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Principals AcademyPresentation
June 23, 2014
So I know you will spend some time these next days talking about “Strategic Leadership” in our Catholic schools.
I will leave the nuts and bolts of that to those far more experienced and qualified to do so than me –
And that includes especially you!
(Anytime I speak to a group of principals, I can’t help but think of Sr. Dolores, who was my elementary school principal at St. Pius X school in Philadelphia.
Perhaps almost needless to say, to get sent to Sr. Dolores’ office was not a desirable objective.
So even though I am sure you are all really, really nice people, I need you to know that – knowing I had to address a roomful of principals tonight, I didn’t sleep a wink last night!)
Ok, I’m kidding, but childhood connotations are powerful!
So, I was giving a retreat to the Catholic school principals of the Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon.
And I began the retreat by asking the question, “Why did you come?”
One said, “Need time to pray.”
Another, “To regain focus.”
Another, “To catch my breath and become centered again.”
These are all great. But one answer struck me right to the heart:
“Because our Catholic schools are ultimately about helping children know God. And this can only happen if some group of us there has a daily, living relationship with our Lord.”
That’s just it: we need to create a Catholic culture at our schools;
the hallways need to display our Christianity;
we need to begin our classes with prayer and take our students to school mass;
we need to have crucifixes on the walls and Mary statues and prayer corners.
But all of us this gets infused with live faith ONLY IF:
Our students go to school with some group of us that has a daily, living relationship with Jesus Christ.
This relationship, which each one of us can nurture, is the heartbeat of a Catholic school,
And must undergird any strategic leadership of a truly Catholic school.
In the end, what can communicate “This is a great Catholic school” more powerfully, and more persuasively, than encountering there a community who has a daily, living relationship with Jesus.
So the question becomes, “How do we cultivate this relationship, in practical, but substantive ways,
And in ways that fit the busy, daily lives of a bustling Catholic school community?”
This question, of course, takes on increasing importance and challenge as the majority of our Catholic educators live no longer in the daily routines of consecrated religious life.
How do we cultivate among our Catholic school community a living relationship with Jesus Christ?
In search of an answer that will be generally applicable to all of us, I’d like to turn to the common founding document of all our schools – the Gospels – to search the life of Jesus.
(I know that sounds like a grand task, so I promise I will do so in summary form so that we are not here all day and night!)
Of the many insights that we find in the Gospels, I’ll organize my discoveries into 3 categories,
all of which, I believe, are completely accessible to us, our faculties, our staffs, our students, their families, even in the midst of the incredible busyness of our lives and differences of our experiences:
1)Cultivating a life of prayer in our schools
2)cultivating life-giving community – relationships – among the various people who have been entrusted to us
3)conceiving of our work and studies primarily as acts of ministry and service – as a form of discipleship – rather than as just work
So, in 3 words:
1)Prayer
2)Community
3)Discipleship
Allow me 5 minutes on each.
1) Cultivating a life of prayer
How many times in the Gospel do we read, “And Jesus withdrew to a solitary place to pray”?
-- before he gave the Sermon on the Mount
-- before he selected the 12 apostles
-- at the Transfiguration
-- in the Garden at Gethsemane
-- time and again in the Gospels, almost a throwaway line -- “And Jesus withdrew to a solitary place.”
If Jesus, who basically has a spiritual umbilical cord to the Father, had to pray in order to be more attuned to the Father’s daily presence in his life, how can we think about cultivating a living relationship with God, in any other way?
We’ve got to be able to create in our own persons, and in our schools, a culture of prayer,
if we’re going to build a pervading climate of spiritual growth.
BUT, because both our schools and our lives are SO busy, if we’re not careful, we can start to fall into a very unhelpful trap:
We can start to conceive of prayer merely as being:
That WE have to set aside 5 minutes at the beginning of the day, and WE have to read a passage from the Gospel before class, or WE have to have a day of faculty retreat.
And our prayer becomes about what WE are doing,
Which of course is he exact opposite of what we are looking for – in prayer, we are looking for what GOD is doing.
And this is especially important for those of us who have busy lives of ministry:
We really don’t need one more darn thing to do in our days,
Which is exactly what prayer becomes if it is primarily about what we are doing!
Instead, take a look at the fruits of Jesus’ prayer.
We can catch glimpses of it throughout the Gospels, especially John’s:
-- “I have not come to do my will but I have come to do the will of my Father.”
-- “My Father and I are one.”
-- When you pray, address God as “Abba, Our Father”
-- “I do not preach my own words, but the words my Father gave me.”
-- “Father, why have you abandoned me?, then followed by, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
The fruit of Jesus’ prayer is not so much that he finds peace, or insight (all these are great), but that he comes to recognize that God is very much at work in his daily life.
