Most Rev. Richard Grecco

Ontario Catholic Education Symposium

November 8-9, 2002

Note: This text was used for a spoken presentation to the Symposium and therefore uses language conventions appropriate to such a situation.

I A Biblical Way of Seeing

Institutions appear to enjoy spending time, money and talent on the process of envisioning the future. I have participated in the formulation of a vision statement for a seminary, for OSSTA, for a Catholic Diocese, a General Hospital, and a Catholic University. The first question asked of me after my appointment as a bishop was, "And how do YOU envision the future of the Diocese?" It seems to be the popular thing to ask.

I must say that I have always felt uncomfortable with the idea of envisioning the future. It seems presumptuous in the context of faith to formulate OUR vision for the future. And yet, institutions, including Catholic ones, have poured so much time and effort into them.

Today I want to offer for your consideration a different way of thinking about the direction of Catholic Education. It comes from Father Donald Senior who is a Scripture scholar in the USA. He began his address to the Congress on Vocations in Montreal last April this way:

"It has always intrigued me that in Biblical Hebrew the ways of referring to past and future has the opposite orientation than does either French or English.

While we say the past is behind me and the future is in front of me, the biblical idiom is the opposite: i.e. the past is in front of me (before my face) and the future is behind me (at my back). The image is visual, something like rowing a boat across the lake. The receding shoreline is "in front" of you - where you are headed is at your back, behind you. You view the `past' -receding shoreline - in order to fix your course for where you are going.

This is how the Scriptures function for us. We view our sacred past not out of nostalgia but to find there the footprints of God, the traces of our religious roots in order to give us direction for the future which WE CANNOT SEE but which we know God holds for us."

I like this approach to envisioning the future. First it grounds our visioning process in the memory of Jesus and the Sacred Mysteries of our Redemption. Fixing our vision on him guides us into the future. Catholic Education has no future if it is not focused on Christ. Second, this approach to the future provides a measure of trust and humility. As Isaiah put it, God's ways are not ours. Third, the idea of `putting your back into it' connotes `hard work'. As partners in education, we need to put our `backs' into the future of Catholic Education.

This reflection on a biblical way of envisioning the future prompts me to offer a proposition for our consideration. It's not original. But it is appropriate.

WE DON'T NEED A NEW VISION.

What WE NEED ARE NEW EYES. We need to see things anew.

In other words, Jesus Christ has always been, is and always will be the vision who guides the community into the future. What we need are new eyes to see the Mission he has entrusted US. What we need are new eyes to see our Partners in Catholic Education in Ontario. We need to see our Mission and our partners anew.

II Seeing Mission Anew

Let's first consider the Mission entrusted to us. Every partner has spent much time and effort formulating Mission statements. Many are precise, accurate and inspiring. Yet, as one Catholic Director of Education said to me, "but what do we do about them? How do we live them?" The most recent statement of Mission that I have read is "Build Bethlehem Everywhere". It's lengthy, 45 pages, but very good. I often distribute at teacher study days a one page list of four brief Mission statements, one from Regina teachers, one from Alberta Trustees, one from Cardinal Ambrozic, one from a Toronto High School Principal. The notion that Catholic schools exist to pursue the Mission of Jesus is common to all four statements. Thank God. If we lose sight of the Mission of Jesus, we lose our identity. And according to Donald Senior's metaphor, we also lose our way. The Church exists to evangelize, to proclaim Jesus is Lord, to teach others not only about Him but to know Him as personal Lord and Saviour. The Catholic School System in Ontario is an extension of the Church's Mission to evangelize.

We don't claim a higher moral ground. Nor do we assert our distinctiveness in the moral realm of social justice. But, we do assert that Jesus' Mission makes us who we are. To lose sight of the mission he has given us, is to lose our identity.

Certainly, World Youth Day thrilled us with delight as we saw the message of an old man received so enthusiastically by 800,000 young people. Pope John Paul II's Mission was to announce Christ's light shining through them! This is who we are. The cross and the Stations of the Cross were more than moving demonstrations of faith. They announced our participation in the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus. They announced our Participation in the Paschal Mystery. They demonstrated to the world how we live our Mission, the Mission of the Church, the Mission of our Catholic Schools. In this sense, the participants of World Youth Day stand as cogent witness to the truth of who we are as Partners in Catholic Education.

