Rev. Fr. Jayapalan Raphael, SDB
Rector
Inspired to Perspire
My dear Staff – teaching, office and supporting staff – and my loving students – girls and boys,
It is with great joy that I am writing these few lines in E-Voice of the renowned Don Bosco College of Arts and Science, Kilpauk. The seed sown nine years ago, has grown to be a big tree which, with God’s grace, I am sure, will keep growing to be a mighty tree.
My dear Staff and Students, you have the ability to transform yourselves and the society. Whatever struggles you may have, you have capacity to turn them into songs. As the Chinese proverb says, “If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come.” I am sure you have already overcome many obstacles in the past and so with confidence you can move on wearing smiling faces. May you ever blossom with the fundamental conviction that “the happiness is an Inside Job.”
Life is purposeful, not an accident. Indeed, discovering life’s purpose is the greatest joy of living. During this college education, you have the best way to respond to the gift of life, i.e., to embrace it wholeheartedly and to live it to the full. In a world filled with preoccupation with success, power, positions and possessions that prevents us from living freely and nobly, we certainly need inspiration! Inspiration refers, literally, to the act of inhaling air into the lungs. It can breathe fresh purpose into our lives, transforming existence into an adventure. Our college has the purpose to enlighten your minds, strengthen your will, fill you with passion, instil hope and drive away despair and pervade your souls with courage.
My wish for you, my dear young people, is that you may wake up every morning with a smile and go after life to ‘live it, enjoy it, taste it, smell it, feel it.’ As Thomas Alva Edison, the American inventor, once remarked, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration!” I do believe that the inspiration that you receive from Don Bosco, management and staff will lead you to hours of perspiration in the college that will bear fruit in your life. St. Augustine said, “God who created you without your consent, will not save you without your consent.” Every one of you have come into the world with a mission. May you devise your own educative activities to carry forward your deep God-given mission.
We are given another year to inspire one another, to dislodge our despair and become harbingers of hope. The higher education sets us on the process of rising to higher state of knowing and deeper level of being. I wish that the college brings inspiration to many and stirs the fire in somebody’s belly. May its purpose of promoting self-reflection, self-confidence and motivation to make your life meaningful to yourself and to the world, bear fruit. In the classroom and in the college campus, lives have been changed, nations’ destinies shaped and the course of history altered by the power of inspiration. May your experience be one of them. Invoking God’s blessings on you all and your families and wishing you all the best in the new year!