It is a good, spiritually healthy practice to keep coming back to the essential questions, the topics that form the very fabric of our Catholic life. We recently started the new academic year at St. Peter Prince of Apostles and it is good to ask ourselves a simple question: why is it so important to give a Catholic education to our children? In other words: Why do Catholic schools matter?
Think of a Catholic school as a plant nursery. The children are seedlings beginning to grow. The nursery (the school) is the ideal place to take care of those plants, to water them with fresh and living water (their personal relationship with the grace of Jesus Christ), to prune and give them proper shape (classes), to provide the nurturing elements of good soil (Sacred Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium) for them to grow healthily (the virtues, strong will, etc.) and develop a robust foliage (one's own personality), taking deep roots in good soil (Catholic history and spirituality).
In his long experience as a university professor in Germany, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI was aware the importance of educating in the faith. In his visit to our country in 2017, he invited us to consider the importance of Catholic Education in his speech at the Catholic University of America:
"Education is integral to the mission of the Church to proclaim the Good News. First and foremost, every Catholic educational institution is a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ reveals his transforming love and truth. This relationship elicits a desire to grow in the knowledge and understanding of Christ and his teaching. In this way those who meet him are drawn by the very power of the Gospel to lead a new life characterized by all that is beautiful, good, and true; a life of Christian witness nurtured and strengthened within the community of our Lord’s disciples, the Church”.
We often lament how bad the world is, the kind of society we are leaving to those who will come after, and many more things. A great way to help our country, our local communities, and future generations is precisely to give formation to our children so that as they grow in love with Jesus Christ and with the Catholic Church, providing them the tools to be free men and women with a deep spirituality.
That's why Catholic education matters. This is why religion classes at St. Peter Prince of the Apostles School is so important. We want to bear witness to hope, nourish students with prayer. We want to help them to know and to love the One we have encountered, whose truth and goodness you have experienced with joy. With Saint Augustine, we can say: “we who speak and you who listen acknowledge ourselves as fellow disciples of a single teacher” •
Fr. Agustin Estrada, parochial vicar at St. Peter Prince of the Apostles Catholic Church and Religion professor of 7th/8th grade at St. Peter Prince of the Apostles Catholic School.
