Missionaries of the Sacred

Beyond Knowledge: Spiritual and Moral Growth in Educational Equality

In the August 2009 issue of JPIC Corner, we discussed the right to education for all persons. Justice, peace, and the integrity of creation lie at the heart of fostering equal opportunities for  all in the development of intellectual, ethical, and spiritual growth.

It is important that all persons “of whatever race, condition or age in virtue of their dignity as human persons, have an inalienable right to education.”¹ Education should be adapted to each person’s ability to learn. It is also important to remember that education is lifelong process. Learning “never reaches a terminal point. As long as one remains alive. . .learning can go on—and should. The body does not continue to grow after the first eighteen or twenty years of life. In fact, it starts to decline after that. But mental, moral, and spiritual growth can go on and should go on for a lifetime.”² We must also realize that parents are the prime educators of their children, but schools, in partnership with parents, continue to have an essential role in the formation of persons.³

Education must nourish the whole person in order for one to live a fulfilling life. Educating the whole person is important for us to use our God-given talents wisely and to respond to life’s challenges of promoting justice, peace, and the integrity of education. This holistic  understanding makes us aware that education encompasses not only the mental and physical dimension of our personhood but also the spiritual and moral.

All education has a social component. In the Christian vision, love of God and love of neighbor are fundamental in one’s spiritual and moral development. This commandment of love requires that we be trained “to do the right and love goodness,’ and to walk humbly with [our] God.” It  directs Christians to a “sacred duty to count social obligations among their chief duties today  and observe them as such.” Christians are summoned to seek and do the works of justice and  peace for our world. Therefore, Catholic social teachings have a prime role in Christian formation and praxis. They are based on the Person of Jesus and that Jesus’ vision of God’s will for a world of justice, goodness and peace for the Reign of God....

Few people would argue today that education in our nation is in great need of reform. In modern times, it is crucial that all persons receive a proper education that enriches the whole person in order to live fully human lives as sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. It is a basic human right which cannot be denied to any person. Educating the whole person draws out “the potential in all of us, to replace error with truth to move from ignorance and  incompetence to knowledge and competence. Beyond knowledge, education should lead to wisdom, which is the foundation of human good and happiness.” When moral education plays  an integral part of the whole of education, it reveals how all the arts and sciences reflect who we are as human beings and how we need to act as human beings. For Blessed John Paul II, “becoming a human being is precisely the naming purpose of the whole process of education.”

Sources:

1. Vatican Council II, Declaration on Christian Education (DCE), October 28, 1965, n. 1
2. Mortimer J. Adler, The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto. (NY: Macmillan Publishing Co, 1982), p. 15.
3. Cf. DCE, n. 5.