They Are God's Students...Not Mine

                In my abundant spare time, I facilitate online courses for Catholic school teachers around the country. The general idea is that if you work at a Catholic school, regardless of your own belief, it might help you to do your job if you have an idea of what the overall mission of the Catholic Church is. Many dioceses across the country are now requiring their teachers to obtain this sort of “professional development”, and, well, it is probably a good idea to have some intellectual knowledge of the Catholic “party line”. But as my course participants realize soon after they start my courses, there is so much more at stake than them just “knowing” what the Church teaches.

                My philosophy with these courses is to teach and to model a certain Catholic pedagogical theory. It makes no sense to me to simply present doctrine, assess mastery of said doctrinal subject matter, and then Hope for the best. There is a theology and a theory that underlies all Catholic belief and how it relates to the student. It is not enough for Catholic school teachers to just know doctrine, just like it will never be enough for students to just know doctrine. I am not saying that Catholic school teachers should “Convert or get fired!” That is ridiculous, especially considering the Truth of God subsists in the Church, but is not limited to the Church. In fact, some of the best Catholic school teachers I have ever had, worked with, observed, etc… were not Catholic, themselves. But just as God reveals Himself and encounters us in the most unpredictable manners, He works through anyone…if they are willing to let Him do so.

                So what do I do with these online folk? I stress relationship. While the course is designed with a catechetical formula, detailing Faith, Scripture, Jesus, Tradition, Morality, etc… you know, the basics of Catholic Doctrine… I remind teachers that the entire purpose of all of this is to prepare us or orient us in such a way that God can most effectively encounter us. Notice, I do not tell them that the purpose is for them to bring their students to Jesus or to the Church or anything else. I focus on the teachers themselves. The reason? Well, they can’t give what they do not have, so the ancient saying goes. I want these teachers to get an appreciation of the purpose of the Church so they can potentially have an encounter with God or, more accurately, so they can better reflect on their previous encounters with God.

                At its heart, Catholic education is about developing a relationship with God, but what is particularly interesting about Catholic belief of God is how He never seems to limit Himself to when and where He comes to us. As teachers, we need to understand, we quite possibly are the only way our students can encounter anything resembling Authentic Love. We do not know the lives and struggles of our students…we cannot pretend to assume their lives are full of Love and Mercy…we cannot presume they “see” God anywhere in their lives. As Catholic school teachers, perhaps the most important thing for us to consider is how we are called by God to be an image and likeness of His Love and Mercy for His students (not our students) so He can encounter them. But maybe we need to know Him first. Maybe we need to understand that our Vocation starts with us knowing what Authentic Love and Mercy is so we can share that with our students.

                In this blog I want to share how I relate Doctrine to this concept of relationship with God, all for the purpose of helping our students to encounter His True and Authentic Love and Mercy. Hopefully my words will be a small reminder of what our purpose really is.

(Every Friday I take my students to the chapel or outside or somewhere we can spend time in reflection and community. Full Faith Friday, we call it. Sometimes they start to realize just how powerfully God encounters them through each other.)