Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Anthony Brankin
Last week began our celebration of Catholic Schools week. And whether or not you have a child or grandchild who attends Saint Odilo Catholic School, we all have a stake in the Catholic education of our children. You know that our school receives a large grant from the Archdiocese—about three hundred thousand—that money includes scholarships and outright, help all of it going for bills and salaries. You might say—especially if you have children here—“I thought that tuition covered it all! If the truth be told—it doesn’t. It costs about six thousand dollars to educate one child—so tuition only covers a portion and the rest of it must come from the Archdiocese and that money comes from you—just regular old parishioners.
Oh I wish and I pray we could devise a system by which tuition was negligible and that just about every child in this neighborhood could come here virtually for free. That is how it was when I was a kid at Saint Rita. My family had five children and my father was only a policeman. Well, tuition for us for the whole year at Saint Rita Grammar School was fifty-five dollars. That’s right, fifty five dollars. I think a comparable tuition today would be about five hundred dollars. That’s not bad. If that were the case today—and if we could figure out a way to make that happen—then just about every child in this neighborhood would be able to come to Saint Odilo. And what would happen would be that this parish would create the neighborhood and the neighborhood would create the parish. We could be like a little village in the Big City and our families and faith would have a chance at survival. That is how it used to be—and we wish to God that we could bring that back. This was the original point of having a Catholic school—when they invented them a hundred and fifty years ago.
Education for all children
The American Bishops realized that if Catholic children—newly arrived from Catholic countries—were to be forced to go to the public schools (the government schools) they would either be taught the wrong religion or no religion—or the government’s religion. In all cases the children would have been in danger of losing their faith and then their souls—and that would have been the worst thing that could ever happen to them. And so when a Bishop sent a priest to start a parish and build a church—like Fr. Roberts was sent to build Saint Odilo—it was understood that he was to build a school for all the Catholic children in his parish.
Well times have changed and it isn’t like that anymore. It can sometimes be difficult to send your children to Catholic school—I know. I am the one who sends out the bills; for many of you it is just impossible to send your children here—and for you we have our catechism program—ever-evolving—ever-improving. And it has the same goal as Saint Odilo School—to be a beacon of the Catholic Faith to Berwyn and Cicero and all points beyond. And that is the point of Catholic schools—we are trying to create a Catholic culture for our children. We are trying to create an environment where the things in which we believe are not just facts and stories— but a way of life that is lived here in the school—and in catechism—and then brought home to be lived in family.
My vision—our vision is that we form children not only in the knowledge of the faith—but in the practice of it as well. This vision of Catholic culture means a school full of children who know God and Jesus and the Virgin Mary —not just know about them—but know them and can talk to them. A Catholic culture means teaching children to know about heaven and wanting to go there and teaching them about hell and how to avoid it. A Catholic culture means having children who think good thoughts and do good deeds—because their souls and minds have been formed and informed by grace. Yes, and this vision of a Catholic culture includes teachers and catechists. We need teachers who can teach our children—and not just about the world around them—the things they can see. We need teachers who will teach our children about things they cannot see—like grace and saints and miracles and angels.
Holy Education
Our educators must be more than just teachers who happen to be Catholic—they must be good Catholics who happen to be teachers. We don’t need teachers as much as we need missionaries—apostles who love our children so much they cannot wait to tell them about Jesus every day. We want teachers who want their children—more than anything—to go to heaven at the end of their lives. Our teachers need to be about the holiness of our children. And the day I don’t see our graduates living their faith by going to Mass on Sundays—especially after they graduate—is the day I begin to think that maybe we need another model of Catholic education—and maybe it is not Catholic schools.
Yes, and our vision includes parents who understand that being Catholic is part of what it means to be family. At Saint Odilo we need parents who understand that religion is not just something you tack on at the end of the day to justify tuition. We want parents who are happy their child is going to Mass every day and who look forward to going together to church on Sunday. We want parents who can look at our bulletin boards and read our teachers’ lesson plans and understand exactly why they won’t get this kind of thing at Hiawatha.
Saint Odilo is different because it is Catholic—and it is Catholic because we make it so. If you are here mostly for the discipline maybe you would be better off in a military school. If you are here mostly for the education—then maybe you can find a good private school. But If you are here for Jesus and his teachings—if you are searching for Catholicism as a way of life—for you and your family, then welcome to Saint Odilo.