Catholic Education Week 2026 – Northern Tasmania
There is a wonderful story about St Clare of Assisi. Near the end of her life, when her body was failing and she could no longer do what she once did, she prayed: “Blessed are you, O God, for having created me.”
Think about that.
She did not say: blessed are you because I have been successful. She did not thank God because everything had gone according to plan. She thanked God for the simple, astonishing fact that she existed.
“Blessed are you, O God, for having created me.”
That may be one of the finest prayers for Catholic Education Week.
Because before a student receives a mark, before a teacher writes a report, before anyone wins a prize or receives a certificate, there is something much more important to say about every young person in our Catholic schools:
God created you. God knows you. Your life matters to God.
That changes education.
The Second Vatican Council taught that genuine education is concerned with the formation of the whole human person.¹ A Catholic school therefore cannot be simply a place where young people collect information before moving on to university, employment or whatever comes next.
We want our students to learn mathematics well. We want them to read beautifully, think critically and understand science. We want them to discover history, music, sport and technology. We want excellence.
But we want something more.
We want a young person eventually to be able to ask: What is my life for?
That question lies underneath today’s Gospel.
Peter says to Jesus: “What about us? We have left everything and followed you. What are we to have, then?”
It sounds rather like Peter is checking the terms and conditions!
But Jesus does not give him a career plan. He gives him a promise. A life given to Christ is never wasted.
St Paul discovered the same thing. He had ability. He had education. He had status. Yet in our first reading he says that beside knowing Christ, everything else finds its proper place. He has not finished growing. He says, “I am still running, trying to capture the prize for which Christ Jesus captured me.”
What an image for education.
Christ Jesus captured me.
Perhaps that is what we hope happens somewhere during the years a young person spends in a Catholic school.
Amid the mathematics and lunchtime conversations, somewhere between the playground and the classroom, through a teacher who believes in them when they have stopped believing in themselves, a young person begins to discover: Christ has captured me. My life has a purpose.
The Church’s 2022 document on Catholic schools says something beautiful. After the family, school should be the first place where a young person has a positive experience of relationships and learns how to build a society shaped by justice and solidarity.²
That means Catholic identity is found not only in what is displayed on the wall. It is revealed in what happens to the student who is sitting alone.
It is revealed when someone struggles with learning and discovers patience rather than embarrassment.
It is revealed when the new student finds a place at the table.
It is revealed when a teacher notices that behind difficult behaviour there may be a child carrying something heavy.
The same Vatican document insists that in Catholic education there should be no separation between learning and formation, between acquiring knowledge and growing in wisdom. ³
That is demanding work.
So today I want especially to thank our teachers, principals and Catholic Education staff. Vatican II calls teaching a vocation requiring qualities “of mind and heart”.⁴ You are entrusted with something extraordinarily precious: a human life still unfolding.
Sometimes you will see the result immediately. Often you will not.
A sentence spoken in Year 4 may be remembered at twenty-four. The teacher who quietly encouraged a frightened Year 8 student may never know what difference it made. The principal who insisted that a struggling child belonged may have altered the course of a family.
St Clare understood that holiness is allowing the light of Christ to pass through our lives.
And young people, that brings this back to you.
Your Catholic school is not asking you simply to become successful.
It is asking you to become yourself in Christ.
There will be voices telling you that your value depends upon how you look, what you own, how many people notice you or whether you outperform somebody else.
St Clare offers another way.
Look at your life and say: Blessed are you, O God, for having created me.
Then listen.
Because Christ may be calling you somewhere you had never imagined. Perhaps to marriage and family. Perhaps to teaching or service. Perhaps even to priesthood or religious life.
The question is not simply: What do I want to do with my life?
The deeper question is: Lord, what are you calling me to become?
St Paul kept running towards that answer.
St Clare gave her whole life to it.
And when we allow Christ to capture us, something begins to burn within us. His peace becomes something we carry. His light begins to shine through us.
Then Catholic education has accomplished something magnificent.
Not simply a student ready for the next stage of schooling.
But a young person ready to answer when Christ calls:
Yes, Lord. Here I am.
Most Rev. Anthony J. Ireland
Archbishop of Hobart
12 August 2026
Footnotes
- Second Vatican Council, Gravissimum Educationis, no. 1: true education aims at the formation of the human person in relation to the person’s ultimate end and the good of society; children and young people are to be helped towards harmonious human development.
- Congregation for Catholic Education, The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue (2022), no. 19: after the family, the school should provide a positive experience of social and fraternal relationships and prepare people to build a society founded upon justice and solidarity.
- Ibid., no. 23: Catholic education does not separate learning from formation or the acquisition of knowledge from growth in wisdom; educators are called to be teachers “of learning and of life.”
- Second Vatican Council, Gravissimum Educationis, no. 5: the vocation of those engaged in education requires particular qualities “of mind and heart”, careful preparation and continuing willingness to renew and adapt. The Council later describes the teacher’s work as an apostolate and a genuine service to society.