Here are the talks I gave yesterday to the wonderful folks at Bishop Hendrickson and Saint Kevin's in Warwick, Rhode Island!
I
Play “cub climbing”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhjBXnEFKQs
I figured I would start with this video, of the mother trying to help the cub trying to climb to the top of the hill, since it’s a pretty good description of what you do for a living.
Shepherding young men (uphill a good deal of the time) in the right direction and teaching them what to say.
It is a holy work, of course…to quote from Saint Paul: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.” And what good news you bring:
To a world which sneers, along with Pilate, “what is truth?” you bring Christ, and derivatively, the well tested dogmas of philosophy and science.
To a world which offers happiness in the pornographic delights of instant gratification, the manipulation of others and make believe, you offer something more: you offer the peace the world cannot give and the sense that they are loved by him who is love, and sustained and protected.
And what’s more, you teach the hard truth that we are not the center of the world, that we are made for obedient love. And you teach that life is a constant conversion from life from death, from sin to purity, and from darkness to light.
You teach that the most indispensable tool to happiness is a radical humility, an assuredness that I am not God....the Shema Israel, which heralds and caps every act of Jewish worship, says it all: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one." It's a takeoff on the first commandment: “I am the Lord your God and you shall have no false Gods before me.”
But they (and even we) fight against that kind of humility all the time. Whenever we don’t get our way, we stomp our feet and threaten God. Which makes God smile, the way a parent smiles down at a little child holding his breath and threatening to turn blue.
Such a conversion to humility, to the constant conviction that I am little and God is big, that I am child and he is Father, results in a radical obedience, not to my self- actualization, but to the plan God has for me and for my life. A conversion to such a God-centered humility is at the heart of Catholic education.
Yet each one of us fight against such humility and pretend to be God over and over-again every day. I once heard a certain Roman cardinal utter the ultimate sharp rebuke to a staffer who was heatedly trying to convince him of something: Suppose, Father, just for a moment, that you were not God.
Yet we fight against those incontrovertible truths with our every waking breath. Just like our first parents, whose sin, ultimately, was not the fruit stolen from the tree, but the disordered conviction that they could be God if they just ate the right kind of fruit.
You see it in every three year old, possessed by the absolute conviction that he is the center of the universe, the ultimate arbiter of meaning, justice, and truth, in other words that he, stamping his feet, screaming and crying is God.
It happens to us all. We scream and threaten and hold our breath until we turn blue. But then we reach the point where we stop stamping our feet and find ourselves knocked off of our high horse and on our knees. That’s why those moments in life are such a blessing, because they knock you off your feet and onto your knees.
The follower of Christ is thus repeatedly called to an obedience that does not deem equality with God something to be grasped at...but rather empties itself, taking the form of a slave, and becoming a little child, opening its arms upon a cross in perfect obedience to the Father's will.
We are made for obedient love. It is our dignity. It is our destiny. It is our purpose for being.
So, how do you accomplish this task of forming young men to be saints?
My brief reflections this morning are derived significantly from my experience as a Seminary rector for seven years and a pastor in three parishes for over a decade. I also bring my experience of teaching, which I have and do widely and regularly to priests and deacons and liturgists around the world.
But it is the matrix of Seminary education which I believe provides a structure for our brief reflections on your good work. For while Seminaries may be forming men a decade or so older than your beloved students, both enterprises are seeking to do the same thing: to form full human beings who can be saints: Saints of the mind, the heart, the soul and world.
First, forming saints of the mind, the intellectual dimension.
Most folks, and especially most parents, see the intellectual part of your work as a matter of teaching what’s in the book: that is, getting the substance of the curriculum from the lesson plan through your consummate skills and into that thick little cerebellum sitting in front of you.
Success in such an endeavor is gauged by whether they get a good score in the Rhode Island State Assessment Program, which in turn makes them look good in the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In fact, as they approach the end of their time with you, your intellectual prowess is measured for a final time by a whole industry of tests from SAT to ACT, CLT and a whole bunch of other costly initials.
Real questions have been raised about how much these, or any other tests, taken in isolation can gauge how well you have formed young minds, most notably the 1999 National Research Council’s report, appropriately entitled Myths and Tradeoffs.
