The Witness of the Lasallian Educator
Br. Timothy Wentworth, FSC
Lasallian Workshop VI
District of New York
April 11, 1989
At the outset, I believe that I have three
assumptions that I should share with you, and which form the background for this whole
talk. The first assumption is that we are working here and now to make a better future for
our students. It's like the aphorism that says if you give a man bread, you nourish him
once; if you teach him to plan; you nourish him forever. Another little story captures the
same message. The setting for the story is India:
It was time for the monsoon rains to begin and a very old man was digging holes in his
garden.
"What are you doing?" his neighbor asked.
"Planting mango trees" was the reply.
"Do you expect to eat mangoes from those trees?"
"No, I won't live long enough for that. But others will. It occurred to me the
other day that all my life I have enjoyed mangoes planted by other people. This is my way
of showing them my gratitude." (Taking Flight, Anthony de Mello, S.J.)
We are about planting, nurturing, and cultivating, so that
our young people can harvest a life that is really worth living.
The second is that I firmly believe teaching is a ministry in the Church, and, quite
possibly, one of the most important today, since there is such a need for it right now. I
realize that the word ministry is "in" these days, and that can be unfortunate
in some ways. We tend to trivialize words by making them fit every circumstance or
situation, and the word ministry has suffered that fate. Absolutely everything in Church
circles today is a ministry, starting with the altar servers and ushers, and going down to
the Bingo callers on Monday night or the money counters after Sunday Mass. Please
understand: I am not saying that these are not important; they are. But when speaking of
ministry, I believe we are talking about something that calls for a different response.
I believe that ministry comes to us from the New Testament, Church tradition, the
tradition of religious orders, and the tradition of countless laymen and laywomen. It is
interesting to note that in St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, teaching is listed
high on the priority of functions to be accomplished in the Body of Christ. My
understanding of the ministry of teaching is certainly colored by my belonging to the De
La Salle family of Brothers, and membership in the Catholic Church. In its broadest sense,
ministry is the service, function, or profession of a minister of Religion.
The verb "to minister" means to perform the function of a religious
minister; to give service, care, or aid. The genius of John Baptist de La Salle is that he
saw the scope of teaching, and understood the power of the teacher, and taking both
together, raised up a family of religious men who would remain laymen all their lives, but
would be considered ministers in the truest sense of the word. What La Salle did in
seventeenth century France was really unheard of, since ministry was the sole prerogative
of the clergy at that time. When Pius XII made him the Patron of all Teachers, I believe
that he was proclaiming the power and the ministry of the teacher as De La Salle conceived
him or her to be. It is important to note again that the Brothers are laymen in the
Church. We live in a time in the Church's history when the ministry of laymen and laywomen
is on the rise and quite possibly points to the future direction of much Church ministry.
The Lasallianization movement in our schools stems in a certain way from the desire for
greater collaboration among all segments of the school community.
A third assumption, and one that is equally important, is the belief that God's Presence
is mediated through human interchange and relationships. Theologian Donald Gray wrote
about this over fifteen years ago, but it bears repetition today. We become present to
God, i.e., we are brought to personal salvation, only through becoming present to others.
God intends, then, to bring us into presence with Himself by bringing us into the presence
of the other...God's purpose in the world is that we should become authentically present
in love, in care, in concern for the other. One who is authentically present to the other
is authentically present to God...The history of our salvation is a history of presence,
or better, a history of coming-to-be present. The history of salvation is the history of
God's coming to be present with us and of our coming to be present to God, to the other,
and to ourselves.
I believe that these three assumptions, that we are working for a better future, that
teaching is a ministry, and that God is mediated through relationships, are what makes
teaching one of the most exciting and important works in the Church today. What we are
ultimately about in a Christian school is nothing less than making God known to the
students before us, and helping them to develop a value-system that will insure that they
become fully-developed men and women, who exemplify the very best that a God-centered life
can produce.
My own experiences as a Brother are not removed from your own situations, I am sure. I
taught High School English, Religion and Latin for eight years; then, a mistake was made
and I was assigned to be Assistant Principal at our school in Albany. Later, I became
Principal in Albany, and then Detroit. Prior to being Provincial, I was the Director of
Novices, i.e., the Director of training for young men who were to become Brothers. When I
speak about our ministry of teaching, I can relate to your experience because it was also
mine. I can understand both the frustration of some days, and those eureka moments when we
know we have been really heard and understood.
