My dear friends, we have had a power house of Saints’ Feast Days leading up to our Mass this morning. Tuesday was St. Monica whose perseverance in faith and example of living that faith brought about the difficult conversion of both her husband and her son, the great St. Augustine whose feast day followed on Wednesday. 

My dear friends, we have had a power house of Saints’ Feast Days leading up to our Mass this morning. Tuesday was St. Monica whose perseverance in faith and example of living that faith brought about the difficult conversion of both her husband and her son, the great St. Augustine whose feast day followed on Wednesday. 

Augustine was one of the great lights of the Church and teachers of message of Jesus Christ. And today we commemorate the Passion of St. John the Baptist, the suffering and death of this man who gave his life in order to be faithful to God who had called him to prepare the way of the Lord and make straight the paths for the Son of God to come to his people. 

When we come together to begin this year of Catholic Education in the city of Regina, it is this faith of Monica and Augustine and John the Baptist that is at the heart not only of this Eucharistic Celebration but of everything that we do in our Catholic Schools. This faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God and Saviour of human kind is the only reason we have Catholic Schools. 

Our children can learn about math and literature and science and sports in any school around us. There are good teachers in the public system; there are smart children in the public system. These smart children can get a good education in the public system. But in the public system they cannot be exposed to the way of living that is the Catholic faith. For our faith is not a list of doctrinal beliefs, our faith is a way of living that sees in every human being the image of God, the spark of the divine, the potential to rise beyond the confines of this finite world to the heights of heaven.

We are in the observance of the Year of Faith in the Church. In his letter announcing this year of Faith, Pope Benedict described faith in this way: he said “faith is choosing to stand with the Lord so as to live with him.” Choose. Stand with. Live. 

Faith is a choice, it is a decision to be one with Jesus Christ and it is determination to live one’s life in the company of Jesus Christ, the One who is Love itself in human flesh. And by living our lives with him we allow that love to penetrate into every aspect of our daily life. 

When that happens, then we are able to let that love, who is a person, Jesus Christ, radiate through us and into the lives of those people in our care. That is Catholic education. That is the one thing that our Catholic Schools have that no other school has and which no other school can give. 

For when that love of God, made flesh in Jesus Christ, floods into the lives of our students through us it gives them light to guide their lives. It gives them strength to find happiness and meaning in their lives in the face of the disappointment and difficulties and tragedies of life. 

As our Holy Father, Pope Francis, wrote in his Encyclical Letter Light of Faith: “without that light, it is impossible to tell good from evil, or the road to our destination from other roads which take us in endless circles, going nowhere.” (LF 3) Faith gives our children and young people hope and confidence for their future. That is what faith is, and that is what Catholic education is. 

Faith is not taught by a textbook. Faith is communicated through a living example of personal contact. 

I would like to give you a part of a homily Pope Francis gave on the feast of St. Cajetan: “I sometimes ask people: “Do you give alms?” They say to me: “Yes, Father”. “And when you give alms, do you look the person you are giving them to in the eye?” “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t really notice”. “Then you have not really encountered him. You tossed him the alms and walked off. When you give alms, do you touch the person’s hand or do you throw the coin?” “No, I throw the coin”. “So you did not touch him. And if you don’t touch him you don’t meet him”. 

What Jesus teaches us first of all is to meet each other, and in meeting to offer each other help. We must know how to meet each other. We must build, create, construct a culture of encounter. How many differences, how many problems in the family there always are! Problems in the neighbourhood, problems at work, problems everywhere. And differences don’t help. The culture of encounter. Going out to meet each other.

That is exactly the culture we work hard at developing in our Catholic Schools. We go out to offer our help to our children and our youth. We go out to meet our students and we build, create and construct a culture of encounter with them. And in that encounter, we who choose to stand with Jesus and so live in union with him, allow the love of God, the life of God that is within us to flow into their lives. That is faith. That is Catholic Education. That is what happens in Catholic Schools. 

At World Youth Day in Brazil recently, Pope Francis commented on the refrain for the Responsorial Psalm in the Mass which was: “Sing to the Lord a new song” (Psalm 95:1). He said: “What is this new song? It does not consist of words, it is not a melody, it is the song of your life, it is allowing our life to be identified with that of Jesus, it is sharing his sentiments, his thoughts, his actions. And the life of Jesus is a life for others. The life of Jesus is a life for others. It is a life of service.” 

The life of a teacher in a Catholic School is exactly that. It allows the song of a life lived in faith to stir the heart of every student. For being a teacher in a Catholic School means living a life for others. To do that, we must choose to stand with Jesus so as to live with him. If the light of faith does not shine within us, it cannot shine on those whose education is entrusted to our care. If the light of faith does not shine within us we have only education to give them, and in a Catholic School, that is not enough.

Catholic education can only be given by a person of faith. Catholic education can only be given by one whose life is a song of love and union with God. That song is the unique thing that Catholic educators give to the children and young people in their schools. Our children and young people need to learn how to sing that song if their future is to be bright and full of the hope God intends for them.

If our Catholic Schools are to continue to offer their unique gift to the children of our community then they need to be filled with teachers who have made that decision to stand with Jesus so as to live with him, teachers from whom the bright light of faith shines out from within them and lights up the lives of their students; teachers who are aware that Jesus, the Saviour of the world,  not only sends them into their classroom but he goes with them into the classroom and is always beside them in this mission of love which is Catholic Education.