Anthropological Hermeneutic of Love

“Many students (and people, for that matter) feel unloved. I see it every day in the way a teenager is ignored by her peers or made fun of. But if we are made in the image and likeness of God and if God is, as St. Augustine describes, Lover Beloved, and the Love Between the Father and the Son, then every single one of us, as a matter of Justice, must experience the feeling of being Loved. As teachers, we may be the only ones who can offer that sense of Love to ant given student, no matter how small that Love. To be "Christ-like", as you say, is to be that extension of Love for that student. It is a big calling and difficult some days, but this is what we are here to do.”

The primary job of Catholic school faculty, staff, volunteers, etc… is to make sure every student knows they are Loved. The root of all injustice in the world is objectification to the point where the human person believes they are unlovable or unloved…even by God. The teacher I was writing to in this response described his teacher role as being, in a way, “Christ-like”. He wasn’t making any kind of claim that he could “save” his students in an manner of speaking. He was simply saying that he wanted his students to leave his classroom every day knowing unequivocally that they were Loved.

St. Nicholas Church in Adare, Co. Limerick, Ireland, was originally built and maintained by the Augustinian "Black Friars" in the 14th Century until they were expelled in the 16th Century when many Catholic properties were either destroyed or annexed by the Church of England. The structure, like most Abbeys, served to remind monks and students within that God Loved them, even if the world might not.

I wrote to him that as teachers we may be the only person that kid encounters that day who made them feel Loved. I have worked in some difficult communities where, in some cases, my students didn’t know where their parents were, let alone where they were going to sleep that night. Needless to say, school might be the only place where they felt Loved. As a teacher, I have to do everything I can to create a space where my students can experience and encounter Love.

I’ve written before that this all starts with my own encounter with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. I have to know that I am Loved by Jesus (even though I am a miserable sinner) before I can really…Truly… Love my students. But there is more to it than just going to the chapel and praying for my students by name every morning. We have to reframe and re-understand the role of the school in the life of our students. Students come to school equating their value to a grade or a skill; that is what school is for many. Maybe we need to redefine the purpose of school. School should be about becoming “fully human”, and, well, maybe that means we need to start actively creating an anthropological hermeneutic of Love in our school identity. Most of us know this…but maybe we need to clearly claim this.