There is a popular quote attributed sometimes to the Irish poet William Butler Yeats (other times to Ralph Waldo Emerson) that states, “Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.” In St. Luke’s Gospel, Jesus makes a similar claim when he proclaims his educational mission, “I have come to set the world on fire and how I wish it were blazing already (Luke 12:49).” Jesus set the world on fire by proclaiming the Good News for all people. That’s the work of Catholic schools.
As we move into a New Year, the time is right for us to adjust our vision to “new things” for our Diocese. While what “has been” in our past experience is comfortable, we are a living, changing Catholic community, a changing local Church that is, in St. Augustine’s words, a “beauty ever ancient, ever new (Confessions, X).”
On this Inauguration Day 2017, the words of Abraham Lincoln come to mind: The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
The Church’s annual “Week of Prayer for Christian Unity” takes place January 18-25. This year, the theme is “Reconciliation-The Love of Christ Compels Us” (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:14-ff.). It draws its ecumenical impetus from the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper, “that they may be one (John 17: 21).” As the week approaches, I would like to share a few thoughts that are the fruit of my reading and spiritual reflection.
In the absence of a declared state of emergency, but in light of the hazardous snowfall predicted Jan. 7 in some parts of the Diocese of Trenton, Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., encourages parishioners to use the greatest care before getting on the roads, and not to put themselves at risk in order to attend Mass if conditions are not safe.
The following is an op-ed submitted by Daniel F. Steinmetz Jr., Gloucester Township, N.J.: Largely off the media radar is an ever-growing, serious, and unnecessary transportation problem for many New Jersey Catholic schools. For decades, New Jersey law, N.J.S.A. 18A: 39-19(a), has mandated the State to cover the costs of transporting eligible nonpublic school students to and from school.