And why is the intellectual formation of young minds so hard to measure? Because you are not essentially programming a computer with data, but seeking to pass on the wisdom you have received. Saint Paul has it right. Whenever he would begin an important passage, he always started with the words: “I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you…”
And what you pass on, whether you are a math or a physics or a social studies or a Religion teacher is the same: It is what you once received from a teacher who inspired you. So much so, that you decided to do what she or he did! You did that because you knew that teacher loved you enough to tell you the truth. Not to sell you something, not to manipulate you, not to try to get you to change, but that teacher loved you enough to want you to know the truth. And that, by the way, is what you do for a living.
You are teaching that the meaning of a rewarding intellectual life is not verified by the test or the money or the power or the success which such knowledge gives, but the love of the truth itself, whatever field you may be in.
And you are teaching that it is true because no matter what you teach, if it is true, it is a reflection of Christ Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life. So that means that every equation you solve, every chemical compound or political theory you explain and every frog you dissect, is a holy act…because it is a reflection of the truth which God has revealed to us about his wonderful creation.
For God offers each person in every generation the opportunity to discover the truth about their own life and the goal of history. That is the nature of the intellectual endeavor, and it is never easy, for it is set against personal struggles our moral confusion, our struggles for dominance and success, and in the case of many of your students raging immaturity, a world seemingly devoid of an appreciation of any common truth at all, the disintegration of traditional family structures and the raging hormones and insecurities of a boy struggling to understand what it means to be a man.
What an opportunity you have! For you get to teach the truth to boys surrounded by a very confused and confusing world. Yours is the “apostolate of hope” which says there is truth which I have learned, and I love you enough to make it yours as well.
And this truth, in whatever field, is a light in the darkness, helping these boys to see the difference between the right and the wrong answer, in physics and in life.
Never tire of teaching the difference between right and wrong, “without which (Pope Benedict once reminded us) hope can only wither, giving way to cold pragmatic calculations of utility which render the person little more than a pawn on some ideological chess board.” Yours is what he called the“diakonia” of truth,” The service of teaching young mean how to think and what is worth belief and what is fake.
Which leads us to a second pillar, if you will, of education for sanctity, the formation of the heart. And have no doubt, as those of you are really good teachers understand, the work you do is as much about the heart as it is the head.
For your work is essentially moving each boy from “I” to “we” in his outlook on the world.
Each of us start in the same place, as a fully self-centered fetus, wrapped-in on ourselves. And then, very very slowly, we begin to straighten up…and shortly after emerging from the womb begin to see others as vague shapes and interacting forms. Then even more slowly we recognize those blobs as individuals with whom we can interact.
Then we learn they can love us and hurt us, be friends and betray us. And we learn about forgiving and giving, until before you know it, we meet Jesus, and learn how to open our arms on the Cross. And at that moment, we learn how to love.
You meet these boys at early stage on that road, and you seek to help them to develop those skills needed to love.
First, you seek to help them to achieve psychological stability and a balanced sense of self-respect.
You seek to help each young man to grow into men who are emotionally balanced with a good sense of self-control and a well integrated sense of self in relationship with others.
The opposite of which, it seems to me is sloth. That's such a great word, sloth. And it's even the name of an animal, who just sits there all day, couch-potatoeing his life away, navel-gazing and never quite getting out of bed.
Such self-indulgent sloth is frequently born of depression, a disease which hits everyone on occasion, and perhaps even more frequently enters the adolescent’s blood stream.
It’s manifested in all kinds of ways: in students just not wanting to get with the program, with no energy to do what must be done, or resistant to the demands which are knocking on their door.
There are, however, several vaccines for the sloth: some are best prescribed by the school counselor or by working with the parents and family.
But two other vaccines are the final two aspects of your work which I will address in my next talk: prayer and love.
And after you’ve had a chance to pray for a bit yourselves, we’ll return to reflect on those as well.
II
So, we’ve talked a little about how you form minds and hearts. Now I’d like to offer a few thoughts on forming the souls and the civic mindedness of these saints-in-the-making.
Catholic school are naturally concerned with the salvation of souls. It’s the raison d’etre of our being. And at the heart of this work is prayer.
