Catholic Education sows the seeds of God’s word

Bella Bailey

Multimedia Correspondent

Catholic Schools Week is a long-standing tradition and national celebration of Catholic education. As a student, it means pajama days and pizza parties, as a teacher it means small tokens of appreciation. The highlight of the week is the annual Catholic Schools Week Mass, where students, faculty and staff from all Catholic schools in the Diocese gather and celebrate Catholic education with Bishop John Iffert and the Catholic Schools Office. From St. Patrick High School in Maysville, to Prince of Peace School in Covington, there were representatives from each school in attendance at the January 29 Mass.

In opening remarks from Kendra McGuire, superintendent of Schools, she said, “That is why we are here, to celebrate Catholic Schools Week as the same faith community. This is one week that we pause each year to appreciate the education where Jesus is the focus. A time to where we thank our parents, for sacrificing to send us to Catholic schools. To the principals and teachers, who work so hard to educate us. The volunteers, who give so much of their time, their talents and their treasures to ensure that we can walk with more and more students to learn about Jesus each day. To our priests, who walk with us each day inviting us to grow in our relationship with Jesus, especially in the sacraments.”

In his homily, Bishop Iffert recalled a story which took place over many decades. As a child he attended a summer camp, at this camp they took a hike to Packentuck waterfall. Bishop Iffert said that the hike to the waterfall was relatively easy the first time he went as there was a paved path. Upon his return year after year however, the pavement started to crack, roots begin to poke out of the pavement, and vegetation from the surrounding woods begin to encroach. Before long, Bishop Iffert said, the path was unrecognizable, life had grown and blossomed in a place where it was seemingly impossible.

“Those little cracks in the pavement, seed fell down there and lived and died and lived and died and broke open those little cracks and ford first sediment, then sand, then soil … 40 years after my first visit, you can’t recognize there was ever a road there, the forest has reclaimed it,” Bishop Iffert said. The seed of the word of God can work in you, Bishop Iffert said, the same way that the seeds of the forest worked in the paved path to Packentuck.

“You are more than a couple of trillion cells and an electric charge finding your way through the world. Instead, you are that noble, loving, heroic person you sense yourself to be … Catholic Education exposes you first of all to the faith, of God, so that you know your life is more than just a bunch of cells and an electric charge, that you are an eternal spirit, you are an eternal spirit enfleshed in this magnificent creative body. Being that creature of flesh and spirit, God has made you to sense his ways in the world and respond to them and to become that noble person you know yourself to be and are capable of becoming,” Bishop Iffert said.

Catholic education, which is celebrated Catholic Schools Week, instills and sows the seeds of God’s word into the hearts and minds of students, so that in 40 years, when they look back, they will see God’s work in their life.