I remember a Peanuts comic strip in which Charlie Brown was so tired of school that he threatened to quit. He wanted to grow up to be a baseball manager, so he did not think he needed a lot of schooling. Violet reminded him that he had to know his math or else he wouldn’t know if he had enough players on his team. So Charlie Brown responded, “Okay, I’ll go to school until I learn to count to nine, and then I’ll quit.”
Charlie Brown shows us that most people think of education as a means to a specific end. We have come to judge a person’s education by whether that person is able to get a good job coming out of school, and we urge students to study subjects that will prepare them for a career. Certainly that should be one of the aims of education, but it should be so much more. A thorough education should have an effect beyond making us employable. Studies such as literature, art and music can make us well-rounded individuals who can live full human lives and not simply contribute to the economic life of the society.
Beyond all of that, our ultimate goal is eternal life with Christ in heaven. The goal of every one of us is to become a saint, and we need an education that will help us to reach that end. To recognize that goal, we celebrate today as Catechetical Sunday. Today we honor those within our parish who give so much of their time and talent to our parish’s Religious Education program. Our CCD program (along with our school) is at the heart of our Religious Education efforts to help shape our young people in the faith. For those public school students who come to our classrooms once a week, religious education should not be just another subject that they have to learn. It should be the one subject that touches the heart of who they are as people created by God. What they receive in CCD should shape the way that they look at all of their other subjects. It should help them see that they are more than just potential wage-earners; like all of us, they are saints in the making.
This year’s theme for Catechetical Sunday is “Safeguarding the Dignity of Every Human Person.” I see that theme as way of looking beyond any merely utilitarian understanding of our humanity. Archbishop Leonard Blair, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, states, “This year’s theme reminds us that the dignity of each human person rests in the biblical teaching (Gen 1:26-27) that he or she is made in God’s image and likeness.” All of our teaching, in CCD or our parish school, in our Baptism classes and our RCIA, in our St. Malachy Speakers Series and in everything else we do, is an attempt to give us deeper insight into what our lives are all about. We are God’s people. We are learning to be saints. On this Catechetical Sunday, I offer my thanks to Catechetical Administrator Steve Swank, to our volunteer catechists and to all who promote the Christian dignity of everyone entrusted to our pastoral care.
Father H