To flesh this idea of ministry out a bit more, I would like to start with a look at the
Gospels, and specifically, to the ministry of Jesus as found there. I start here because I
think our ministry and calling is the same, time and circumstances differing. The Church
herself entitled her call to teaching under the name "To Teach as Jesus Did."
Scripture scholars point out that one of the pivotal events in the life of Jesus occurred
at the very beginning of His public life; it was the event of His being sealed with the
Holy Spirit which, by the way, gets recorded in all the synoptic gospels. The event, as
recorded by the evangelists, portrays Jesus being baptized in the Jordan, and the heavens
opening and the Father declaring: This is my beloved Son; My favor rests on Him.
Immediately afterwards, we have the scene of the temptation in the desert where Jesus is
enticed to go away from His calling, or, at best, to do it in spectacular and self-serving
ways. It is only after He is successful in combating Satan and remaining faithful to His
calling by the Father, that He begins His ministry. He begins that ministry on a Sabbath
day in the synagogue in Nazareth where He reads the words of Isaiah: "The spirit
of the Lord has been given to me, for He has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good
news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight."
The passage from Isaiah is interpreted as the vision of what the Kingdom would be like
when it finally appeared. In quoting that passage, Jesus was claiming, in essence, that
the kingdom was beginning here and now, and that it could be seen in Him. Interestingly
enough, when later in the Gospel story, the disciples of John the Baptist come to Jesus
and ask if He is indeed the Messiah or should they look for another. He answers them by
telling them to look and see what is happening: the blind see again, the lame walk, lepers
are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, the Good News is proclaimed
to the poor ‹ and happy is the person who does not lose faith in me. The Kingdom was
taking place through the mediation of Jesus. His words and deeds become salvific to those
who came in contact with Him, and who were open to Him in faith. In other words, His
ministry was making the Kingdom of God real here and now. In a very interesting passage in
Luke's Gospel, the salvific is joined to the teaching of Jesus: "One day Jesus was
teaching, and the power of the Lord made him heal." (Luke 6:17) Isn't that really
a part of our ministry, this healing through our words and teaching?
Seventeen hundred years later, John Baptist de La Salle has a similar vision of the
ministry of the Brother. In his meditations for the Brothers, he tells them: "Let
it be clear, then, in all your relationships with the children who are entrusted to you
that you look upon yourself as ministers of God, acting with love, with a sincere and true
zeal." And in another place, he writes: "To touch the hearts of your
pupils and to inspire them with the Christian spirit is the greatest miracle you can
perform and one which God expects of you." (Med. III, 46, 3) This is a teaching
that goes beyond mere book knowledge and penetrates to the heart of the student. It is
important to remember that La Salle had the Brothers teaching everything to the
youngsters, and not just catechism. That becomes important because, at times, we might
want to separate out subject matter and activities and consider some to be ministry and
others not. I believe that is a serious mistake. For La Salle, and for us, we are teaching
always, and the ministry is with us always. We minister in the classroom, but also in the
cafeteria; we are present as minister when we discipline and when we are involved in some
afternoon activity or sport. Indeed, we know from our own experience that those very
activities that we label "extra" are just the moments when we can
sometimes touch the heart that needs it.
When La Salle tells his Brothers to make no distinction between your duties in the school
and in the community, he was giving them an important lesson in psychology. There is no
distinction between our being and our doing; our actions flow from who we are. Ministry
comes from the person, and who I am will tell what I do. A very popular book on this very
subject is entitled "I Am What I Do" written by a college administrator,
Barbara Dougherty. For La Salle, and I believe for us, our ministry, our teaching is not
defined solely by what we do, but more by who we are in accomplishing the action. And, for
me, that gets us to the heart of what ministry is about.