Prayer, which is, quite simply, talking to Jesus. It really hasn't changed in its essentials since we first did it at three years old. And Jesus hasn't changed either. Even when I don't want to do it. I go to the chapel, and just pray. And if I can't pray, I just sit there and ask God to help me to pray. Prayer is the first antidote to the dreaded sloth I referred to earlier this morning. (STORY)
And the second vaccine to that sloth is like unto prayer...it's love of those with whom I live: in my family, in my nation and in my world. Which is what we call in the seminary community, the pastoral pillar.
Nothing so quickly cures sloth as loving someone, especially someone who you don't expect to love you back. Sometimes a good antidote to sloth is going to see your fellow teacher who has been having such a hard time lately...or going to that soup kitchen you've always wondered about....or praying for that student who you know goes home to such a trouble family...or just plain seeking out someone unexpected who needs to be loved and loving them.
As a parish priest I always find Saturdays to be the toughest day of the week. You'd sprinkle them with meetings, start with a morning Mass and maybe a wedding, and with seeming inevitability, the odd funeral or two. Then, as you're trying to polish your homily (and sometimes, polishing was a euphemism for starting) you'd be watching the clock for the start time of confessions. And a big wet blanket of sloth would start to surround you.
How can I sit in that box for an hour when I haven't finished my homily!? I'm so exhausted and the fan doesn't work and it's hot and stuffy in there. And...a thousand other reasons why I'd rather take a nap than hear confessions.
But you know something, as predictably as the slothful temptations were...each time I'd go sit in that confessional, I'd slide over that little creaking door and hear "bless me Father for I have sinned, it's been nineteen years since I've been to confession...."bless me Father for I have sinned, I just don't know what to do..."bless me Father for I have sinned, I don't think God loves me anymore...."bless me Father for I have sinned, I can't pray anymore...
And the wet blanket of sloth would suddenly disappear, replaced by a warm feeling of being needed, and the feeling of tears running down my cheeks—-that’s what loving the stranger does to us.
Learning to love those around us is something we usually learn in the family, but think, as well of the teachers who have helped you to love, and hopefully the various institutions of the Church which have taught you to love.
For love comes from Christ, the Son of the Living God, he was also Jesus of Nazareth. Fully God and fully man…a man like us in all things but sin: like us in our limitations, as well.
He learned that love from his own family: from Joseph and Mary, just as we learn that love, from this school community most certainly, but from the families to which your students return most intimately.
For of all the places God could have chosen to come into the world, he chose a family. Just like your family. Maybe it’s a big family (you needed two pews at Christmas) or maybe it’s a little family. Maybe it’s a new family, or maybe a couple of you have grown very old. But we all belong to a family. We are all someone’s child. And that’s what the Church asks us to reflect on this week.
The mystery of the Holy Family is, it seems to me, as mystery of love, of love incarnate, God calls every child to honor his parents in gratitude for the “gift of life, their love, and their work.” The author of the Book of Sirach tells us as much: "With all your heart honor your father, and do not forget the birth pangs of your mother. Remember that through your parents you were born; what can you give back to them that equals their gift to you?”
As a child, we owe our parents not only respect, but obedience, for they are our first teachers of all the mysteries of life and living. As Proverbs reminds us: “keep your father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching. . . . When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you.”
This is why Saint Paul reminds children of their obligation to "obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” Day to day, in everything from waking up to going to school, children should obey their parents: it is what God wants them to do. It’s their job!
As children grow up, they still owe a debt of love and respect to their parents, although this takes on new and unique dimensions. For no son has ever grown up to be exactly like his father, and no daughter will be exactly like her mother. Which is why adolescence, the end of childhood and the beginning of being an adult, is such an interesting time!
As years pass into adulthood, the obligation of obedience grows into an obligation of respect, as new challenges emerge. For the first time, sons and daughters begin to see their parents for who they really are: as human beings with strengths and weaknesses, hopes and fears. There is a wonderful opportunity at this stage of life to make friends of your parents and to learn from the couple of decades of experience they have under their belts.
There are temptations at this stage as well. Such as the temptation of allowing unresolved adolescent tensions to become petrified states of alienation between child and parent. The only cure for such temptations, of course, is the forgiveness and love which can lead to respect of another adult, who, with their gifts and faults, first helped you (literally) to stand on your own two feet.
