HOMILY FOR MASSES FOR THE OPENING OF THE YEAR OF SYDNEY CATHOLIC SCHOOLS

Eastern Region, St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney

Inner-West Region, St Brigid’s Church, Marrickville, Sydney

The etymology of the word education, like so much else in education, is much contested. Its roots are the Latin words educare, meaning to train or mould, and educere, meaning to draw forth or lead away. The words were used to describe not just teaching and learning as we take education to mean, but also for putting a ship to sea, hatching an egg or midwifing a birth, training a circus animal, even sculling a drink. Just how much modern teaching has in common with those activities I’ll leave to you to judge!

But by the time Shakespeare was popularising the word educate, it was settling to its modern meaning of bringing up and especially teaching children. In his comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost, ‘arts-man’ or school-teacher, Holofernes, who teaches at the local ‘charge-house’ or school, dismisses the local constable (Dull) as “undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather, unlettered” (Act 4, Scene 2; cf. Act 5, Scene 1). But not all are so ignorant. Earlier in the play we meet Don Adriano de Armado, ‘a fantastical Spaniard’ and Moth, his quick-witted young page. The two are discussing romance and Don Armado challenges the lad “Define, define, well-educated infant”. Intimidated by the task, Moth exclaims, “My father’s wit and my mother’s tongue assist me!” Adriano responds, “Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty and pathetical!” (Act 1, Scene 2)

However pretty or pathetical our youngsters may be, our teachers are modern arts women and men charged with drawing precious things out of their students’ minds and characters as much as putting them in, with leading them forth into the world rather than coddling them from it, and with putting them to sea equipped with tools for navigation. In drawing out the particular gifts of each and the natural curiosity of all, in teaching children many things but also how to think and feel, evaluate and value, we hope our teachers produce well-educated infants like Moth, hatchlings ready to hold their own in the adult world.

Today’s Gospel passage (Lk 7:11-17) is the one from which Pope Francis has taken this year’s World Youth Day theme, “Young man, I say to you, arise!” (Lk 7:14) A story of death and resuscitation might seem better suited to an end-of-year Requiem than to an opening of the year Mass. Yet the ancients understood that to bring young people up is to bring about a revival in them. For Plato, for instance, the fallen soul trapped in the body was liberated, like a chick from an egg, each time it learnt something new.

When Jesus encountered the widow of Nain, the body of her only child was being carried in procession out of town. People were buried beyond the city walls in those times, for they were now beyond community and hope. Jesus feels compassion for this woman, bereft of family and security, and so gives her back her son alive. It is a foretaste of the Resurrection when the bereft family of the Church will be given back the Son.

We can only imagine her joy. Yet Jesus the Teacher’s immediate attention is on the boy more than the mother or the crowd. Rather than stand at a distance, as the ritual laws required holy men to do, He went up and put His hand on the bier, bringing the bearers to a halt. Looking directly at the body He said: “Young man, I say to you, arise!” and the lad sat up and spoke. Jesus drew him forth from death into life, from silence to speech. Jesus was the answer to prayer – the prayers of the mother, the community, the young man, even the dead. He draws people forth from every kind of tomb, including the tomb of ignorance, into the light of truth.

Something similar, if less dramatic, occurs if we educate after the fashion of Christ the Teacher. Jesus doesn’t say to the weeping widow “Don’t cry, your son’s spirit is still alive – who cares about his body?” No, Jesus cared about the whole person, and so he raised up the boy in spirit, mind and body, giving him back whole to his mother and community. When we talk of educating the whole person, we acknowledge that to draw forth a student’s academic potential to the detriment of social, athletic, aesthetic or ethical skills, is to do them a disservice; that to enthuse them about social justice but not the rest of faith or morality is to rob them of their religion; that to make them ‘book smart’ but uncritical, or creative but unreasonable, would be to diminish them.

