22nd Week in OT 2019 - Friday - First School Mass - Purpose of Catholic Schools

Why are you here today? Why are you here in Church on a Friday morning?

One answer, at least for our students, is because, well our teachers told us we were going over to church, and so we here we are.

But why, have they brought you here? Why are you not in your classroom, or playing basketball in the gym, or learning your morning lessons?

Why do students at Catholic schools go to Church, why do you trek across the parking lot, for the celebration of what Catholics call Holy Mass?

That’s an important question, as you will be going to Holy Mass at least once a month this school year. Why are you here? Why disrupt the academic day to come to Church, why do you put down your pencils and crayons and basketballs, in order to come to Church to kneel down and pray? And for those who are Catholic to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus in Holy Communion?

What if I told you, that what we do here, is more important, than what goes on over there? That what we do here, makes what we do over there, possible? Do you believe that? Students? Teachers? Staff?
Just about 50 years ago, the Second Vatican council talked about the purpose of Catholic schools. It said that Catholic schools are, like most schools, zealous about forming young people, teaching young people, reading, writing, arithmetic, academics, and all that. But what makes Catholic schools special is that they, and I quote, to enable young people “to grow in the new life which has been given them in baptism.” New life. We are here at Church, at Holy Mass, to grow in New Life.

This new life is what Jesus is talking about in the Gospel today. If you put new wine into old, dried-up wineskins, they will burst. Similarly, Catholics schools don’t just focus on the mind, on academic learning, but the soul, making sure that our souls don’t become long those old, dried-up wineskins in the Gospel, but that our souls are pliant, open to the new life of God.

Catholic schools recognize that for humans to truly flourish, to really become the people God made them to be, we do not ignore the need of the human soul for God, for worship, for prayer, but we realize its priority, the priority of faith.

Why are we here? To allow God to do the work that teachers cannot do, that none of us can do on our own: to nourish our souls, to transform our souls, to give new life to our souls. For the glory of God and salvation of souls.