Once a month during this Jubilee Year, I will reflect in this column on some part of the Church’s mission which offers hope to the world.
When we are intent on living out the teachings of Christ, God uses our efforts to bring salvation and hope to others, especially those who live in situations without love, peace, purpose, or the necessary means to achieve a dignified existence.
The Church wants to assuage human poverty and suffering, whether that need be spiritual, intellectual, material, or physical.
In education, health care, social services, and human development, the Catholic Church is in the vanguard as a witness and servant to profound hope!
Celebrating Catholic schools
As we look forward to celebrating Catholic Schools Week, I want to lift up all of our schools in the diocese which offer a quality Catholic education to thousands of our children and young people.
We can liken a Catholic school to the three years which the Apostles spent with Jesus, as they traveled, ate, and worked with Him; as they listened to His preaching, experienced the miracles, and gradually came to know their Master and Teacher as the living Son of God. These three years formed and equipped the Apostles to carry on the mission of Jesus after His Ascension and the sending of the Holy Spirit.
Catholic schools have the same goal of discipleship formation.
We want our children and young people to become Catholic, missionary disciples of Jesus Christ, dynamically living their faith because they love the Lord and understand the basics of Catholic teaching.
If we are not fruitful in this goal, we are not fulfilling the purpose and mission of Catholic schools.
Happily, I can personally attest to the transformative influence of the schools in our diocese.
Our schools form and live a Catholic culture; our faculties and students learn the faith, pray together, participate in the Mass, and go to Confession.
They learn the values and virtues of a Christian life and the beautiful meaning of their human existence as children of God.
I profoundly thank Michael Lancaster, our superintendent of schools; his assistant Therese Milbrath; Kara Roisum; and Grace Riordan, who work very hard to support and grow our schools.
I thank our principals, teachers, and staff who daily dedicate themselves to the integral development of our students, weaving together the intellect, the heart, the will, and the soul in their teaching.
I thank our parents and benefactors who sacrifice much to enable our students to have a quality Catholic formation.
I am also grateful to Michelle Nilsson and Marie Lins who work both with our schools and our parish-based catechetical programs, to ensure that our Catholic children in public schools are also being formed in the faith, with the same passion and effectiveness as our schools.
Many of our parishes have heartily embraced a family-based catechesis, wherein the parents come with their children to the parish to be formed themselves in the faith and then are equipped to continue catechesis and prayer at home.
In most cases, this shift has produced great fruit. This new dynamic emphasizes the indispensable role of parents in the faith formation of their children.
Parents make an impact
Our schools and catechetical programs can only supplement and amplify the Catholic culture built up in a family; they cannot replace or substitute for a lack of such a religious culture within the family.
Consequently, parents who do not practice the faith with their children are sending a far stronger message that religion is not really that important, than the positive message of faith’s primacy which their children are receiving at the parish.
Sadly, in many of our parishes, only a minority of parents go to Mass regularly and are involved in the life of the Church.
I pray that this statistic changes as I exhort all parents in the diocese to understand and live their role as the primary educators of their children in Catholicism.
One of the primary purposes of Catholic education in all of its forms is to imbue our young people in a Catholic world view, understanding not only their religion, but also history, science, literature, mathematics, sports, and even gym class from a Christian perspective with God at the source and center of all things and the Scriptural narrative of salvation in Christ as the story which gives meaning and purpose to the drama of every person’s life.
When we know our deepest identity as beloved children of God, understand our fundamental purpose on this earth to be growth in the knowledge, love and service of God, and we live in the expectation of eternal life with God as our destiny, we are equipped to become the saints which the Lord has called us to be.
Our schools and parish catechesis give hope to thousands of people in our diocese, as our young people come to learn the glorious truths of the Catholic faith and live them out with generosity and joy.
We certainly face personnel, financial, and governance challenges, as we operate so many institutions throughout the diocese, but this enormous effort is worth it, because our children’s souls and eternal salvation are the greatest treasure with which we have been entrusted.
I pray this Catholic Schools Week will animate all of us in this essential mission of hope and purpose!