We, Partners in Catholic Education have inherited a wonderful gift in this province. The Catholic School system in Ontario enables us to evangelize, to exercise the ministry of teaching in fulfillment of a Mission entrusted to us by the Lord. WE need new eyes to appreciate the mission entrusted to us, for no other reason perhaps than to re-capture the enthusiasm, the joy and the peace that we saw reflected on the faces of Catholic young people during World Youth Day. Father Jim Mulligan (Catholic Education: the Future is Now) has recently written about a diminished PASSION for the Catholic Mission in our province and argues that this bodes poorly for the future of Catholic Education.

Well, unless we are blind, World Youth Day showed us passion, fun filled, loving, peaceful, spontaneous, and joyful passion in overwhelming abundance. Behold with new eyes a passion for Evangelization, for Catholic Mission in our School system.

Based on the Biblical way of seeing how to navigate into the future, I have offered the proposition that we do not need a new vision but new eyes to venture forward. I have also suggested that new eyes might help us focus anew on the Mission of Evangelization in our Catholic Schools.

III New Eyes to See Each Other

But above all, we need new eyes to see each other. Seeing each other with new eyes requires a change, a change of mind and heart, a change of attitude. Our Tradition calls such transformation, `conversion'. Conversion begins as God's grace. It is a divine gift. Are we ready to accept such grace? Let me give you a few examples of seeing School, Home and Parish with new eyes.

a) The Parish

How might parish renew its vision of the Catholic school? Well a good start would be to let go of expectations that apply to parochial schools. Our Catholic schools haven't been parochial since 1968.

One parochial school expectation of our District Catholic Schools that continues to cause difficulty, is attendance at Sunday Mass. The dated Blishen report stated about 34% attended Sunday Mass. Today, I hear from school and parish perhaps 20 to 30% attend Sunday Mass. We are a sacramental people and our Mission is to evangelize.

What I see in our District schools is a precious gift. They prepare the field for evangelization with prayer, with catechetical instruction, with Catholic content across the curriculum, with Catholic lay leadership that is constantly taking programs for improvement, and finally with arms open to welcome the parish. I plead with parish priests and lay staff to recognize what a gift the Parish has in our Catholic School System. The Holy Father has set the priority on the NEW EVANGELIZATION. Our schools share this mission with us.

On several occasions since my arrival in Toronto as Auxiliary, I have invited parishes to see the school with the eyes of Isaiah. When the Messiah comes, prophesized Isaiah, he "WILL NOT BREAK A BRUISED REED, NOR SNUFF OUT A SMOULDERING WICK" (Is. 42:3). Indeed Jesus, the Messiah, fanned the flickering wick into a flame of faith. He did not extinguish it. Jesus sought out those who were bruised physically and spiritually and gave them comfort and healing. Christ came to heal the sick. The healthy had no need of him. The 80% of our Catholic people who do not go to Mass have enough faith to choose our Catholic Schools. Perhaps their faith is a smouldering wick and not ardent enough to get them to Sunday Mass. The parish needs to fan the faith that is there. Fixing our eyes on Jesus' ministry teaches us what the parish needs to do. The 80% who don't attend Sunday Eucharist may be bruised by alienation due to grief or anger or fear or guilt, but what they need is Jesus' healing touch. This is the challenge of the New Evangelization. Our Catholic Schools do such a wonderful job in affirming families out of a sense of faith. The role of the Parish is to ratify that affirmation by reaching out through the schools with hospitality and care, not condemnation.

When I was a parish priest I used to tell my regular Church goers to expect to lose their customary seats in Church at Easter and Christmas. I also invited them to smile at the semi annual Catholics and welcome them warmly. Show them the hospitality that Jesus would show. Give them a reason to think, "hey, maybe I am missing something by not being a part of this community." We, the priests and laity of the Parishes, need to see the 80% of Catholics in our schools who do not attend Church with similar affection. Seeing the school with the eyes of Isaiah, as a place of faith which may be bruised or wavering may lead to a whole new relationship, indeed a new partnership between parish and school.

Along with Isaiah's prophecy of the Messiah, a brief reflection on the preferential option for the poor may help parish to see the school with new eyes. The poor are not only those who are deprived of employment, food, shelter and clothing. Many people are deprived of knowing love, of the experience of belonging, of hope. According to Jean Vanier one of the severest afflictions of our culture is loneliness. These people too are the poor. The Sacred Mystery of the Eucharist, celebrated in an affectionate and welcoming parish community, needs to express its preference for them, the spiritually poor. The preferential commitment to the poor is a part of our Mission. The 80% in our schools who are absent on Sundays are within easy reach of the Parish Community. The School is in the process of preparing them for pastoral outreach. They have invested their own flesh and blood to our Catholic Schools.

