Dear Parishioners:
During this last week of January, we celebrate the Annual Catholic Schools Week. It is a time to highlight the exceptional work done in our Catholic schools across the country. It also highlights the excellence in academics, athletics, and the arts of our parish school. OLM School students are speaking at all weekend Masses about their experiences at the school. We thank the many families who have chosen a Catholic Education for their children. We also thank our outstanding Principal, Patrick McNabb, and our dedicated and hardworking faculty at OLM School.
It has been a challenging year for our school community due to the COIVID Pandemic. However, they have done an excellent job keeping the school open and safe. Our students have been able to come to all-day in-person classes since September. This wouldn't have been possible without the tremendous leadership of Mr. McNabb, the steadfast dedication of our faculty, our staff's hard work, and the cooperative support of our OLM school parents and students. We thank them for all they do to ensure our students are learning in a healthy and safe environment.
After all, knowledge and learning are essential. However, they are not the same as wisdom and moral character. We know that Barbarians come in all shapes and sizes, some wearing expensive suits with good diction and often with outstanding academic and professional credentials. The word "education" itself is derived from the Latin educare, meaning "to bring up or train." It in turn comes from the Latin e- ("out") and ducare ("to lead or guide"). True education aims to lead people out of ignorance, dishonesty, and brutishness to the refinement of their humanity and intellect in the virtues.
This goal is what chiefly distinguishes Catholic education, if taught correctly, from much of modern learning. Even the finest of minds are incomplete, blank slates, without a purpose and moral framework for the facts at their command. And, as the saying goes, nature abhors a vacuum. Some purpose, no matter how selfish or perverse, inevitably fills a person's inner void.
History teaches us that all purposes and all moral frameworks are not equal. Some lead to violence and suffering and often worse. Their understanding of the human person is limited from the outset by God's absence and exclusion. The goal of Catholic education, in contrast, is to fill the soul with the presence of its loving Creator. So theology is not an "add on" subject in a Catholic school. It's the priority of the mission and it needs to inform and guide every other academic subject and element of the school day. It guides OLM every day as we strive to be scholars and saints.
Our students at OLM and indeed all students are the children of a loving God with an eternal destiny. They must radiate throughout their lives the great words of St. Irenaeus: "The glory of God is man fully alive." The ultimate purpose of Catholic Schools is not to get students into Harvard or Yale, Notre Dame or Villanova — all of them great universities, but no automatic guarantee of anyone's humanity — but rather to get them into heaven.
Heaven is not some childish imaginary fairyland, but the intensely real and beautiful embrace of the God who made us sustains us and longs for us to become the men and women he intended us to be. Not simply scholars but most importantly to become saints. That's why we're in this world. And it’s important to remember during this Catholic Schools Week.
Join us at the Catholic Schools Week Mass. on Friday at 9:00 AM via Livestream. We offer Holy Mass for all those who have supported and benefited from Catholic Education, especially at OLM School, and pray for our school community.
In your name, I welcome Sister Soledad Salgado, FAS, to OLM this week. Sister has been assigned to work with Sisters Lourdes and Emma. She has been working at Scalabrini Villa. Read more about her and her life in this week’s bulletin. Say hello and welcome when you see her around the parish.
Welcome to OLM, Sister Soledad!! Stay safe. Be well. Do good. Celebrate Catholic Schools Week and OLM School!! God Bless.