September 10, 2026
By Fr. Chi Ai Nguyen, A.A.
What is your first memory of going to school? How does it affect the course of your life? I am sure you remember different things. As for me, my first memory of going to school is the accompaniment of my Dad on the very first day of the class. He brought me to the church to pray before taking me to the school. This first memory has resonated with me my whole life. For me, education and liturgy are intimately interlinked.
Today’s gospel tells us about Jesus’ first day of his public ministry (Luke 4:16-22a). After his stay in the desert, today, Jesus comes to Nazareth. His ministry begins with the liturgy in the synagogue. His first public speech is a quotation from the prophet Isaiah. Thus, from the very first moment of his ministry, Jesus situates himself in a long tradition of his people, in a prophetic tradition.
Luke shows the importance of this quotation by putting it at the center of Jesus’ action: Jesus stood up—and then he sat down; he was handed a scroll—and then he handed it back; he unrolled the scroll—and then he rolled it up. And so, at the structural level, reading a passage from the prophet Isaiah is the center of Jesus’ action. And from the point of view of the content, the message is essential to Jesus’ mission. We can even say it is a summary of Jesus’ mission: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” (Is 61:1-2)
As we continue to follow the Gospel of Luke, we need to read the entire activity of Jesus in light of this message. Everything that Jesus does is summed up here. We can take this message as the summary of our activities for this year. The Spirit of the Lord is upon us, because he has anointed us to bring good news to the poor. It is not only about material poverty, but also about spiritual and intellectual poverty. He sends us to proclaim freedom, including academic freedom. He sends us to set people free through education, through Catholic liberal education. He sends us to put an end to any form of blind violence and outrageous injustice. He sends us to proclaim a year, an academic year, acceptable to the Lord.
Today, the Lord sends us into our world, a world dominated by AI. This world needs to be evangelized. It needs to be enlightened by the Gospel values. In his encyclical letter, Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo, the first American pope, focused on safeguarding the human person in the age of artificial intelligence. He referred to the story of the construction of the Tower of Babel that we have heard in today’s first reading (Genesis 11:1-9). For him, the people in the story are afraid of being scattered throughout the earth, of being sent out over the world. What they want is to stay where they are and make a name for themselves. They want to have a single language, a single technology, a single direction. They want to conceive a project without reference to God. They choose uniformity over diversity, homogenization over communion. They want to be self-sufficient so much so that they are ready to sacrifice human dignity for their own glory. They want to develop their self-affirmation so much so that they try to reach heaven without God’s blessing (cf. #7).
The pope then invites us to avoid the “Babel syndrome.” He discourages us to make profit that sacrifices the weak. He asks us not to build a uniformity that neutralizes differences. He dissuades us from thinking that “a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance.” Here, he sees “the risk of dehumanization — of building a future that excludes God and reduces the other to a means.” (#10)
There is no single language that can translate the mystery of the person. AI is very helpful in collecting data, but it is not able to express our profound identity. I was trying to see how AI tells about me. The first question I asked was: Is Fr. Chi AI the founder of AI? The answer is no! And then I asked the second question: “who is Fr. Chi Ai?” I got some information. But what I notice is this: the information about me is not always the same. That means my identity is not based on a solid foundation: the first memory like my first memory of going to school or any memory; the prophetic tradition as Jesus tried to follow in the Gospel or any tradition. My identity is always different, without being situated in time and space. My identity is self-sufficient, always ready to be generated by data. I can get more information about myself every day, but my identity is not strengthened by a solid foundation. Pope Leo tells us about “the danger of humanity becoming a victim of its own achievements. Having more without being more.” (#94) Now, the true humanity should lead us to another way: being more in order to have more. It is an invitation for you, dear students, for this academic year. If you embrace this vision, you can hear Jesus saying to each of you: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
