Catholic Schools and Jesus

As we in the United States return to school after our Christmas break, we find the Memorial of St. John Neumann on our liturgical calendar and a very interesting Gospel of Jesus truly "working the crowds."  Most of us probably don't know that St. John Neumann established the first diocesan  Catholic school system in the United States.  He was the bishop of Philadelphia and under his leadership, the number of Catholic schools increased from two to one hundred. Catholic schools thrived from the mid-nineteenth century till the mid-twentieth century, when we began to see a struggle to keep the system going.  We lament the closings of thousands of schools, but those that are still open remain so only with a lot of hard work and especially a faithful relationship to Jesus.  Our Marist Mission is to make Jesus known and loved and really should be the mission of every Catholic school.  Why put in all the money and effort if not to teach Jesus?  What brought the crowds in droves from all over, if it was not to see and hear Jesus?  Frank Santoni, a Notre Dame graduate, describes the scene: What drew a crowd in Jesus’s day—and what still draws them today—is a longing for the truth about life. The search for purpose and belonging draws together people from all sorts of places and backgrounds. Jesus’s message was a powerful one of forgiveness and inclusion—this is the “great light” seen by “the people who sit in darkness” foretold by Isaiah. This is the same truth, joyfully and freshly re-asserted, that draws crowds to Pope Francis all over the world and on social media.  And this is the same truth that should be the foundation of our Catholic schools.
Bro. Rene