School leaders urged to ‘hand on living flame’ to students

 By Wendy Shaw

The mission of Catholic schools is not just to produce successful students and architecturally impressive buildings.

The key responsibility of Catholic education is to carry the Good News from one generation to the next.

That was the message from Archbishop Tony Ireland at the Catholic College of Educational Leaders’ Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Devonport on 4 June.

“Many of the children and young people entrusted to our Tasmanian Catholic schools are growing up in a culture that has become spiritually uncertain,” he said during his homily.

“Some families carry little memory of prayer. Some parents themselves were never well formed in faith.

“Increasingly, schools are now the first place where children hear the name of Jesus spoken with reverence and affection.

“That is not a burden to fear. It is a moment of grace.”

The heart of Catholic education was not only to educate the mind but also to awaken the soul, he said.

“We help young people discover that they are loved by God and called to love in return,” Archbishop Tony said.

“We teach them that faith is not a relic from the past but a living encounter with Christ who walks beside them every day—in their joys, their wounds, their confusion, and their hope.

“And because this mission matters so deeply, we cannot be content with a merely cultural Catholicism.

“Our schools must become places where faith is intentionally proposed, joyfully celebrated, and courageously lived.”

He called for Catholic primary schools not just to promote programs for First Communion and Confirmation, but also to offer “thoughtful, beautiful, and welcoming baptismal preparation programs for families whose children are not yet baptised”.

“Many parents are searching, even if they do not yet know how to articulate it,” Archbishop Tony said.

“Schools are often the bridge through which grace reaches a family again. In the last parish where I was a parish priest, each year, I baptised many school children and their parents who requested to be received into the Catholic faith.

“And in our secondary colleges, I would dearly love to see strong RCIC programs—the Rite of Christian Initiation for Children—so that adolescents who seek Christ may be accompanied with intelligence, reverence, patience, and warmth into the life of the Church …

“What an extraordinary thing it would be if our Catholic schools became places where young people asked to receive the sacraments, where families rediscovered prayer, and where faith was not hidden away but lived with confidence and joy.

“The fire of faith and the waters of baptism belong together. Our task is not to preserve ashes but to hand on living flame.”

Archbishop Tony added that long after timetables are forgotten, buildings renovated, policies rewritten, and reports archived, “the love, faith, wisdom, courage, and hope you have planted in young hearts will continue to live”.