It’s like the great story of Naomi and Ruth. Naomi’s son, Mahlon, fell in love with and married Ruth. Then Mahlon died. So the widow Naomi, sobbing and all alone in the world, tells the still young Ruth that while she will miss her and bless her for all she had done for her now dead son, she must now go back to her own mother, for Naomi has nothing more she can give her.
But Ruth protests to her mother-in-law: “Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you! For wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Wherever you die I will die, and there be buried.”
Ruth provides an example for every child of the debt they owe to their parents, to ever be their child and to love and respect them until the day they die. So Ruth returns to Bethlehem with Naomi and, with the help of God, provides for “the comfort and support of her old age.”
So it is with each of us. We all grow old, parents and children alike (although parents have a bit of a head start on their children). But when we are old, the obligation of respect and love perdures. “As much as they can,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, children must give their parents “material and moral support in old age and in times of illness, loneliness, or distress.”
So, when parents and children grow old (although parents have a bit of a head start on their children) and we find ourselves caring for those who first cared for us. It’s when Sirach’s advice should be heeded: “when [your father] is old...be considerate of him...for kindness to a father will not be forgotten…”
And even once our parents have returned to God, our obligation to them continues, as we owe them a debt of prayer, that God might look upon them with mercy and show them perfect peace. Our love for them, like theirs for us, cannot be stilled, even by the separation of death.
For what makes the Holy Family holy is the honor and respect which Jesus, Mary, and Joseph held for each other. May we follow their example, showing to those who brought us into this world that “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience” which the Lord had shown to us.”
For that is, in the end, the love which you seek to teach…to witness to the good news that God is love, and out of love has been born as a man, opened his arms on a cross and died and rose for us, defeating death and selfishness and sin. In others, that Jesus is in our midst and we need never be afraid of anything ever again.
But true love, gratuitously given and generously bestowed, is a hard lesson to preach to a culture obsessed by consumerism and narcissistic self-interest where children go hungry for someone to love them.
—-
This is not your great grandmother’s culture or your great-grandfather’s world. The problems your students will face and incredibly different from the ones which you remember in fourth grade. Along with a technologically advancing world is a set of moral challenges which changes more quickly than we can often appreciate.
Our Holy Father indicated this recently when recalling “a very sad little girl who finally confessed to her teacher the reason she felt that way: 'my mom's girlfriend doesn't like me.”
Should it shock us that the Pope would acknowledge the struggles of the child of a same sex couple? No more than it should shock us that more than half of the students of Catholic schools today will experience the searing fracture of a divorce, or that….
All of which is why the Holy Father asks the question:“How do we talk about Christ to these boys and girls?” “How do we talk about Christ to a generation that is changing?”
And the answer to his question is sitting right in front of me: the inheritors of the vision of Bishops McVinney, Mulvee and Tobin, the brothers of the Holy Cross and Christian brothers, and
folks by the name of Morris, Guibault, Feerick, Sheehan, Leto, Healey, Jackson, DeCiccio, Marciano, DeLucia, Kessimian and Morris.
For each of these generations have had to discover what Pope Francis has called “a new language, a new way of saying things.” The message remains the same: Christ Jesus, our Lord. But the ways in which we proclaim him changed and evolves in each generation.
For example, an essential part of the teaching of Jesus, a necessary consequence of repenting and embracing the Kingdom of God, is working for that unity in peace which comes only from God’s love.
But our culture seems driven sometimes by a lust for dystrophy promoting a loud cacophony of dissonant voices all yelling at each other. The Holy Father offers a solution:
We need to resolve our differences through forms of dialogue which help us grow in understanding and mutual respect. A culture of encounter demands that we be ready not only to give, but also to receive. Media can help us greatly in this, especially nowadays, when the networks of human communication have made unprecedented advances. The internet, in particular, offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity. This is something truly good, a gift from God.
I think the Holy Father must have counted how many computers, iPads and cell phones there are in Bishop Hendrickson School when he suggested that the internet and modern forms of technological communication provide great opportunities for Catholic Schools and catholic students in learning the Gospel of Joy.
For the model of Catholic School to which you are dedicated seeks to speak in today’s language to today’s students. It is a language which sounds like the language of the world around us, but when you listen very closely, it is.a language of truth, of love, a prayerful language and a language which seeks to transform our families and our world in the love of God which has been given to us through the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank you for all the sacrifices you make to do this good work. Thank you for making more saints. We need them!
Thank you.
