WEBVTT 00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:18.275 We are honored today to award Arthur Brooks this honoris causa degree and to invite him to say a few words as our main speaker today. 00:00:18.655 --> 00:00:19.875 Thank you, father John. 00:00:20.095 --> 00:00:20.835 Thank you. 00:00:21.295 --> 00:00:30.140 Thank you so much, president, father Sikorsky, bishop Burbich, bishop Laverde, faculty, staff, trustees, families, and especially graduates. 00:00:31.160 --> 00:00:37.100 I'm so grateful to you for inviting me here today to speak to you and and and to receive this honorary degree. 00:00:38.005 --> 00:00:41.145 This is something I've been looking forward to because this is a special community. 00:00:41.925 --> 00:00:59.090 Congratulations on your achievement, of course, but even more on the work that you're about to do, that beautiful homily by Bishop Berbich talking about the opportunity to lift up other people in need, the the privilege of being able to do so with the expertise that you've gained. 00:00:59.630 --> 00:01:04.210 It's now needed more than at any other time, in my lifetime at least. 00:01:04.525 --> 00:01:09.985 I don't have to tell you about the, you know, grim statistics about mental health in America or the world. 00:01:10.365 --> 00:01:11.905 A lot of people are in pain. 00:01:12.045 --> 00:01:17.025 And that's what you will be seeking to address with your first class training at DMU. 00:01:17.850 --> 00:01:26.350 But you're also equipped with more than just competence and psychological science, also with the cross and gospel of Jesus Christ. 00:01:27.450 --> 00:01:28.670 Of course, you know this. 00:01:29.610 --> 00:01:35.135 But here's my question, really my challenge for the graduates today, but really for all of us. 00:01:35.135 --> 00:01:47.315 How do you see yourselves not just as Catholic professionals helping Catholic people, but rather using your expertise, how can you be missionaries in a secular society? 00:01:48.100 --> 00:01:57.080 How can you use what you're excellent at and what the world admires you for and the skills that you've gained to lift people up and take them to heaven? 00:01:57.860 --> 00:01:59.000 How does that work? 00:02:00.435 --> 00:02:05.235 Well, the truth of the matter is that you're some of the best people to do exactly that. 00:02:05.235 --> 00:02:05.735 Why? 00:02:06.355 --> 00:02:12.455 The con con celebrants of the mass, they're our, as Catholics, they're our uniformed military. 00:02:14.035 --> 00:02:15.015 We're the spies. 00:02:16.890 --> 00:02:18.270 We're the secret agents. 00:02:18.890 --> 00:02:25.230 We can do a lot because nobody's paying attention when we're talking about the faith and lifting them up. 00:02:25.770 --> 00:02:32.645 So what I wanna do in just ten or twelve minutes, because they didn't give me an hour, you're we'll all be pleased to know. 00:02:34.225 --> 00:02:36.305 How do I do it and how can you do it? 00:02:36.305 --> 00:02:38.885 See, my job, I'm a behavioral scientist as well. 00:02:38.945 --> 00:02:39.925 I'm not a clinician. 00:02:40.065 --> 00:02:40.805 I'm a researcher. 00:02:40.945 --> 00:02:44.485 My PhD is in in in research and behavioral science. 00:02:45.480 --> 00:02:48.620 But I teach the science of happiness at Harvard University. 00:02:49.480 --> 00:02:53.560 I teach large classes of students at the Harvard Business School. 00:02:53.560 --> 00:02:55.580 My job is not overt proselytization. 00:02:56.280 --> 00:02:59.980 If it were, I would be in the unemployment line in approximately twenty minutes. 00:03:01.985 --> 00:03:04.085 But it's still missionary work. 00:03:04.545 --> 00:03:13.845 Over the years, I've done missionary work in my ordinary secular work as a scientist by employing three principles that I'm gonna offer you today. 00:03:15.760 --> 00:03:19.060 To start your journey as a missionary, here's three ideas. 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:20.900 Number one. 00:03:21.440 --> 00:03:22.480 This one sounds easy. 00:03:22.480 --> 00:03:23.140 It's not. 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:25.940 Be public about your Catholic faith. 00:03:27.185 --> 00:03:29.285 You know, it's easy to be private Catholics. 00:03:29.745 --> 00:03:34.085 We're all with our community here, with our pals, people who understand us. 00:03:34.705 --> 00:03:40.065 But out in the world, when we're not hanging out together, it's too easy to keep it private. 