August 25, 2024 - Pastor Message
December 21, 2024BACK TO SCHOOL PART 1
BACK TO SCHOOL
PART 1
“You call me teacher and master, and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that, as I have done for you, you should also do” (John 13:13-14).
Back-to-school time always seems to sneak up on us like a thief. No sooner does summer start than you blink your eyes and it’s gone. While there is a certain cause for sadness this time of year as we bid farewell to our all-too brief summer fun, there is also a certain sense of excitement as students launch into the adventure of a new school year, with so many new things to learn and experience. Young people may grumble and groan about going back to school, but, at least for most, the benefits of the new school year far outweigh the cost of giving up one more day at the beach or that last ballgame in the park.
Their example can be instructive for the whole parish community, even if it’s been years (or decades) since we went to school. No matter who we are or at what stage we are in life, we all have so much to learn and so many ways to grow. The world and its mysteries far exceed the limits of our feeble minds. Every day offers new opportunities to grow in knowledge and wisdom, if we seek it. That’s really the key, isn’t it? Like children returning to school, do we still seek to learn, or have we closed our minds off from learning, arrogantly or lazily thinking we know enough?
This type of sloth can also affect our lives of faith. Honestly, when was the last time you learned something new about your faith? I don’t mean by accident, something you picked up from a homily or from reading the bulletin, both of which are good sources for learning. I mean intentionally, that you had a question and did the homework on your own or with a group to find an answer. For most of us, I’m willing to bet that it’s been a while. Too often we fall into the trap of thinking what we learned from Sister Anastasia in third grade Communion class is all we need to know and that our faith has no room to grow or to teach us anything about life beyond that.
While Jesus celebrates the faith of little children (Mark 10:15), the faith of a child is hardly sufficient to address the big questions of adult life. For that, we need to grow in our faith: “When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things” (1 Corinthians 13:11). Our faith is a light for our whole lives, not just the first eighteen years. Jesus, our teacher, shows us the way to live, from the dawn of infancy to the sunset of death. As his disciples, a word which means “students’, we need to learn from him. In next week’s column, I will suggest some free resources that can help all of us do that. Meanwhile, as the children of our parish return to school and faith formation, may we join them, recommitting ourselves to intentionally growing in our faith now and always.
Fr. Marc Stockton
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