Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
As we look to the week ahead, many within our community will have the opportunity to celebrate Catholic Schools Week. It’s an annual event in which we highlight and recall the unique gifts that are presented in Catholic Education. And while many of us are products of public education and still others have spent part or all of their careers in public schools to their credit, it’s still important to recognize the goodness found in Catholic Schools, especially our own at St. Charles.
I always want to be careful when it comes to speaking to the value of Catholic education, trying to avoid the pitfall of diminishing the good that is found in other forms of education. As someone who went through 13 years of public education, I know how wonderful it can be in shaping young minds and helping them reach their potential in life. But I do believe that there is something unique that is offered in Catholic Schools, which not only shapes minds and prepares young people for life, but carries within it something more fundamental when we consider the aspect of faith. To paraphrase the theologian Edward Schillebeeckx, part of what made the teaching and preaching of Jesus Christ different from the other rabbis and itinerant preachers of His day was the fact that He spoke “with power.” Yes, He taught in parables, but He also worked miracles, and lived a life of deep, abiding prayer with the Father. Christ’s teachings hit harder, in large part because He backed it up with His own personal witness. And when He invites the disciples to go and preach, it’s not just with words that they are to do so. It’s in following Jesus in all manner of life, most especially in faith and virtue, that they too, preach and teach “with power”.
It’s an interesting concept. And one that is quite applicable to our Catholic Schools. St. Charles Borromeo School is at its most effective, when it not only teaches the truth about math, science, language arts, and beyond, but also when it lives out a faithful witness to Christ in its teachers, in its students, in the whole community. Yes, our students learn about mathematical division, but they also learn about living in Christian unity. Yes, they learn about atoms and molecules in science, but they also experience the Uncreated Creator who made such things. We teach them Social Studies, but more importantly we teach them how to lead Christian lives, full of charity for those in need. And when the taxonomy of learning is coupled with the praxis of Christianity, that’s what makes Catholic Schools excellent in their own, unique way.
And so, I’m looking forward to another successful Catholic Schools Week here at St. Charles. My many thanks and gratitude to all who make our school as great as it is. Without our teachers, staff, students, and families, none of this is possible. Thanks for all that you do!
Peace and Goodness,
Fr. Dan
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