00:03:40.065 --> 00:03:40.885 Isn't it? 00:03:41.760 --> 00:03:44.260 A lot of academics do this, by the way. 00:03:44.480 --> 00:03:46.480 A lot of my fellow professors around the country. 00:03:46.480 --> 00:03:49.120 I do about a 100 lectures outside of Harvard a year. 00:03:49.120 --> 00:03:50.340 A lot of them at universities. 00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:56.340 And mostly secular institutions and other professors come to me and they say, I'm Catholic too. 00:03:57.215 --> 00:03:59.155 As if it were some sort of big secret. 00:04:01.215 --> 00:04:03.315 That's not the right way to do it. 00:04:03.855 --> 00:04:12.690 Now, there's a reason sometimes that being a Catholic, that having an unusual view in a secular world, especially when you're in the world of science, Sometimes it's hard to do that. 00:04:12.690 --> 00:04:14.950 The reason is not because we face discrimination. 00:04:15.090 --> 00:04:16.210 That's just not right. 00:04:16.210 --> 00:04:24.790 Thank God we live in America where we are not discriminated against in any material or or serious way for our views, for our beliefs. 00:04:25.330 --> 00:04:26.630 The problem is us. 00:04:27.645 --> 00:04:29.645 You know this because you've studied this. 00:04:29.645 --> 00:04:31.665 The rest of us don't always remember. 00:04:32.205 --> 00:04:39.825 Our brains are designed to make us resist standing out against a prevailing view. 00:04:40.740 --> 00:04:45.860 The ancient console of tissue inside our brains that processes our emotions is called the limbic system. 00:04:45.860 --> 00:04:47.940 It's between two and forty million years ago. 00:04:47.940 --> 00:04:50.280 And it has this little thing inside it. 00:04:50.420 --> 00:04:51.380 It's a technical thing. 00:04:51.380 --> 00:04:52.500 You don't have to remember this. 00:04:52.500 --> 00:04:53.720 There's no quiz later. 00:04:54.455 --> 00:05:01.595 It's called the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and it has one job to make you not want to be rejected socially. 00:05:02.375 --> 00:05:06.155 That was evolved so you will not get thrown out of your tribe. 00:05:07.230 --> 00:05:07.470 Why? 00:05:07.470 --> 00:05:12.130 Because two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, you'd walk the frozen tundra and die alone. 00:05:13.230 --> 00:05:14.510 Well, not today, friends. 00:05:14.510 --> 00:05:16.290 But we still have the same brain. 00:05:16.350 --> 00:05:21.775 And so when the when the world is going this way, we wanna go this way too. 00:05:21.775 --> 00:05:26.195 And sometimes we're silent about zagging when the world is zigging. 00:05:27.455 --> 00:05:28.595 That's a big problem. 00:05:29.695 --> 00:05:31.295 We need to stand up to that. 00:05:31.295 --> 00:05:45.670 We need to use the the divine center of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, the executive center of our brain to make the decisions that we want given our beliefs, notwithstanding what we feel because of our evolutionary proclivities. 00:05:47.035 --> 00:05:48.975 We have a a divine nature. 00:05:49.115 --> 00:05:51.855 That's what it means to be a believing Christian. 00:05:52.155 --> 00:05:52.895 Use it. 00:05:53.035 --> 00:05:57.835 And the way to use it is by being public about our faith, notwithstanding our feelings. 00:05:57.835 --> 00:05:59.935 And getting used to it so that we're not afraid. 00:06:00.180 --> 00:06:06.920 And as excellent professionals that gain the admiration of others, that's the most important thing that we can do. 00:06:06.980 --> 00:06:07.880 And the result? 00:06:09.380 --> 00:06:10.280 Oh, it's funny. 00:06:11.060 --> 00:06:15.425 During the lectures that I do publicly, I get to meet a lot of different audiences. 00:06:15.425 --> 00:06:19.925 And not that long ago, I was in Georgia giving a talk to a group of surgeons. 00:06:21.025 --> 00:06:22.165 Those are tough people. 00:06:23.185 --> 00:06:23.685 Surgeons. 00:06:23.825 --> 00:06:24.145 Yeah. 00:06:24.145 --> 00:06:29.360 I mean, they're smarter than everybody, cooler than everybody, more sophisticated than everybody. 00:06:29.740 --> 00:06:34.560 And I was about to go up and give my speech about a neuroscience topic, typical to my research. 00:06:35.100 --> 00:06:39.280 But before I did, I crossed myself because I always do to offer up my words. 