A new teaching with authority ...

     FAITH!  ACADEMICS!  SERVICE!   This is the theme of CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK for 2012 which begins today.  It is an opportunity to showcase and celebrate the accomplishments of Catholic School education today and throughout the years.  A longstanding mission of the Church in the United States and throughout the world, sharing the knowledge of the truth and inspiring service to others within the framework of the source of truth, Jesus Christ, is an integral part of the Call that we have received.

     We encounter Christ, the Divine Teacher, in Mark's gospel today.  He came to teach in the synagogue, and people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught with authority and not as the scribes.  A good teacher does more than hand on facts, or follow the curriculum or parrot what he or she was taught.  A good teacher shares the facts from their immersion in the science or the experience of history or the personal encounters that have touched their lives. They bring their enthusiasm and inspiration with them.  They bring an understanding of not just what has been or even is, but of what could be if we but invest ourselves in the future.  They call to serve, to challenge their students to build a better world, to reach out and touch lives, to, having been inspired, to inspire a future generation.
We lift the mastery of academics and the desire to serve to a higher level when we bring in the element of  FAITH.

     The ancient teachers and philosophers gathered their students around them.  They referred to their schools as temples of learning (in fact even today the University of Pittsburgh has a "Cathedral of Learning").  They knew that knowledge is power, knowledge is life itself, knowledge lifts us toward the divine.  It is an upward progression that originated in man's desire.

     Coming at it from the perspective of people of Faith, we know that it is God's invitation to us to share in the divine wisdom that prompts us to learn, to grow, to excel.  We are called to KNOW HIM, and in that knowledge and experience to LOVE HIM.  It is in that love that we are inspired to SERVE HIM (and those whom he cherishes) with all of our hearts and minds.

     At the beginning of this CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK, we celebrate in the mission entrusted to us, and we rejoice in the wonderful students, committed parents and guardians, outstanding faculty and administration and staffs that serve our schools.  May the week be blest!