Presenter to Catholic-school educators: Prayer, mission, community help define schools as Catholic

A Catholic school does not have a mission. The mission is the Catholic school!”

Daryl Hagan Ed.D.

Daryl Hagan Ed.D. displayed a black-and-white photo of a classroom full of children.

One of them grew up to be Pope Leo XIV.

“That’s a Catholic school just like yours!” Dr. Hagan told about 700 Catholic-school teachers and administrators of the Jefferson City diocese.

“What happened in that classroom mattered,” he told them. “Everything you do in your Catholic school matters.”

Dr. Hagan, director of the Institute for the Transformation of Catholic Education at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., gave the keynote presentation at a Faith Development Day for educators of the Jefferson City diocese on March 6 at the Cathedral of St. Joseph.

Personnel from the diocese’s 36 Catholic grade schools and three Catholic high schools attended.

Students got the day off.

Dr. Hagan walked up and down the aisles of chairs in the St. Joseph Cathedral School gymnasium.

“What you do matters!” he stated. “The way you conduct yourself, the way you enter the room, the way you speak to the children, the way you DON’T speak to the children, matters.”

He asked them to think ahead to the stories their current students will tell their own children about their faith and how their teachers helped them embrace it.

“When they go to pass the faith down from their generation to the next, maybe they’ll talk about you in the most wonderful way,” he said.

“It may never get back to you, but I hope it does,” he added.

Dr. Hagan led the audience in repeating several times: “A Catholic school does not have a mission. The mission is the Catholic school!”

“This mission is bigger than us, much better than any of us,” he said. “You and I are part of the Trinitarian Mission.”

Dr. Hagan recounted how Jesus handed that mission down to the Apostles, who became the Church, which created Catholic-school ministries, through which Christ called everyone in the audience to serve him as a Catholic-school educator.

“We are all part of a much greater mission,” he said, “a mission from Christ.”

The speaker called to mind a sign that adorns the entrance to many Catholic schools: “Be it known to all who enter here that Christ is the reason for this school; the unseen but ever-present teacher in its classes; the model of its faculty; the inspiration of its students.”

“Christ is truly the reason for everything you do,” he reiterated.

“Heartbeat of prayer”

Dr. Hagan spoke of a partnership the diocesan Catholic Schools Office is entering with the Institute for the Transformation of Catholic Education, to help all Catholic-school teachers become more effective disciples and evangelizers of the faith.

Each educator will take part in the process regardless of his or her role in the school.

“You are helping to form our children,” Dr. Hagan stated. “We therefore have to help with your formation.”

He pointed out that everyone present must have a relationship with Jesus Christ, “or you cannot have a Catholic school.”

“Where you’re at with that is different for everybody, but we all have to be on that journey, or we can’t have a Catholic school,” he said.

He discussed three things that make a school authentically Catholic: prayer, mission and community.

“Do you pray every day?” he inquired. “Do you bring your students to prayer by name? Do your students know that prayer matters to you?”

He noted that an authentically Catholic school is not the sum of its traditions, policies or programs.

“It is the heartbeat of prayer and witness that gives life to every aspect of the Catholic school,” he said.

He encouraged everyone to join their colleagues regularly in communal prayer.

“Does your school prioritize prayer?” he inquired. “When something great happens or when something difficult happens, is your first instinct that ‘we should pray?’”

Mission and community

Dr. Hagan asked the audience to consider whether approaching and entering their school feels different from doing so in other places.

“Walking into our schools, there needs to be a peace, a calmness about it,” he stated. “You should feel that from the moment you set foot into the school, or even as you’re driving up to it.”

He recommended creating a prayer space in every classroom, adorning the learning environment with sacred art, and consciously, consistently providing time for prayer.

He encouraged his fellow educators to get to know their school’s individual mission statement and understand how each part of it must apply to them.

“If someone observed your daily work, which aspect of the vision and mission would they see most clearly reflected in you?” he queried. “And to what degree do the students understand the mission and vision of your school?”

He emphasized that Catholic schools must be communities of faith in order to be effective.

“Pay special close attention to the personal relationship between teachers and students, between teachers and parents, students and administrators, students and other students, students and staff, and so forth,” he said.

He emphasized the importance of everyone in the school being truly seen and known as a person.

“Let’s see our students — all of them,” he said. “The ones who aren’t as nice, maybe the ones who cause you irritation. Let’s see them. Let’s see each other, as well.”

He encouraged everyone present to give faithful witness to their students and to one another with their lives and in all of their actions.

“We have to evangelize before we can catechize,” he noted.

He closed with a profound thank-you to all who choose to be part of Catholic education.

“I am grateful to you, and I am grateful FOR you,” he said. “You give again and then you give again and again for the children you serve.”

Encouragement

The day also included Mass with Bishop Ralph B. O’Donnell and recognition of teachers and administrators for years of service in the diocese.

The bishop was quick to thank everyone present.

“I’m so looking forward to all that God has in store for us, working together in Catholic education,” he said.

Noting that his own second-grade teacher saw potential in him and encouraged him to think about being a priest, Bishop O’Donnell urged the teachers to “encourage the charisms you see in your students.”

“Their sensitivity, their ability, their leadership and also their struggles,” he continued, “in the sense of: how can we help them rise to where God is calling them to? — which is their vocation in life.”

Of many things

 After lunch, the day’s participants attended one of many breakout sessions on an array of topics.

• Father Jason Doke, pastor of St. Patrick Parish in Rolla, Immaculate Conception Parish in St. James and St. Anthony Parish in Rosati, and Father Stephen Jones, pastor of Cathedral of St. Joseph Parish in Jefferson City, talked about students’ questions that teachers often find difficult to answer.

The priests encouraged teachers to speak kindly and pastorally without compromising the truth.

Among the questions they counseled on addressing were Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, whether pets go to heaven, what annulments are and the difference between annulments and divorce.

• Mary Madelyn Mertes, diocesan assistant director of catechetical formation, addressed the goal of forming the whole person in faith.

She provided resources and guidance for helping students in all grades internalize their faith, live it as disciples of the Lord, and grow in knowledge of God.

She also addressed how teachers need to give credible witness to what they believe in their words, actions and attitudes.

“Your life experience makes interior and behavioral goals concrete,” Miss Mertes noted.

“Focus on what you can do and your unique gifts to make your classroom and the whole school a community where people feel God’s presence,” she advised.

• Barbara Prasad, diocesan coordinator of women’s ministry, led a session encouraging teachers to create small groups for book studies and regular faith-sharing.

She gave practical tips and ideas for how teachers can begin these groups for themselves as well as within their classrooms.

“Taking time to fill your own spiritual cup is essential as you carry the important responsibility of nurturing the faith of your students,” she said.

• Dr. Hagan led the school principals in an exploration of the Vatican document, “The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue.”

In small groups, the principals held robust discussions on topics such as: the initial and permanent formation of teachers; the understanding of a Catholic school being for all, especially the weakest; and the lack of separation between time for learning and time for formation.

• Other sessions included “Teachers as Missionaries of the Gospel,” with Deacon Michael Brooks; “A Beginners’ Guide to the Mass,” with Father Brad Berhorst, judicial vicar and master of ceremonies for the diocese; “Catechizing Parents Through Kindergartners,” with Denise Barnes; “Faith is a Journey — Not a Moment,” with Trish Lutz, diocesan director of Stewardship & Parish Vitality; “Helping Students Emotionally Regulate with Faith” with Deacon Chad Lewis, Ph.D., BCBA-D, LBA; and “From the Classroom to Leadership: Sustaining the Catholic Mission as a Principal,” with Alan Lammers of Lammers Leadership Evolution.