00:06:40.065 --> 00:06:41.605 For the holy souls in purgatory. 00:06:42.465 --> 00:06:44.085 All those surgeons in purgatory. 00:06:48.305 --> 00:06:52.305 And afterward, a surgeon comes up to me and he says, I thought he was gonna say, oh, I liked your speech. 00:06:52.305 --> 00:06:52.545 No. 00:06:52.545 --> 00:06:54.240 And he said, tears in his eyes. 00:06:54.400 --> 00:06:56.400 And he said, that was so meaningful to me. 00:06:56.400 --> 00:06:57.700 And I said, well, thank you. 00:06:57.920 --> 00:06:59.060 And what did I say? 00:06:59.680 --> 00:07:00.800 He said, that wasn't it. 00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:03.380 I said you crossed yourself before you gave your talk. 00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:05.860 I wanna do that. 00:07:06.320 --> 00:07:07.540 I was raised Catholic. 00:07:08.225 --> 00:07:10.005 I've been gone for a long time. 00:07:11.105 --> 00:07:12.245 I want that. 00:07:14.225 --> 00:07:16.645 I said, man, there's a church on every corner. 00:07:17.585 --> 00:07:18.565 It's like Starbucks. 00:07:20.625 --> 00:07:22.005 But it takes you to heaven. 00:07:23.700 --> 00:07:25.540 And who knows where he is at this point? 00:07:25.540 --> 00:07:27.940 Well, why was he evangelized in that moment? 00:07:27.940 --> 00:07:32.840 He was evangelized in that moment moment not because of anything I said, but because I was public about my faith. 00:07:33.380 --> 00:07:34.680 And we can all do that. 00:07:35.735 --> 00:07:36.695 That's number one. 00:07:36.695 --> 00:07:39.895 But but it takes a little bit of practice to be public. 00:07:39.895 --> 00:07:47.115 And that leads me to my point number two, which is making our faith not just public but natural and normal. 00:07:48.140 --> 00:07:55.600 You know, many people who are trying to make a point of being publicly Catholic, unfortunately, they make it a little bit awkward. 00:07:56.140 --> 00:07:57.760 It's a little bit in your face. 00:07:58.140 --> 00:08:04.145 It's a little bit weird because they try to inject it into every single conversation and it feels sort of forced. 00:08:04.445 --> 00:08:07.245 But but here's the funny thing about the naturalness of faith. 00:08:07.245 --> 00:08:13.985 Faith is literally the most natural thing in the world for Homo sapiens, for our species. 00:08:14.685 --> 00:08:18.410 Research shows that humans have a religious instinct. 00:08:19.990 --> 00:08:22.470 Many believe it is biological in nature. 00:08:22.470 --> 00:08:25.770 I happen to share that view based on the preponderance of evidence. 00:08:25.830 --> 00:08:30.970 There are literally no societies recorded in human history that are not religious. 00:08:31.395 --> 00:08:32.135 Not one. 00:08:32.835 --> 00:08:34.055 We are made to worship. 00:08:34.515 --> 00:08:35.415 That's the truth. 00:08:35.715 --> 00:08:36.935 You know what's unnatural? 00:08:37.635 --> 00:08:38.135 Secularism. 00:08:38.595 --> 00:08:39.415 That's unnatural. 00:08:40.195 --> 00:08:42.835 That's the most unnatural thing that people can turn to. 00:08:42.835 --> 00:08:50.150 And that's the reason, my friends, that people all over the world turn to non religious things to get their religion. 00:08:51.170 --> 00:08:56.550 Secularism has torqued us away from the natural to the unnatural because we have this instinct. 00:08:57.555 --> 00:09:08.535 Things like politics and social activism, they're characterized today by talk about good and evil and with esoteric language and with ritual. 00:09:09.475 --> 00:09:14.000 All we need on campus for their politics is to have incense, then we'll have it all. 00:09:15.980 --> 00:09:19.840 But fake religion doesn't get the job done, my friends. 00:09:20.300 --> 00:09:30.355 That's why politics and activism, when they become an identity, always, always, always lead to depression and anxiety, which you studied and we know. 00:09:31.535 --> 00:09:37.295 So so why does something unnatural like that feel or something natural, I should say, like religion. 00:09:37.295 --> 00:09:38.460 Why has it become unnatural? 00:09:38.540 --> 00:09:44.400 And the reason is because the world has pathologized the natural and normal and has normalized the pathological. 00:09:45.100 --> 00:09:47.840 That's the little trick of the dark one in our world today. 00:09:48.380 --> 00:09:49.920 We see this all around us. 00:09:50.695 --> 00:09:55.415 Your faith, oh, it's weird and funny, but shocking and immoral and bad things. 