And this is what brings peace, fortitude, patience….
From all these sayings of Jesus – and there are many of them -- I think we glimpse the main dynamic of Jesus’ prayer:
Prayer for Jesus is, in its most simple form, a realization of his deep communion with God.
Prayer for Jesus is a constant reminder himself that he’s not alone.
Prayer for Jesus is a constant message that his life is completely in the hands of his Father.
Prayer for Jesus is a continual assurance that, whatever happens in his life when he leaves prayer,
is unfolding in deep connection with God’s plan for his life and God’s plan for the life of others.
You see what these constant expressions of Jesus reveal –
That when he prayed, whatever he did –
And the Gospels don’t tell us exactly what he did,
Which I take as an instruction to just pray in whatever way is best for each of us –
But whatever he did, he experienced deep, deep communion with, and attachment to, His Father.
And as a result, he saw every experience in his life – positive and negative – as unfolding in God’s plan for his life,
And as God as a constant, daily, faithful presence in his daily ministry.
[healing of leper after Sermon on the Mount]
Are we creating in our schools a prayerful culture,
In which my faculty, my staff, my students, are growing in their awareness of God’s presence and activity in their lives and education?
Can we nurture a culture in which we recognize all that is happening in our school community – positive and negative – as unfolding in God’s Providence, as part of God’s plan?
2) Jesus surrounds himself with friends who supported him in his mission
It’s no coincidence that all 4 Gospels record, very early in his ministry, the calling of the first disciples –
As if they could not tell the story of Jesus without including his disciples from the very beginning.
Jesus so clearly in the Gospels often regains his centeredness by sharing a meal with his friends, by surrounding himself with others who are dedicated to the same mission.
So here is a really important point about cultivating a Catholic-Christian culture in our schools:
It’s not primarily about anyone’s solitary journey.
The journey towards Christ always involves other people.
The activity of the Holy Spirit in our schools is working to nourish the whole community –
not just an individual, or some subset of individuals.
In fact, I think it’s fair to say, on Scriptural grounds, that:
It is impossible to be in relationship with God by yourself.
You can’t nourish the constant presence of Christ, on a daily basis, in the midst of a busy life, by yourself.
We reflect on the story of our Creation in the Book of Genesis.
In the 1st story of Creation, the author of Genesis sets up a memorable pattern for his listeners.
God created the sun and the moon,
And God looked at the sun and the moon,
And God said “It is good!”
Then God created the land and the sea,
The plants and animals,
But then, in the 2nd Creation story, something very surprising happens.
Perhaps, just the opposite of what we expect happens.
When God creates the human being, and looks at the human being,
The pinnacle of his creation,
What is the first thing that God says?
“It is not good.”
“It is not good for this one to be alone.”
That’s Genesis 2:18.
And you know what happens next.
God solves the problem by putting the human being to sleep,
Takes one of his ribs,
And by verse 22, God has made another human being.
There are 50,000 verses in our Bible –
And in only 3 of them – Genesis 2:18-21 – does there exist just one human being.
And yet, how often do we conceive of our journey to God as a solitary one?
As soon as God creates 1 human being, God immediately creates a 2nd human being,
So that the 2 can live FOR one another,
And then, and only then, do we hear that familiar, beautiful line in Genesis:
“In God’s own image, God created them.”
And now, just for a moment, juxtapose this Genesis truth with the Gospel reality that Jesus sends his disciples out only “two-by-two.”
All of us in ministry recognize this as being 1 of Jesus’ great ideas.
Well, it’s not a good idea just because it’s useful (“2 heads are better than one”),
But because it’s in recognition of how we are created.
To be a part of a ministering community gives us life in the midst of our daily grind.
And so, if we’re asking the question, how can I nurture a culture where my school community has a daily, living relationship with the Lord in the midst of the busyness of our lives,
Then we have to ask ourselves: “Are we creating a space where people feel appropriately bonded to one another, responsible in some way for one another? In this together? Supporting, encouraging and challenging one another?”
If we believe that what we are doing as a Catholic educator is a form of Christian discipleship, is a way to follow Christ, then we HAVE to ask ourselves the question:
“Who am I doing this with?”
(Remember, the earliest Christian communities refuse to tell Jesus’ story of ministry without introducing his disciples from the very beginning.)
And perhaps in a particular way for principals, because it can be lonely at the top: “Who am I allowing to walk this journey with me?”
Creating space in our lives, and in our schools, where life-giving relationship and mutual responsibility for one another, was essential in Christ’s life,
And so it must be essential, at the heart of, our own efforts to nurture and form a Catholic school community that is permeated with the reality of possessing a daily, living relationship with God.
