Saturday, January 31, 2015
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Somebody said to me recently, “Congratulations. You made it through a year.” And I said, “Congratulations. So did you.”
It is hard to believe it’s been a year. But what is time but simply a measurement of motion and, hopefully, of growth.
One of the chief things bishops talk about when they get together is oftentimes what are called problems. What some see as problems, others see as opportunities. Opportunities which we are given by God.
One of the scripture passages, which I reflected on as I prepared for this evening, involves the issue of fear. And how really antithetical to the Gospel, and how antithetical to scripture, and how antithetical to Catholic education is this problem of fear.
And yet how tempting it is in so many ways.
The scripture passage from Mark’s Gospel chapter 9 verses 2-9 comes to mind. It talks about how our Lord Jesus takes three of his apostles—Peter, James and John—to the summit of Mount Tabor. And there, in prayer, they experience Christ transfigured.
They experience him as the Beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased. The apostles are simultaneously overcome by fear and, at the same time, a great desire to erect three booths—three monuments to remain on the top of Mt. Tabor. But, Christ is not interested in these booths, tents, or institutions. Rather, He directs them to their mission. And not only does He direct them, He accompanies them. He accompanies them through their fear down the mountain onto Jerusalem, to the place where He will give his sacrifice — the sacrifice of love, which is the cross and the Resurrection. It is this mission of the Church, in particular Catholic education, we are entrusted with. The mission of the Gospel must always drive the institution, not the other way around. And when we let fear dominate our lives, or even infiltrate the way we assess schools, we are losing sight of the mission entrusted to us by Christ.
This, like the Gospel, is nothing new, yet it is always new. It’s always been a part of Catholic education to teach as Jesus taught: To instruct and to enlighten us in our ignorance and to continue forward in service to our neighbor; to accompany each other as Pope Francis says. It has also been a part of our local history as a Diocese, and as a local Church in North Texas where the institutions founded in Catholic education have always been in service to the mission of evangelization.
During this year dedicated to Consecrated Religious Life we especially want to acknowledge the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur. They illustrate how the mission of evangelization and Catholic education go hand in hand. And their institutions have always been dynamically filled by that mission and assessed by that mission as a means to an end. We can see in our history how Our Lady of Victory High School became the foundation for Nolan Catholic High School. And without their generosity, Nolan would have never taken root.
Academy of Mary Immaculate in Wichita Falls with their generosity became the foundation for Notre Dame. And, since I’m in an ecumenical mood, in Dallas Our Lady of Good Counsel, founded by them, became Bishop Dunne. Our Lady of Victory College through their generosity became the charter foundation for the University of Dallas.
Mission must always drive our institutions and keep them alive, and keep us all free of fear.
When we’re afraid, we begin to compare ourselves to others. And there’s a proverb that says, if I compare myself to somebody else, I always lose in that comparison. You see in our identity as Catholics, schools comes from our “yes” to Christ to accompany him in his mission—not to appropriate him for our own. We’re not in competition with other institutions, others booths, or other tents. We do not grow in our Catholic identity by defining ourselves by what we are not. “We are not public schools,” “We are not private schools,” “We’re not home schooling. We’re not even charter schools.”
What are we? If we become overly encumbered with those questions, we’ll be lost in fear just as Peter was on Tabor. We begin to isolate ourselves in individualism with a destructive sense of competition.
We’re not about marketing our schools. We do not have a product. We have a call to serve God and our neighbor in love which is Christ’s mission to establish the Kingdom of God here that we might be prepared to flourish in the Kingdom yet to come.
If we lose ourselves in fear, we choose not to accompany Christ down the mountain to Jerusalem, the site of his sacrifice and resurrection. If we lose sight of that, we lose our sense of sacrifice and it becomes simply private in investment. Education soon becomes the acquisition of useful skills and our schools become sadly, instruments of division and exclusion.
Our “yes” to Christ as Catholic Schools, and the mission that it entails, can only be made if we are all in solidarity with each other. We do not have a series of branch offices in our schools but rather, particular local sites to carry out the one mission of the one Church of the one God.
We have to keep in mind the preferential option for those who are most in need; and that carries with it the responsibility to serve the poor well with the optimal and most prudent application of our resources in the stewardship appropriate for disciples of Jesus. Those who exercise stewardship, always do so in gratitude and with a sense of generosity for the good of my neighbor. The decisions we make in each of our schools affect and impact each and every one of our other schools. The objective of the evil one is to disperse, to scatter and to isolate the sheep so that he might pick us off one by one—the weakest first, but not exclusively. It is the responsibility of the Shepherd to keep the sheep together—mostly.
To keep this solidarity of all of us together requires not that we be judged by the world as being better at education than anybody else; it requires that we care for each other, and that we are grateful for the opportunity to sacrifice in many ways for the education that always shows us Jesus. Sacrifice—not investment—sacrifice that is consistently offered through the action and example of parents, students, teachers, administrators, pastors, staff, parishioners, alumni, and even the bishop. Sacrifice—a willing and loving and generous sense of inconvenience—an inconvenience not for the best—not for ideals, but for the real and true risen Lord who so loves us that He trusts us with his mission. A mission that Catholic schools are an absolutely important means in bringing about the evangelization of our society that so needs to understand the dignity of the human person—that so needs to understand, the right relationship among people, the common good of society. That so needs to understand that those that are disenfranchised and vulnerable are not our adversaries.
How can we teach Christ in and through our schools? Where do we see Christ? Where does He disperse our ignorance in our lives? It is good for us to be here, as Peter would say, but let us not build booths or institutions out of fear. Let’s accompany each other together with Christ down the mountain, eschewing fear and consoling each other in the certitude of faith in Christ—who teaches because He can neither deceive nor be deceived. This is his mission that He entrusts with us for Catholic education. And may our schools always strive to serve the means to that end.