00:09:55.415 --> 00:09:56.315 No big deal. 00:09:56.695 --> 00:09:57.175 Right? 00:09:57.175 --> 00:10:00.475 Cruelty, greed, licentiousness, death. 00:10:00.615 --> 00:10:01.115 Normal. 00:10:01.815 --> 00:10:03.675 But going to mass at lunch on Wednesday? 00:10:03.975 --> 00:10:04.715 Really weird. 00:10:06.950 --> 00:10:08.250 So so what's the answer? 00:10:09.110 --> 00:10:13.370 The answer is to make it as the most natural thing in your life. 00:10:13.830 --> 00:10:17.445 Here's how I do it in my classes and in my talks. 00:10:17.685 --> 00:10:25.845 I have made a commitment that I will not neglect to say at least once in every public appearance that my Catholic faith is the most important thing in my life. 00:10:25.845 --> 00:10:27.865 And I just throw it out there. 00:10:28.325 --> 00:10:31.360 Oh, and by the way, when I'm talking about faith, I'm a Catholic. 00:10:31.360 --> 00:10:33.780 It happens to be the most important thing in my life. 00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:35.700 Normal. 00:10:35.920 --> 00:10:36.900 I quit a mass. 00:10:37.360 --> 00:10:41.380 I also breathe air and eat food and wear pants out in public. 00:10:43.515 --> 00:10:46.175 Although, you wouldn't really know if I'm not right now, would you? 00:10:49.355 --> 00:11:01.630 You know, it's so natural, as a matter of fact, that when people come up to me and say, oh, how brave that you're a public Catholic in a place like Harvard University down the world, as if I were, chief rabbi in Mecca or something. 00:11:02.730 --> 00:11:03.230 No. 00:11:03.850 --> 00:11:04.350 No. 00:11:04.810 --> 00:11:06.510 How could I live any other way? 00:11:07.425 --> 00:11:08.245 Make it natural. 00:11:08.625 --> 00:11:10.725 And last but not least, here's my last point. 00:11:11.345 --> 00:11:15.745 Make your faith magnetic because that turns out to be the master stroke. 00:11:15.745 --> 00:11:16.865 You're doing it in public. 00:11:16.865 --> 00:11:21.690 You're making it natural and you draw people to you because of your faith. 00:11:21.690 --> 00:11:25.870 We are, if you haven't noticed, in a pretty serious culture war in this country. 00:11:27.050 --> 00:11:28.670 If you haven't noticed it, congratulations. 00:11:29.930 --> 00:11:37.115 It means you don't watch TV at night or participate in social media, but it's pretty bad, worse than I've seen. 00:11:38.135 --> 00:11:48.620 Now, why do we participate in that as Catholics with the the bitterness, the contempt, the anger, the hatred across political lines, across ideological lines. 00:11:48.620 --> 00:11:51.920 And the reason is, once again, our brains make us do that. 00:11:51.980 --> 00:11:57.420 When we are threatened, there's a part of our brain called the amygdala that says fight or flight. 00:11:57.420 --> 00:12:05.315 When somebody disagrees with us ideologically, when somebody says a nasty thing about our Catholic faith, it lights up our amygdala like a Christmas tree. 00:12:06.575 --> 00:12:08.275 And it says, fight now. 00:12:08.415 --> 00:12:09.455 And how do we fight? 00:12:09.455 --> 00:12:14.355 We fight using the tools that people are using against us and then we're not behaving like Catholics. 00:12:15.210 --> 00:12:19.950 You know the best way to eviscerate your faith and make it repellent to the outside world? 00:12:20.330 --> 00:12:21.550 Act like they do. 00:12:22.170 --> 00:12:23.930 That's the best way to do it. 00:12:23.930 --> 00:12:25.850 So so so what do we do? 00:12:25.850 --> 00:12:26.650 What's the answer? 00:12:26.650 --> 00:12:28.010 People ask that all the time. 00:12:28.010 --> 00:12:29.550 And and here's the typical answer. 00:12:30.065 --> 00:12:30.885 Be civil. 00:12:32.145 --> 00:12:32.965 Be tolerant. 00:12:33.985 --> 00:12:34.885 That's garbage. 00:12:36.145 --> 00:12:44.485 If I told you that my wife Esther and I are civil to each other, you'd say, dude, you guys need therapy from a graduate of Divine Mercy University. 00:12:46.360 --> 00:12:52.440 If I told you that my employees tolerate me, you'd say I have a huge human resource problem on my hands. 00:12:52.440 --> 00:12:52.600 No. 00:12:52.600 --> 00:12:52.760 No. 00:12:52.760 --> 00:12:53.080 No. 00:12:53.080 --> 00:12:54.460 That's not the standard. 00:12:55.480 --> 00:12:56.860 You know what the standard is? 00:12:57.080 --> 00:12:58.780 Pardon a long time ago. 00:12:59.955 --> 00:13:03.335 You've heard that you should love your friends and hate your enemies. 