Like the ministry of Jesus and the ministry of De La Salle, we are a presence to the world
of the young, both by who we are and by what we do. We can't really separate the two, even
though there is a strong desire at times to do so. And our experience seems to be this:
that the kids in front of us know when we are real or not. It doesn't change the idea
that, at times, we are actors in giving our lessons. No, we all know that we need all the
tricks at our command to get attention and to present a lesson. What I mean is that the
kids can see beneath the facade, and can sense whether there is a man or woman who is
really interested in them as persons. This presence to the youngsters is many times as
important as what we teach them. I'm sure that my students of many years back have long
forgotten the lessons I may have taught them; my hope is that they do remember someone who
was very interested in them as young men, searching for their own meaning in the world.
This is certainly not an endorsement for an anti- intellectual approach to school, but
rather, one that says what we do and who we are, are both important in the teaching
process.
If we are to bring the Good News to the young men and women before us, then we ourselves
have to be Good News for them. And, my friends, isn't that the cost factor in teaching as
ministry, this need to be what we proclaim in words. The justice and fairness of the
school, the classroom is not an abstraction, but a reality in the lives of the teachers
and administrators who make that justice real or a myth. Many a religion lesson on justice
and charity gets wiped out by situations or persons who show anything but justice and
charity to students. If they are going to learn about a loving God and really believe in
the power of that love, then it has to come from someone who, in her or his own life, can
exemplify for them what love is all about. They have enough false prophets and witnesses
around them who want to tell them that love is a cheap thrill or a feeling; what they need
is someone who will stick with them as they try to forge a value system for themselves.
That calls for a commitment to young people that goes far beyond the confines of a job or
a career. Indeed, it seems to me that it is in this very area that we discover how
teaching becomes ministry and not just job. The job of teaching is fairly definable, and
the outcomes can be measured in certain ways. When you enter the realm of ministry, I
think you are entering a faith-dimension that calls us to live without certainty or
clarity at times, but almost blindly through conviction. To stay with someone through
thick and thin is a special calling. Some will find it too difficult and opt for the
easier route. That is understandable and realistic. The ministry of teaching is one that
ultimately will depend on our faith and trust in God. As La Salle told his Brothers:
"Frequently ask Almighty God for the grace to touch hearts. This is the grace of
your state." This is what we are talking about and what I believe you are
involved in daily, namely, to believe that touching hearts is the essence of the teaching
ministry, and that, we become the ministers of that grace to the young.
It is not by accident that De La Salle gave his early Brothers the twin pillars of faith
and zeal as the foundation of the congregation. Faith calls us to go beyond the obvious
surface features of the young before us and to see that they are the gift given by God.
"Let it be an honor for you to look upon those whom God has entrusted to you as
the children of God himself." Zeal calls us to work with all the human energies
at our disposal, and to use all our talents for the sake of those young who have been
given to us this year. The great theologian Karl Barth is quoted as having said that you
read the New Testament and the New York Times together. St. James, in his epistle, gives
us another look at zeal, when he tells his readers that it is not enough for you to
believe; it is essential that you also work to put that faith into action.
Our lives of faith have to get translated into deeds, if that faith is to be real. At the
end of the 25th Chapter of Matthew's Gospel, we have the scene of the Last Judgement
portrayed for us. In some ways, it is a frightening scene because it makes Jesus' message
so clear. Those who find Jesus in the faces of those around them find salvation. It seems
as if Matthew is telling us that the essence of our faith in Jesus can only be real if it
finds itself translated into action. Need we belabor the point that the young are very
much those we find around us?
Part of the problem with looking at De La Salle is that, at times, we can consider him
from another time and not at all relevant to ours. Or we can relegate him to the ethereal
heights of the Saints, and then think that he is too lofty and too idealistic for us. Let
me say just a few words about that.
First of all, De La Salle was dealing with youngsters who were very street- smart, just as
your students are today. His were no classrooms of robots, but of lively young boys who
wanted to be any place but in school. His admonitions to the Brothers on discipline and
class control show that he knew his Brothers needed every card in the deck, including the
jokers! To teach these youngsters the regular subjects, as well as catechism, was no easy
task. The high mortality of those early Brothers attests to the fact that they were
engaged in hard work. Yet, De La Salle never called them to anything less. To be a teacher
meant to be a minister of grace.
Our world has given you that same breed of young. We have only to read our daily
newspapers to see that our young people are coming to us from a world of violence and
brokenness. The fact that such violence and brokenness has ceased to shock us is ample
testimony of how accustomed we have become to it. Violence is only one sign of the world
from which young are coming today. Our young today are surrounded by all signals that tell
them that money, sex, and fame are the idols worth reaching for. Their heroes are the
highly paid entertainers, sports stars, whose own lives are sometimes less then heroic.