3) Understanding our educational mission, not primarily as work, but as discipleship: that is, ministry and for the service of others.
I’m talking about cultivating an attitude – in ourselves, in our faculties, our staff, our students – that doesn’t focus primarily on what the day’s work is going to cost us, but rather gives us life by recognizing the opportunity to draw people closer to God.
As I say to our ACE teachers here (when our Academic Director is not around!), after a long day at school, who really wants to unit plan? But who doesn’t what to liberate a student’s mind to see the grandeur of God’s creation?
If I think about my ministry as work, I get fatigued.
If I think about my ministry as bringing others closer to God, I tap into a near-infinite well of energy, patience, generosity.
As the Gospels reveal, when Jesus thinks about his work most of the time, he thinks about it in terms of his service to others,
the good he is doing for others,
the ways in which he is introducing them to the Father.
And this is an act which seems to bring him a generosity of spirit.
This is an authentic response to what his work is really all about – which is helping the Father build up and fulfill his plan of salvation.
We read in the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 3: “And Jesus left Capernaum and went to the sea.
And because of the power of his message, and the healings he had performed,
A huge number of people followed him out there.
The crowd was so large,
That Jesus told his disciples to get a boat ready for him,
Because he was concerned that the crowd would crush him.
And so later that night, he withdrew to a mountain to pray,
And after he had prayed,
He called 12 of them to him,
And appointed them apostles,
That they might be close to him and he might send them forth with the good news.”
This little passage, by the way, includes all 3 dimensions we have been talking about:
Jesus withdraws to pray
He calls a community of disciples
He sends them out, not to “work” but to “spread the good news” ( a much more motivating job description)
This scene, a version of which occurs very early in all 3 of the Synoptic Gospels, tries – unsuccessfully – to cover up an embarrassing fact about Jesus.
And the embarrassing fact is this:
That in order to save us, God goes through all the trouble of turning his only-begotten Son into a human being,
sends Gabriel down to Mary and Joseph,
pulls off the Incarnation (no small feat),
saves Jesus from Herod,
keeps him from getting lost in the Temple,
saves him from getting tempted by the devil in the wilderness
then gives him the power to heal the sick, cast out demons, preach like a Southern Baptist –
all for what purpose?
So that a couple weeks into his ministry –
Jesus looks up and says,
“Shoot, there’s too many people here!
I don’t think I can pull this off alone!”
You want to say to God, “That’s very bad long-term planning?!”
And yet, this is an extremely important image for us who are giving our lives to Catholic education –
We’ve got Jesus – there’s no doubt about that –
But there’s still work to be done.
And, in a sense, that’s mysterious. Why should that be?
God can just snap His fingers and make miracles.
He did it with Lazarus; he did it with the loaves and fishes.
And He even sometimes does it today –
Someone is cured miraculously.
God intervenes directly.
But the mystery is that God doesn’t usually do this.
But there’s even a deeper and a more beautiful mystery –
It’s that this doesn’t mean that miracles no longer occur.
They just occur in different ways,
And they involve us, they need us – our efforts, our gifts – perhaps more often than we think.
It turns out that at the heart of the Christian life is a truly great mystery:
God, through Jesus Christ, has invited us to participate in the salvation of the world, each in our own corner.
We often say the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila,
“Jesus has no hands now but yours.
Jesus has no face now but yours.”
And I wonder if we realize how radical a prayer that is.
Because it’s tinged with an admission that Jesus can’t do it on his own!
Why doesn’t God just fix things?
Why does he look out over our world, and see how much need there is, and say,
“I wish there was somebody who could help me with all this mess.”
Why doesn’t Jesus just fix it all himself?
The Gospels don’t answer that question.
What the Gospels do tell us is just this:
As a result of there being so much need,
so much need that Jesus can’t handle it on his own,
1 amazing thing has resulted,
and that result is so incredible that it might even bring us energy to serve in the midst of so much need:
And that result is this:
because he needs the help, Jesus has called each us, by name –
to be Christ’s co-workers in the mystery of salvation,
and in a particular way through Catholic education.
For some mysterious reason, Christ needs us.
Christ is still trying to tell the world the same message he was proclaiming when he walked the earth:
“Have no fear; the Kingdom of God is at hand!”
But Christ has no mouth now, but ours.
We have been called to cooperate in the mission of Jesus Christ to liberate the world from the powers of evil and oppression –
now that is enough to get you out of bed in the morning!
Can we cultivate in our schools, a pervasive sense that what we are doing when we walk in the doors of the school – whether as the leader, a staff, a teacher, a student, a parent – is cooperating in the mission of Jesus Christ for one another’s salvation?