Felix Question | Gilberto Cavazos-González, OFM

June 29, 2026

Felix Question

Back in 1985, as I was finishing my MDiv at the Catholic Theological Union, I was focused on writing an 85-page essay synthesizing everything I had absorbed over four years of theological and pastoral study. As I wrote, I would share what I was learning with my amigo Felix — a name that means happy. He would listen patiently as I went on and on about God, Mary, and the Saints, explaining pneumatology, ecclesiology, ethics, and spirituality. It helped me process my thoughts, and it felt good to share them with him.

Then one day Felix looked me straight in the eyes and asked, simply: "¿Y qué? So what?"

Dumbfounded, I fired back: "What do you mean, '¿Y qué?'"

He finished his question: "So what? How is the world a better place because you are studying theology? How is the world improved because you got an education?"

I have been haunted ever since by what I now call the Felix Question. It goes to the very heart of the Gospel message of Jesus Christ, and for us Christians, it can be asked of any education: So what? How is the world a better place because you studied business? Because you earned a degree in psychology? Because you got your PhD in physics?Jesus insisted that what we do for the least of our brothers and sisters, we do for and to him (Mt 25:40). He called us the salt of the earth and warned us not to lose our flavor (Mt 5:13). His own mission statement is nothing less than bringing good news to the poor, release to captives, sight to the blind, and liberation to the oppressed and marginalized (Lk 4:18–19); in other words, Jesus came to answer the Felix Question, to improve the world in which he found himself.

And what about us? How does our education feed the hungry, clothe the naked, set prisoners free, bring health to the infirm? Are our relationships improving at home, at work? Is at least one person's life better because of what we learned? Is our city a better place? Can our education bring peace, justice, and liberation to a world oppressed by pollution, war, terrorism, and poverty?

I have made Felix's question the heart of my Socio-Spiritual Method for the study of Christian Spirituality, inviting my students and me into a transformative social and spiritual retrieval of the Christian classics. Felix is still waiting for our answer.