‘Our educational mission begins and ends with our students’ potential for holiness’

By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami

Archbishop Thomas Wenski preached this homily while celebrating Mass for Catholic school teachers at Professional Development Day, Sept. 27, 2024, at Broward Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale.

Today, the universal Church celebrates the feast day of St. Vincent de Paul, who was the Mother Teresa of his time. He is known for his work among the poor and also for his efforts to provide for the formation of the clergy. But in his early years as a priest, he worked as a tutor for students.  And so, we can invoke his prayers for you, today, who teach in our Catholic schools.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus asked the apostles: “Who do you say that I am?”  Peter answered on behalf of the apostles: “You are the Christ of God.”  This was the first creed of the Church – the Nicene Creed that we recite on Sundays just draws out the implications of Peter’s profession of faith.

We are Catholics because we believe what Peter believed. Of course, Peter and the Apostles didn’t fully understand at first the implications of what Peter had just affirmed, and so Jesus told them to tell no one. Not until later, after his suffering, death, and Resurrection, would Jesus send them to announce the gospel to all the nations:  that the Christ of God, the Messiah, came to save us from our sins – and did so through his suffering, death, and Resurrection.

Today, on this side of Christ’s Passover from death to life, we are to tell everyone – and to teach them all that Jesus has taught and revealed to us through his Church, which is his Body living in the world.

Now, as Catholic educators, each of you share directly in the mission of Jesus Christ, the Teacher. In fact, Jesus was known as “Rabboni,” which means teacher in Hebrew. There are few professions today that can claim to be so directly connected and grounded in the mission of Jesus Christ. And so, you are best as what you do as teachers grounded in the mission of Jesus Christ when you convey an authentically Catholic education centered on the person of Jesus Christ.

Our Catholic schools should be more than just “an information delivery system” focused on secular success. We don’t just teach to the test, we teach the “Yes”!  Catholic schools are about transformation in Christ.

Your mission as teachers in a Catholic school goes far beyond conveying factual knowledge of history, science, literature, or even religion. Yes, we teach those subjects, and we do teach those subjects well – but we also have to teach the Catholic faith, and also to teach it well, with the confidence that faith gives. And that teaching is not just a “religious class”, it is a teaching that is integrated into all the subjects we teach, it is integrated in all that we do in our schools.

We want our students not only to know something about Jesus, but we also want them to know Jesus who is not just a historical figure who lived a long time ago.  We want them to know Jesus who is alive among us today.

And so, we can say that our educational mission begins and ends with our students’ potential for holiness. Every student, and to be sure every teacher, is made for holiness. We were made to know God, to serve God, to love God in this life, and to be happy with him in the life to come. In other words, we were created for heaven, we were created to become saints.

We want our kids to be all that they can be, all that they were created to be. And so, our schools must be focused on cultivating their inner potential on both a natural and a supernatural plane. We’re in the salvation business.

To do this, we must ground our students in a Christian anthropology that can give them a sound roadmap in life.

Today there are many reductive anthropologies that have sown much confusion in our culture. People might claim to know “their truth,” but they don’t know “the Truth”. So much so that people do not understand who man is, created as an Imago Dei, that in God’s own image and likeness. Many today subscribe to a false sense of autonomy, which really is another manifestation of the original sin of Adam and Eve, who wanted to be gods – but without God. This false autonomy today even justifies the killing of a baby in her mother’s womb.

As Catholics we believe that Jesus is true God and true man. Learning that God in Christ took on our human nature and retains it, our students can discover the goodness of materiality – especially the human body – as well as the privileges and responsibilities that we have as “embodied souls”.  They can learn that true happiness comes through living in accord with our God-given human nature, not from ignoring or manipulating it.

A Catholic education also stressed that it is only Christ who “fully reveals man to man himself and his supreme calling clear” (Gaudium et Spes, 22). By following Christ’s example of doing his Father’s will, students can learn that this is the path to true peace and happiness.

Our students have to learn what to love and what not to love.  They learn what is good, true, and beautiful – and also, they must learn what is bad, false, and ugly. In this way, we can encourage them to choose what is right and to reject what is sin.

This is a daunting task, this mission of teaching Christ and how to live in Christ. Yes, it is a daunting task; but with the help of the Holy Spirit, it is not a “mission impossible.”