Cristo Rey Atlanta Jesuit High School

"Thanks for your response. It sounds like you have been reading a lot of Aquinas, in addition to your reference from Augustine! Indeed, human intellect can discern creation and free will to be gifts from God. By creating us and by giving us Free Will, God invites us into a relationship with Him. We must be given Faith in order for us to be able to freely respond to that invitation. If we accept that invitation we do it by our own Free Will...if we accept that we are Loved by God, it is an act of Faith. If we extend that invitation to Love and to be Loved, it is an act of Faith that we choose to make. As a teacher, I pay attention, especially, to those students who do not know they have been invited into a relationship with God...they do not know they are Loved. My primary goal is to extend that invitation to them. Regardless of what you teach or what your job is at a Catholic school (or any school, really) is to make sure our students know they are Loved. What a great mission we have as teachers!"

I went to a graduation last weekend in Atlanta for students I taught two years ago. The school, Cristo Rey Atlanta Jesuit High School, only accepts students who are from underprivileged communities. These are students who are intelligent and driven, but because of their race, religion, socioeconomic status or any number of demographic factors beyond their control, are not given the same advantages as fellow teenagers who may go to any other private schools just five miles down the road. Two year ago when I left Atlanta, I promised them I would go to their graduation. I kept my promise.

Students spending their lunch in my classroom. (P. Smith)

Cristo Rey Atlanta Jesuit High School opened just over four years ago. These graduates are the first students of their kind in Atlanta. In order to afford a Jesuit education, the Cristo Rey model partners with businesses in the local area to provide paid internships. The students endure a rigorous curriculum four days out of the week, and on the fifth day they report to their internships, literally earning their education and creating in them a sense of belonging and self-importance. I cannot stress enough how profoundly proud I am of these students. But as I watched student after student make their way across that stage and receive their diploma, I could not help but to think that this is exactly why Catholic schools exist. The moment where these students realize that they are worth more than the world tells them they are worth. It is not the college education that they are off to obtain. It is not the GPA they earned. It is not even the diploma, itself an anomaly in many of their households, that will prove their worth. Their worth is not in some material thing they can hold or even imagine. Their worth is in the Love they now know they deserve and they now know they can give. Catholic education is not about learning material Truth, in and of itself; it is about beginning to encounter the eternal and transcendent Truth that we are made to Love and to be Loved, a lesson only fully learned within the context of a relationship with God.

You know you have made an impression when they visit you after they have finished their exams. (P. Smith)

I am so proud of these students for their material accomplishments, and I cannot wait to see what comes of them in college and beyond. But that pride is eclipsed by the sense of honor I have in playing a small role in the beginning of their discovery of their Authentic Self and their True image being made in the image and likeness of God. I wonder, is this the real image of Catholic education?  Where are the real Catholic schools? Inner cities? Indian Reservations? Are these places where we can see Authentic Catholic Identity?