Only last week Pope Francis, addressing an education conference, said humanity today looks to teachers to care about the future of humanity and thus to transmit not just concepts but values, hope, courage; to cooperate not just with the school system but the family, Church and community; to combine the language of the head with the language of the heart and the language of the hands; to transmit a clear understanding of our tradition and integrate it with the other disciplines; to teach the wherewithal for the worlds of work, family and society, and a committed citizenship concerned for justice. He calls this charge ‘the educational compact’ and praised teachers as the artsmen or artisans of a great art. Yours is the noble vocation of awakening every student from the sleep of death – intellectually, physically, emotionally, morally, socially, spiritually – bringing forth their every gift, supplying for their every weakness, so they might “have life, life to the full” (cf. Jn 10:10). And that means we must, like the pall-bearers, bring our students to Christ so they can encounter the One who is ‘The Resurrection and the Life’ (Jn 11:25), ‘The Way, the Truth and the Life’ (Jn 14:6), the Word and Wisdom of God (Jn 1:1:1-18; 1Cor 1:18-31; Col 2:3). Our vision, then, is to grow thriving Catholic communities through excellent teaching and learning; our mission, to bring the young to know and love Christ through learning.

How would we know we were doing this? Not by getting lots of firsts, seconds and thirds in the state in the arts, sciences and technologies, higher NAPLANs, ATARs and university entries – though I’d like to see all of these please! Not even by achieving greater learning gains, wherever people start from – though that’s an excellent goal. Commenting on today’s Gospel story that great teacher, St Augustine, noted that as the mother rejoiced at the raising again of that young man’s body, so does Mother Church rejoice when people who are dead of spirit are restored to life (St. Augustine, Sermon 98, 2). To be physically alive, but intellectually, morally or spiritually comatose, is to be only half alive. To encounter Christ is, as the Apostle Paul experienced it, to be woken up: “Wake up sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” (Eph 5:14)

So when Jesus resuscitated the young man, he ‘started to talk’. To encounter the Word and Wisdom of God, is to be awoken, enlightened, changed. And such a grace cannot be contained: it bursts out of us as we become in turn a voice for that Wisdom and Word. In that sense all Christian life is fundamentally education: training, moulding, bringing forth, leading out. May what each of you offer in 2020 and beyond have that electric power, greater than any defibrillator.

INTRODUCTION TO MASS FOR THE OPENING OF THE SCHOOL YEAR IN THE EASTERN REGION OF SYDNEY CATHOLIC SCHOOLS

St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney

Welcome to tonight’s Mass! As we come together to open a new school year in the Eastern Region of our Sydney Catholic Schools, we ask God to bless us, all our colleagues and students in 2020, and especially our beginning teachers, leaders and students.

I acknowledge the presence of the Episcopal Vicar for Education, Very Rev. Michael McLean, the Chaplain Fr Gary Perritt CP, and concelebrating clergy; Executive Director Tony Farley and Mr Phil Gane, Acting Regional Director Eastern Region; Dallas McInerney, Chief Executive Officer of Catholic Schools NSW; Members of the Board; other SCS directors, assistant directors, and staff; those ministering to our First Australians; leaders from our Congregational schools, representatives of Religious Congregations, Catholic universities and civil society, and other special guests. It’s with particular pleasure that I welcome our teachers, principals and general staff today, especially those beginning teachers who will be inducted through our special rite.

INTRODUCTION TO MASS FOR THE OPENING OF THE SCHOOL YEAR IN THE INNER-WEST REGION OF SYDNEY CATHOLIC SCHOOLS

St Brigid’s Church, Marrickville, Sydney

Welcome to tonight’s Mass! As we open a new school year in the Inner-West Region of our Sydney Catholic Schools, we ask God to bless all our leaders, teachers, staff and students in 2020, especially those beginning or completing their time with us. Today happens to be the Feast of Blessed Fra Angelico, the Patron Saint of Artists and a Dominican like me: it was on this feast day that I made my first profession in 1987.

I acknowledge the presence of the Episcopal Vicar for Education, Very Rev. Michael McLean, the Chaplain Fr Gary Perritt CP, and concelebrating clergy; Executive Director Tony Farley and Regional Director, Michael Krawec; Merv McCormack- Executive Director, Lasallian Mission Council; John Robinson- Regional Director, Marist Schools Australia; Sr Susan Miller- Leadership Team, Presentation Sisters; Sr Margaret Bernie- Congregational Leader, Sisters of Charity; Members of the Board; other SCS directors, assistant directors, and staff; those ministering to our First Australians; leaders from our Congregational schools, Catholic universities and civil society, and other special guests. It’s with particular pleasure that I welcome our teachers, principals and general staff today, especially those beginning teachers who will be inducted through our special rite.