Spotlight on faith illuminating Catholic education

By Wendy Shaw

Catholic schools seek to create an atmosphere animated by the gospel spirit and illuminated by faith.

Archbishop Tony Ireland reminded Tasmanian Catholic education leaders of this at a Mass at the Church of the Apostles in Launceston on 28 August.

Leaders, including about 40 principals and acting principals, attended the Mass as part of a two-day College of Catholic Education Leaders’ meeting in Launceston.

In his homily, Archbishop Tony said there was something ‘wonderfully appropriate’ about celebrating this Mass for Catholic Education on the Feast of St Augustine.

Augustine was a bishop, a master theologian and a saint, but before that he was a teacher.

“He knew the attraction of ideas and the danger of mistaking cleverness for true wisdom,” the Archbishop said.

“And perhaps that is why his most famous sentence still speaks so powerfully to education: ‘You have made us for yourself and our heart is restless until it rests in you’.”

That was a remarkable starting point for Catholic Education leaders who educate restless young people.

“They are searching for who they are and what their lives might become,” Archbishop Tony went on.

“They live in a world offering them countless answers before they have even discovered the questions.

“The Catholic school must never be frightened of that restlessness. We should recognise within it the movement of the human heart towards God.”

The Second Vatican Council’s declaration on Christian, or Catholic, education [Gravissimum Educatiounis] highlighted its role in developing intellectual faculties and ‘the ability to judge rightly’.

“Education is not simply the transmission of information,” Archbishop Tony said.

“Our students have more information available to them than Augustine could have imagined in his time. The challenge now is learning how to ‘judge rightly’; how to recognise what is true; how to distinguish what matters from what merely attracts attention.

“Then the Council said something beautiful about those who undertake this work—that’s you and your staff. Their vocation demands, said the Council fathers, special qualities of mind and heart.

“Augustine would have understood that immediately. Catholic education cannot choose between intellectual excellence and formation of the heart.

“We want our young people to think deeply because we want them to live deeply.”

Catholic education provides students with knowledge, qualifications, opportunities. It prepares them for further study and employment.

“All of those things matter enormously. But the question posed by the gospel is deeper: … Is there something within them that will keep burning when life becomes difficult? Is there a faith capable of surviving disappointment? Is there a love strong enough to move beyond self-interest?”

The Second Vatican Council’s declaration on Catholic education said the Catholic school should create an atmosphere animated by the gospel spirit of freedom and charity. It seeks to ensure that the knowledge students acquire of the world, life and humans is illuminated by faith.

“Notice that faith does not supplant knowledge,” Archbishop Tony said. “It illuminates it. Christ does not make the classroom smaller. Rather, He opens the window. And this places significant responsibility upon those entrusted with leadership …

“There is plenty of light around our young people but not all of it illuminates. Screens glow late into the night.

“Opinions flash across social media. Yet a person can live surrounded by brightness and still be searching for a light by which to live. Our task is to point beyond ourselves to Christ—the light that no darkness can overcome.”

Archbishop Tony concelebrated Mass with Launceston Parish’s Fr Shammi Perera, Fr Vinco Muriyadan and Fr Jonas Donasco MLCC.

Principals Cas Douglas and Damiel Taylor and deputy principal Paul Mannion provided the musical accompaniment.