself away from himself.

This is why education is so important; it must also draw us out of our own narcissism, which daily surrounds us and presses in on every side. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, video games, Insta, Snapchat, Netflix binges, and all other forms of entertainment often draw us away from God, Neighbor, and Nature.

In the end, school should therefore should promote love of Other Things, particularly the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. God has created a giant universe full of new and beautiful things, and He has created us to be full of wonder. He has not created us to wither our lives away as Narcissus did, enamored with oneself yet starving physically and intellectually.