Our Catholic Schools affirm parents who are struggling, who are hurting and lonely, who are looking for spiritual sustenance. Please, I invite the parish partner to look with new eyes and see the gift Catholic Educators have prepared for Evangelization. Evangelization is what we partners are about.

b) The School

So much for the new eyes of the Parish. What can be said about new eyes for the School? Here are four suggestions.

1. Seeing the Parish as neither Conservative nor Liberal would be a good start. These categories serve neither God nor our neighbour. If schools relate to parish with these categories, then parish inevitably will reciprocate. Inexorably, alienation will develop and Partnerships will cease by the disease of pigeon-holing.

If anyone suffers from this type of categorical vision, I recommend two articles by Father Ron Rohlheiser in the Catholic Register entitled: "Three things for conservatives to ponder" Sept.29, 2002 and "Three things for liberals to ponder" Sept. 22, 2002.

2. Schools need to see the Church's Official teaching as a given just as the Mission of Evangelization is a given. Parish and Home expect the school to accept the Official Teaching of the Church as a given. If suspicions or doubts were to arise on this point, then relationships among the partners would deteriorate very quickly.

Last month I attended a Catechetical Congress in Rome to celebrate the Tenth Anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Fifth Anniversary of the General Directory for Catechesis. The Message from the Congregation for Evangelization and the Congregation for Doctrine and the Faith was clear. The Mission of the Evangelization transmits the official teaching of the Church, not theological speculation about the teaching. Theological thought has its own role and forum; for example, the faculty of theology at University or the Seminary. The forum to present the Church's teaching is our Catholic school classroom precisely because its mission is Evangelization.

This should not stymie critical thinking or the experiential approach. Of course the Secondary School students will question the teacher. But teachers should respond to student queries with clarity and personal conviction, not with the opinion of a theologian about the teaching.

3. The school needs to see the Parish as a source of `Ecclesial Spirituality'. We are a sacramental people. The term "Ecclesial Spirituality" is used in the General Directory, (p.29). The Parish not only worships God through the Sacraments but is constituted through the celebration of the Sacred Mysteries. The Spirit of the Risen Jesus, unites with us not just as individuals but as a communion of people united in the Spirit. Our spirituality is not individualistic but communal We are a sacramental people whose spirituality centers on Christ in the Eucharist.

Pressures in a secular culture have not discouraged spirituality. On the contrary, young people are very interested in spirituality. But our secular society pressures its members to keep spirituality out of the public arena. In a secular environment the message is to keep spirituality private.

And in a multicultural or pluralistic society the tendency argues Father Ron Rolheiser in The Holy Longing, is to reduce spirituality to theism. That is to say, a culture of religious tolerance pressures people to adopt a generic spirituality in which language alludes to God or a Higher Power, not Jesus Christ. A good example of this is the government order that the prayer service for the families and deceased of the Swissair passenger jet that crashed at Peggy's Cove be kept generic, with no mention of Jesus or anything specifically Christian or Catholic.

By the way if any wish to explore this point in addition to "The Holy Longing" I recommend 'Build Bethlehem Everywhere' for its superb explanation of the sacramental nature of catholic education. Official documentation of this point can be found in the General Directory for Catechesis.

My point is this. Schools should see its partner the Parish as the locus of a spirituality of the body that is `ecclesial, Christocentric and Trinitarian'. The New Evangelization is an experience of Jesus and communion with our neighbour. Schools need to see their Parish as a provider and guide for the language of prayer and devotional experience. Like our partner, the Parish, our school prayers and prayer services must be explicitly Trinitarian and Christocentric. Traditional prayers and gestures such as the Sign of the Cross keep our Mission focused on Christ and resistant to the pressures of secularism and pluralism.

In this respect schools need to see the Liturgical Calendar of the Parish as a crucial vehicle of Trinitarian and Christocentric Spirituality. Please, please, please nurture the spiritual life of the school by implementing the Catholic Liturgical Calendar wherever possible. It is filled with seasonal moods, with colors, with music and aromas that are aimed at the senses in order to move the heart and soul.

4. The School needs to review its efforts regularly in order to refocus its attention on the Mission of Evangelization. Our Mission in education is Catholic, an

extension of the Church's mission. If we lose it, we are lost.