00:13:03.555 --> 00:13:05.255 But today I give you a new teaching. 00:13:05.955 --> 00:13:06.935 Love your enemies. 00:13:07.235 --> 00:13:09.175 Pray for those who persecute you. 00:13:09.475 --> 00:13:12.115 My friends, that's the Catholic standard. 00:13:12.115 --> 00:13:13.475 That's the Christian life. 00:13:13.475 --> 00:13:17.870 That is the privilege that Bishop Berbich was talking about. 00:13:18.650 --> 00:13:21.530 You're out in a tough world lifting people up. 00:13:21.530 --> 00:13:28.430 A lot of those people are participating in behavior that does not become us as Catholic people. 00:13:28.570 --> 00:13:29.950 They disagree with you. 00:13:30.665 --> 00:13:31.965 They're doing the wrong thing. 00:13:32.105 --> 00:13:32.925 Love them. 00:13:34.025 --> 00:13:38.345 That's what we're learning to do as scientists, as Catholics no. 00:13:38.345 --> 00:13:39.885 As Catholic scientists. 00:13:41.385 --> 00:13:42.845 But I don't feel like it. 00:13:43.305 --> 00:13:43.965 I know. 00:13:44.540 --> 00:13:47.840 It doesn't matter because that's not what love is. 00:13:49.020 --> 00:13:56.320 Saint Thomas Aquinas said in December in the Summa Theologia, to love is to will the good of the other, not feel anything. 00:13:57.340 --> 00:14:02.545 You did not study people's feelings, only people's feelings. 00:14:03.485 --> 00:14:08.145 You studied how people can actually be notwithstanding their feelings. 00:14:08.765 --> 00:14:11.325 People don't have to be managed by their feelings. 00:14:11.325 --> 00:14:16.345 They can manage their feelings in the way to do so is to exercise their heavenly will. 00:14:16.345 --> 00:14:18.822 That's what Saint Thomas Aquinas was talking about. 00:14:18.822 --> 00:14:22.228 That's the lesson he was giving us for psychological science today. 00:14:22.228 --> 00:14:24.705 He was a very adroit behavioral scientist himself. 00:14:24.945 --> 00:14:27.665 Love your enemies by willing their good. 00:14:27.665 --> 00:14:30.245 Love everybody by willing their good. 00:14:30.385 --> 00:14:36.165 Catholic missionaries in ordinary life decide how to act despite their emotions. 00:14:37.380 --> 00:14:41.220 Return contempt and disagreement with love. 00:14:41.220 --> 00:14:45.720 And what you will do is make people ask how did she do that? 00:14:46.180 --> 00:14:47.560 How did he do that? 00:14:47.780 --> 00:14:50.920 And then they'll find that it's because of your Christian faith. 00:14:51.595 --> 00:14:59.295 And then that's what they will want, which is your gift to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ and get sold to heaven. 00:15:00.555 --> 00:15:01.695 That's all we want. 00:15:03.355 --> 00:15:04.495 Let me sum up. 00:15:05.120 --> 00:15:09.540 We are called in our ordinary lives to sanctify our work as missionaries. 00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:13.200 You don't have to leave your secular job or knock on doors. 00:15:13.200 --> 00:15:14.980 You don't have to be that kind of missionary. 00:15:15.120 --> 00:15:15.360 Look. 00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:18.740 There's here's words that nobody in human history has ever uttered. 00:15:19.295 --> 00:15:20.035 Good news. 00:15:20.255 --> 00:15:22.035 There's missionaries on the porch. 00:15:23.295 --> 00:15:23.615 No. 00:15:23.615 --> 00:15:24.115 Never. 00:15:25.375 --> 00:15:29.075 But but but you don't have to because you're sneak you're sneakier than that. 00:15:29.135 --> 00:15:29.615 Right? 00:15:29.615 --> 00:15:31.695 You're doing excellent work in helping people. 00:15:31.695 --> 00:15:33.155 That's your missionary work. 00:15:33.950 --> 00:15:41.250 And to do that, follow a formula to sanctify that secular work by making your faith public, by making it natural, by making it magnetic. 00:15:41.950 --> 00:15:58.765 Strive to follow that formula as you go forth from this great institution and you will begin the journey of love and excellence and truth, which will bring you and me and all of us greater happiness and greater hope and greater holiness. 00:15:59.640 --> 00:16:00.620 God bless you. 00:16:01.160 --> 00:16:02.700 Congratulations on this achievement. 00:16:03.400 --> 00:16:06.700 And let's all pray for the graduates for their important work. 00:16:07.240 --> 00:16:08.380 Thank you very much.