They come from a society that has told them that to feel pain is bad, and that anything
that relieves pain is good. Is it surprising that drinking and drugging have almost become
the rites of passage for so many of these young people? They live in an adult world which
has called commitment into question, has made money the ultimate excuse for any action,
good or bad, and portrays daily in newspapers and TV that might does seem to make right.
Their self-image has been sold to them from the slick advertisers of Madison Avenue and
the TV networks. Their world has little patience in waiting for anything, and almost no
belief in the power of the Sermon on the Mount. Is it any wonder that they question? That
they tend to sit back and say "Prove it". Is it also surprising that, in
a national questionnaire prepared through the Centers for Disease Control, 34% of the
students reported that they had though seriously about ending their lives, and that 15%
had gone so far as to attempt potentially fatal injuries?
Into that world comes a teacher who is called upon to serve as role model for those young
people, a person who must tell them that there is something beyond what they are told in
newspapers, on TV, or on the street corner. That teacher is one who will bring some light
to the blindness of ignorance, who will bring some hope and affection to those who are
hungering for love, and not finding it; who are longing for self-esteem and a good sense
of themselves, and who hope that they may find it reflected in how a teacher deals with
them. In a world that has come to idealize the disposable, the instant, the short-cut,
these young people come looking for some assurance that there is dignity to life. I
suggest, my friends, that it is the quality of your relationships with these young people,
many more times than what you teach them, that will convince them that life is gracious
and not hostile, that the world calls for stewardship and not exploitation, and that
values such as justice, peace, love and compassion are indeed worth striving for. How do
you do this, you may ask? I think I have said already that the ministry is going to be
that of both being and doing; to be the role models that they need. You do that by who you
are, where you are, and what you are doing. You do that by being yourself, and by living
the Good News first, and preaching it second. The late Pope Paul VI talked about this very
thing, the witness value of the teacher, in Evangelii Nuntiandi:
"Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than
to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses." De
La Salle had told his Brothers that same truth much earlier: "Example makes a much
greater impression on the mind and heart than words."
And later, in the same text that I quoted from above, Paul VI
talks about the quality of that witness:
"And may the world of our time, which is searching,
sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the Good News not from
evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of
the Gospel whose lives glow with fervor, who have first received the joy of Christ, and
who are willing to risk their lives so that the Kingdom may be proclaimed and the Church
established in the midst of the world."
My second suggestion is that the school must
become a community in which relationships are not adversarial but mutual; where it is not
a spirit of "we and them" but of us. It must be a community where the
young see justice, peace, love and fairness in action and not in theory. Community doesn't
happen; it is made. And it takes time to happen. Each day that we try to bring Good News
into the school, community takes a step forward. Each day that we go on our way to reach
the loner, the withdrawn, the clown, the pain, we give a vivid lesson to the young on how
men and women can and should live together. When we discipline in fairness and justice, we
say clearly that all behaviors are not equal and that some are downright unacceptable.
Kids can read this: and my suspicion is that they have always wanted to see this in
action. They want us to live our words, and not just to mouth them. There is also a
pressing need for the young to see the school faculty as a community where men and women
can live together in harmony. There is need for the young to see justice and love among
adults who can display the pluralism of ideas that is so much a part of this world. They
must see that Brothers, laymen and laywomen view themselves as mutual collaborators in the
total work of education.
In closing, let me say again that I believe what you are doing is possibly the most
important work in the Church today and in our society. There has never been a greater need
for your role-modeling than today. You are called to be Good News, and I suspect that some
of the young before you will never hear any other; that's why it is so important that they
hear them from you.
Let me close with a story told of St. Francis; (after, we can exchange any observations or
reflections you might have on what I have said). The story goes that one day Francis told
his followers that they were going to Assisi to preach a sermon. They all got ready,
started out, and proceeded to walk through Assisi from one end to the other. When they
left the town, the disciples were surprised because they had not stopped and preached to
anyone. Finally, they asked Francis why they hadn't preached. He answered: "We did
preach; we did it by the life we are leading!" |
