My Students are the Greatest Grace to Me


“Thanks for your response. I think you and I are on the same page as far as thinking it a gift to be Catholic school teachers! I agree with you that Faith is a gift we use to learn how to grow closer in relationship with Him. I often teach it in terms of invitation; Faith is an invitation that we receive freely from God to be in a relationship with Him. When we respond to that invitation, we grow more in Love with Him and naturally desire to offer that same invitation to others...we extend that Faith in our action to others who may not know they are Loved. This is my mission as a teacher; for all of my students to know they are Loved and if I can offer that invitation in a small way, then I am using the Faith that God has given me. I taught in public schools for a while and this concept seemed alien to my colleagues...to teach students that they are Loved. Sad. We are blessed to be in a place where we can talk about this with our students and colleagues.”
After Jesus Christ and my wife, the greatest Graces in my life are my student. I was actually explaining this to my students today during a lecture. They were asking me if it was possible to get complacent with one’s Faith and whether that was good or bad. I teach my students that we are really only in control of the choice we make to grab a hold of the Graces that God gives us; after that, He draws us closer to Him. It can be easy to say “yes” to God once in your life, and it can be just as easy to repeat that “yes” under the same circumstances in which you responded the first time. Often people say “yes” and respond with authentic Faith, but if the same circumstances cannot be replicated, then that Faith becomes stale. Perhaps worse, we find some way to copy the experience and we come to expect Faith to just happen when we want it to. We become complacent with routine.
Cross from Assisi, A Gift from a Student (Photo Credit: P. Smith)

Teachers do this all the time. We find a formula in the classroom that works, and our students inspire Faith in us. We expect the same thing to happen every year. Of course, this is absurd. Our students change every year, so we have to be able to change with them.
St. Teresa of Calcutta Statue, Regis Jesuit High School (Photo Credit: P. Smith)

            In our Faith journey, we are constantly changing. God, the master teacher, knows this, and He anticipates our change and our needs at every step of our journey. The Graces we have grown accustomed to are no longer palpable; we need new Grace in a new form. The Grace that I was offered when I first really encountered Christ would never work for me now. The Grace that God gave me when I met my wife was perfect for me at that moment, but she is a renewed Grace every day of our marriage. As a teacher, though, it is my students who change daily, and, in that change, they become my greatest Grace. God give us Graces as a means by which we can come to Love and to be Loved more profoundly and powerfully every day. If my students are constantly changing in personality and in needs, then every day they are an opportunity to Love more dynamically and more profoundly. When I pray for them every morning, I am reminded that if I treat them each as individual opportunities to Love more deeply, then they become Graces from God…they are opportunities to grow in Love. Maybe our students are the real advantage we have in Catholic schools.

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