To this end, here is a checklist of minimal standards that should be promoted and protected. This list is not exhaustive. It is intended merely to help the partners to refocus on our shared Mission.

a) The Catholic perspective that has been written across the curriculum needs ongoing attention.

b) The promotion and protection of Catholic leadership formation programs for teachers, administration and boards.

c) 150 minutes requirement for religion classes.

d) Four courses of religion at the secondary level.

e) Maintaining a Religion department and Religion Head. This is especially important. We finally have recognition of religion as a teachable subject and courses are being set up in the Colleges of Education. What incentive would teachers have if administration started collapsing Religion departments into the Social Sciences?

f) Promote and protect chaplaincy in our secondary schools and for our Boards.

Finally, let's turn our attention to the Family. How might the family see the school with new eyes? I want to begin with a story told me by a Catholic Board Trustee who with his wife had raised eight children. Four went to Catholic High Schools; four went to Public High Schools. Today they are all adults. The four who attended Public High School continue today to attend Sunday Mass and look to their parish as a source of strength and meaning. The four who attended the Catholic High School do not attend Sunday Mass. The Catholic religion is marginal in their lives. Here was a Catholic who had deep dedication and spent years in the Catholic System. I knew his heart was aching. I asked him what he thought had happened. His response was simple. He and his wife made sure that the four in Public High School attended Sunday Mass in the Parish and participated in Parish activities. When they left home they continued on their own to find Catholic communities on campus and then join parishes after University. The four who had attended Catholic High Schools did everything in the School. They were too busy for parish life, with Catholic activities in the School, School Masses. Even Triduum services were held at the School. The only faith community they ever knew, the High School, had become Church for them. When they graduated, they graduated out of the only church they knew. This is his explanation not mine. But it does make sense to me.

The point is that the School is not the Parish Church. This is clear. There are no sacraments of initiation into the school. There are no sacramental burials at school. There are no sacraments of lifetime commitment at school. Clearly, school is a faith community but not a Parish church community. Too many families see enrolment in a Catholic School as enrolment in church. I think the School partner already has sufficient roles to perform without adding another.

Schools are places that prepare children for

adulthood. All children want one thing. To grow up. Our schools prepare them to move into the adult world of science and technology, the adult world of commerce, the adult world of leisure, the adult political world and the adult world of globalization. Our Catholic schools do not see or teach religion as though it exists for the formation of a community of kids. If that were the case there would be no reason to have any connection to Parish. Furthermore, the General Directory of Catechesis states that the criterion of catechesis is adult faith formation.

Parish is where our children are introduced to the adult worshiping community. Parish bears witness to the norm that catechesis is primarily about adult faith formation. Parish is where children are able to recognize that what they are learning about the Mystery of Christ's love for them will prepare them for adulthood.

When I was a parish priest, a principal who wanted to take advantage of the proximity of the school to the Church asked me if two classes could attend the 9 am Mass every Friday. He said it would mean having to start Mass a few minutes late on Fridays. I was delighted. The source of my delight was seeing the children absorbed at the sight of 150 adults praying and singing and enjoying themselves. It did my heart and the hearts of the teachers good to provide them with an experience of the adult worshiping community. Those Masses were teaching by example that religion is for adults and the formation of an adult faith community. Masses and prayers celebrated exclusively by a community of kids for eight years is very likely to send the message that religion is for kids only. If our children are exposed exclusively to the faith community of a Catholic School, then when they graduate, they graduate from the only faith community they know. And very likely when they become parents they will enroll their children in a Catholic School because they got religion there when they were kids.

Families need to see the school as a place of PREPARATION FOR ADULT FAITH AND ADULT PRACTICE.

CONCLUSION

To conclude. I have referred to the Partners in Catholic Education in terms of the institutions of Parish, Home and School. However, seeing each other with new eyes means beholding one another's face. The nature of this challenge invites us to see each other as persons, not just as institutions with vested interests.

While putting our backs into the future and gazing at the saving event of Christ, our Lord and Saviour, we get to know the Mystery of His love by loving those who face us daily. The central moral message of the Gospel is Conversion, the transformation of the human heart. And conversion arrives as grace, the gift of God. If new eyes are possible, it is only because of God's intervention. For it is the Holy Spirit who helps us to see in our neighbour, the Face of Christ. Our new eyes - that will enable us to see each other anew - must see beyond the institutional barriers in our midst so that we all might see in our partner's face, the face of Christ.