The Catholic Educator A Quarterly Journal of the Catholic Education Foundation Advanced Notice: The 5th Annual Workshop on “The Role of the Priest in Today’s Catholic School” will be held at Seton Hall University from July 16-19, 2019. Stay tuned for further details. Volume 22 – Autumn 2018 A Word From Our Editor Homily preached by the Reverend Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D., on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Class of 1968 from St. Joseph High School in Toms River, New Jersey, on 22 September 2018, the vigil of the Twentieth-fifth Sunday of the Year (B). In biblical studies, St. John the Baptist is often referred to as an “intertestamental” figure, by which is meant that he straddles the Old and New Testaments: he closes out the Old and ushers in the New. In some way, I think the same can be said about our class: We began our Catholic education in ways that differed only slightly from our parents and even grandparents. By the time we got to high school, it appeared that an entirely new ball game was in play. Indeed, our graduation year of 1968 has been called the annus horribilis. In society, we were confronted with riots and assassinations; in the Church, we beheld the mass exodus of clergy and Religious, as well as a full-blown rebellion against a Pope’s encyclical. The stability of our grammar school years gave way to confused and confusing religion classes, disrespect and challenging of teachers (whether justified or not), and three Sister-Principals in four years. The changes were so frequent, so unexpected, and so disruptive that it is a minor miracle that the suction didn’t take all of us down that vortex. Anniversaries are important milestones, but they can devolve into little more than empty exercises of recalling silly or shallow events. At their best, anniversaries are opportunities for gratitude, regret, and renewal. I would suggest that the response of today’s psalm could be a good guide for our reflections: “The Lord upholds my life.” Gratitude. Those of us who made it to third year Latin will recall Cicero’s insight: “Gratitude is not only the greatest of the virtues, but the parent of all others.” For what ought we to be grateful? Most of us had the inestimable gift of thirteen years of a Catholic education. The foundations given us in elementary school were solid. We knew the Faith (who among us could not still answer questions like, “Who is God?” “Why did God make me?” “What is a sacrament?”). We lived the Faith – and had excellent models in our teachers. Even when things got shaky in the late sixties, the sure foundations kept many of us from going over the cliff and brought back not a few of those who had gone over the cliff. We had a superb secular education, which positioned us for success in any field we chose. This grandson of four immigrants ended up with two doctorates. We learned how to read and write. We learned grammar and spelling (I was quite impressed that in the hundreds of emails we have exchanged in recent weeks, I found only one grammatical error and not a single spelling error!). We learned history and math and languages, to be sure, but most importantly, we learned how to think and to think critically. And we got all this for a pittance. Do you remember that our freshman tuition was $150, which then “escalated” to $300 by senior year? That was possible because of the immense sacrifices made by clergy, Religious and laity, who loved God enough to love even, oftentimes, hard-to- love teenagers. The Lord upholds my life. 2 Regret. Only the most arrogant or obtuse would say that they have no regrets. Some of the things we regret – or should regret – were merely the usual failings of the immature. Others, however, were mistakes – sometimes major and life-changing – that were foisted on us by a culture or anti-culture that lured us into a web of what St. James today speaks of as “disorder and every foul practice.” We were told that if we jettisoned laws, rules and regulations, we would come to know true freedom. Most particularly, we were encouraged to rid ourselves of the sexual hang-ups of previous generations. Many political commentators observe that Ronald Reagan won the election of 1980 with a simple question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” The electorate probably voted against Carter more than they voted for Reagan. Similarly, I believe we can and should ask: “Are we, Class of ‘68, – or anybody else, for that matter – any better off as a result of casting off the seeming yoke of repression?” The carnage resulting from experimentation with and addiction to drugs, sex and alcohol suggests otherwise. Fifty years into it all, we find the only beneficiaries of the revolution are psychiatrists, whose couches and pockets have been filled by the victims of the disastrous rebellion. Surely, the unprecedented suicide rate, especially among the young, should give any reasonable person pause. And then, there are the personal regrets: estrangement from the Church; failed relationships and marriages; children and grandchildren never given the benefit of a Catholic education and thus unevangelized, uncatechized, and wandering aimlessly through life, identifying, perhaps, as “spiritual but not religious.” I suspect that not a few of us fed into that stream of thought known as Existentialism, about which Father Murphy warned us in freshman year. Its American theme song was taken from a French number and adapted by Paul Anka for Frank Sinatra, yes, in 1968, “My Way.” Old Blue Eyes could have dedicated it to our generation – his rendition certainly inspired many of our contemporaries. As he notes that “the end is near,” “fac[ing] the final curtain,” he woefully admits: “Regrets, I’ve had a few,” although he protests that he “planned each charted course, each careful step along the highway,” one would ask why the “regrets”? The answer should be clear: “I did it my way!” In a hubris that would make any Greek tragic figure blush or find Sartre or Camus gloating, he declares that his are “not the words of one who kneels” – although he does acknowledge that this posture made him “[take] the blows.” The French philosopher Jacques Maritain put it chillingly: Modern man, “having sought his center in himself, is nothing more, according to the phrase of Hermann Hesse, than a wolf howling in despair toward eternity." In spite of these regrets, The Lord upholds my life. Renewal. Regrets are not all bad. In fact, regrets can be a sign of growth and maturity. The Gospels offer us examples of two Apostles who sinned grievously against their loving Master: Judas and Peter. Both men betrayed Christ. Both realized the gravity of their offense. Judas’ acknowledgment of his sin led him to despair; Peter’s led him to repentance and renewal. On Holy Thursday night, in the very moment of Peter’s threefold denials of Our Lord, St. Luke tells us that Peter beheld the converting glance of Jesus, moving him to tears of repentance. That scene is etched on the Holy Year door of St. Peter’s Basilica, through which penitents have 3 passed for centuries. Our God delights in the return of sinners, so much so that the Risen Lord rehabilitates Peter by enabling him to reverse his triple denial with a triple affirmation of love: “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you!” (Jn 21:17). “The end is near,” to be sure, surely nearer than it was in 1968. At our age, we should be able to realize that doing things “my way” hasn’t been a formula for success, happiness or genuine fulfillment. Any good psychologist will say that every human being must choose some person or value outside himself to serve. Choosing oneself is choosing the cruelest, most demanding master. Choosing to serve Christ is submitting to the gentlest Master of all, who urges us: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt 11:29). Admitting false moves and bad roads taken; sincere sorrow for such sins; a good confession; and a firm purpose of amendment can return us to the joy and innocence we all knew when our Catholic education began at the age of four or five, re-capturing that spiritual childhood extolled by Jesus in today’s Gospel, a spiritual childhood which may have been derailed by an era of confusion within the Church and in society-at-large. Ten years after our high school graduation, God surprised the Church and the world with the accession to the Chair of Peter of St. John Paul II. Perhaps if he had been Pope when we were coming of age, we may have been spared some of the wrong turns. On the day of Pope Benedict XVI’s inauguration of his Petrine ministry in 2005, he rhapsodized thus: “At this point, my mind goes back to 22 October 1978, when Pope John Paul II began his ministry here in Saint Peter’s Square. His words on that occasion constantly echo in my ears: “Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors for Christ!” The Pope was addressing the mighty, the powerful of this world, who feared that Christ might take away something of their power if they were to let him in, if they were to allow the faith to be free.