Catholic Education Week
“A Light for every generation”: Homily.
-Mass for Catholic Schools Week 2010, Cathedral of the Annunciation and St Nathy, 2 February, 2010 -
Today, February 2, is the feast of the Presentation of the child Jesus in the Temple.
It is exactly 40 days since we celebrated his birth in the stable at Bethlehem.
It is the day traditionally known as ‘Candlemass Day….in other words,
the feast of LIGHT…when the liturgy invites all participants to come to mass carrying lighted candles.
This is because of the words of Simeon as he gazed in the Temple upon the little child of Mary and Joseph. He saw the child as ‘the light to enlighten all peoples, and the glory of your people Israel.
It is very appropriate, therefore, that we should gather on this feast of light, the feast of Jesus as light for all people, particularly in this year when the theme chosen for Catholic Schools’ week is ‘A Light for every generation”: Jesus is the light not just for all nations, but for all generations. Through our schools, we want to ensure that every new generation is opened to the light that is Jesus.
There is no better way of describing the mission and task in which we are engaged than to say: we are in the business of bringing light, the light, into the lives of our children and our young people. This is the light that will enlighten and guide them into adulthood, and throughout their lives in the world…a world of such great challenges, often a valley of very real tears, where darkness in its many guises can seem to dominate. And beyond all of this, Jesus is the light that leads us inexorably to the eternal light in the Father’s house.
The enlightenment and guidance we have to offer has nothing at all of the esoteric or magical about it. It is, on the contrary, very real and human and very down-to-earth. Precisely because it is rooted in a human person, in Jesus, the impoverished child of Bethlehem, today presented humbly to God with thankful hearts in the Temple by his parents, and recognised by the old man and woman of wisdom and faith (and they are the same thing) as the light.
Its wonderful when you think about it: the old man and woman being moved to joy and new hope (what a teacher this infant is…and every infant…what a school it is for any of us to gaze upon the child!) How much our pupils are our teachers! The child is father to the man, as Shakespeare said!
The invitation of this feast, this Candlemass Day, is to look upon the little child Jesus, from the first moment of his birth in Bethlehem, and all through his life, its events and the words he spoke as handed to us in the Sacred Scriptures, right to the moment he drew his last breath on Calvary…and to ponder it all, as Mary did, and allow ourselves and our lives be enlightened.
We are centrally about Jesus in our schools… Not about control...precisely because for us Jesus is light, he is the light. He knows us through and through, and what it is to be human, to suffer grievously, to celebrate joyfully, to know affliction and healing, our limits and our possibilities. And he knows our death, and transforms it into necessary prelude to the fullness of life.
As parents and teachers we are wise enough and honest enough to recognise our own limits in the central matter of loving and forming our children. It is precisely for this reason we want them to come to know Jesus, and through him, the one who is Father of all. So for us, as for Christians from the earliest times, no education can be complete or holistic without this faith context.
Our schools exist in a faith context therefore because we want the best for our children,. We want them to know who they really are: not just our children, but more, much more, children of God. And we want them to catch this truth about themselves, not just by formal teaching, but by an environment that reinforces all they are learning.
So we want our schools themselves to be ‘A light for each succeeding generation’
This is our purpose, this is our dream, this is our hope.
We are aware as parents and Boards and teachers and priests and as adults that this is our way of making the best contribution possible to the formation of our children. We do so with great faith in God, with constant prayer to him to enlighten us, and to show us the way. And so we’ve gathered this evening to celebrate this mass on Candlemass Day.
We thank you Lord, for all the young people entrusted to us, and we beg you to help us be light in their lives through our work in the schools of our Diocese: Light as Jesus is Light, for our children, for the all peoples, and for every generation.