'Le Chéile' – December issueIssue 16, December 2011, of the bi-annual journal, 'Le Chéile', was published recently and circulated to schools in the North. The journal, a publication of St Mary's University College, aims to celebrate and promote the vision of Catholic education locally:
- by identifying, exploring and promoting ways in which this vision can be lived in Catholic schools.
- by seeking to empower teachers with a renewed and revitalised sense of the spirituality and vocational nature of teaching.
- by aiming to encourage and inform practitioners in Catholic education locally.
This edition’s editorial is entitled: 'Beacons of hope in difficult times'.
Schools are under added pressures these days: government is cutting budgets, many families are experiencing unemployment and high levels of debt, and the future looks very uncertain internationally in the wake of the current Euro crisis. Worry, and for some, gloom, are commonplace. Parents are anxious about their children’s future, and there is much concern in particular about the affordability of third-level provision for many families in the years ahead. Teachers are concerned about the prospects of school amalgamations and redundancies. But we in Catholic education have important work to do, work that is marked by our particular ethos. That ethos includes emphasis on high academic quality and the pursuit of Christian values, which emphasise the dignity of each human being, made in the image and likeness of God. Also essential is the importance of community, if we are all to truly flourish and reach our full potential.
Families are under great strain: there is much fragmentation and hardship and growing levels of alcohol and drug abuse in wider society. Schools and teachers are being called upon more than ever to be beacons of hope and encouragement for our young people. Many principals have spoken of the increasing importance of pastoral and spiritual care, both of their pupils and staff, and how this is a growing part of their role.
So how can we help our young people to have that 'burning bush' experience which so transformed Moses? How can we help them to discover more fully the face of Jesus, to develop a sense of love and service that will sustain them? The truth is that we cannot engineer such an encounter. God remains a mystery, and it will not happen according to a schedule that we have determined. What we can do, however, as teachers and principals, is to remember that our personal witness or testimony is important to young people.
Pope Paul VI put this so well when he said:
'Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.' (Evangelii nuntiandi, no. 41).
So witness to faith by teachers and other significant adults in word and deed is of the utmost importance to sharing the Gospel and giving hope.
The articles in this edition are as follows:
- Professor Patricia Casey writes about the resilience of teachers in the face of the stresses and demands that their profession and vocation typically present.
- Dr Gareth Byrne introduces the Irish Catholic Church’s new National Directory for Catechesis, Share the Good News, which sets out to reinvigorate families, schools and parishes in their teaching of the faith and sharing of the Gospel.
- Mrs Kate McGuigan writes about the joy and faith which permeate her school as she outlines some aspects of the way St Malachy’s Primary School, Belfast, lives out its Catholic vision.
- Two students from St Catherine’s College, Armagh, share their positive experience of the recent Armagh Diocesan Spiritfest 2011, a notable attempt to connect faith and life for youth.
- Professor Anne Hunt reminds us that love is at the very heart of that central Christian doctrine, the Trinity, and she offers the reader a profound meditation on two outstandingly beautiful artistic attempts - one by Rublev, the other by Hildegard of Bingen - to express something of that unbounded love.
- Dr Brian Hanratty gives a poignant reflection for Advent on TS Eliot’s iconic poem, Journey of the Magi.
- Dr Oliver P Rafferty reviews the recently published memoirs (A Troubled See) of Dr Edward Daly, retired bishop of Derry.
- Padaí de Bléine (writing in Irish) introduces his new Irish language translation of The Diary of Anne Frank.
- Orla Nugent explores the enriching role that music occupies in so many dimensions of life, not least the educational and spiritual.
- Bernadette Sweetman invites schools to get more involved in preparations for the 50th International Eucharistic Congress which will take place in Dublin in 2012.
May the reader find in these pages encouragement and hope.