Missionaries of the Sacred

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.

Character building has always been the essential goal of education. Unfortunately, this often is forgotten in today’s educational circles.⁴ Good character is the practice of “operative values. . . values in action.”⁵ It involves the whole person exercising habits to know the good (mind), desire the good (heart), and to do the good (action).⁶ Thus, character is moral knowing, moral feeling and moral action.⁷ Moral knowing consists of moral awareness, knowing moral principles, understanding another’s viewpoint, moral reasoning, decision-making and self-knowledge. Correct conscience, self-awareness, empathy, loving the good, and self-control are characteristics of moral feeling. Moral action is the outcome of both moral knowing and moral feeling. It involves the competency and habit to choose the good and avoid the evil. Consequences of good character are self-control, moderation, generosity and compassion.⁸

From a Christian perspective it is important that our children be initiated into the fullness of the Gospel message. This encompasses a character formation that must necessarily “embrace the whole human life in a ‘movement or a growth process’ that ‘guides men and women to human and Christian perfection. . . For those who believe in Christ, these are two facets of a single reality.”⁹ It essentially includes clarifying “realities such as man’s activity for his integral liberation, the search for a society with greater solidarity and fraternity, the fight for justice and building of peace.”¹⁰

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.”¹¹ It directs Christians to a “sacred duty to count social obligations among their chief duties today and observe them as such.”¹² 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.

Returning to character as moral knowing, moral feeling, and moral action, I made up a story to illustrate the three components working harmoniously. Peter and his wife, Mary were members of a popular club. Each Friday they would go to the club for their famous pizza and pasta dinners. The club was usually crowded with people waiting in line for their turn to enter the dinning hall. One Friday Peter and Mary were waiting in line. They were watching people coming up to the front desk to show their membership cards. It happened that a couple approached the desk and asked if they could become members. The gentlemen behind the desk immediately pulled out an application form and asked them to fill it out. Afterwards he warmly welcomed them. A few minutes later, a minority couple was in line, and when they approached the desk to ask for membership, they were informed that membership was filled to the maximum. The minority couple left the club with a look of disappointment on their faces. Seeing this, Peter and Mary felt sorry for the minority couple. Shortly before Peter and Mary’s number was called, another non-minority couple arrived at the desk for an application to become a member of the club. Without comment, another application was drawn from the desk and the two were accepted as members. Mary saw a friend in line and mentioned to her what she had just witnessed. Her friend replied, “Oh, they do that all the time. When minorities come, they can’t reject them outright, so they inform them that membership has reached its maximum amount.” The friend’s remarks disturbed Peter and May.  As their number was announced to come into the dinning hall, Peter and Mary turned in their number and then left the club, never to return again.¹³

Here we see the three components of character in Peter and Mary. Peter and Mary knew that discrimination was wrong, even before seeing the refusal of the minority couple (moral knowing). They were both disturbed by the rejection of the minority couple (moral feeling). Lastly, they made a decision and left the club never to return (moral action).  In Peter and Mary, we also see the love of neighbor in action, through the recognition of the dignity and worth of all persons. Ultimately, isn’t this what education is all about? Isn’t this what it means to be fully human? We have an life-long obligation to love and serve others with Jesus our model. Jesus said, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”¹⁴ It is safe to say, that each one of us would like to have others treat us in ways that affirm our dignity and worth as human persons. Our duty towards others include “obligations in justice and in charity.”¹⁵ for one’s “authentic freedom, spiritual, moral well being, intellectual and cultural welfare, material and physical needs,”¹⁶ which are the result of character building, and from education of the whole person.

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.”¹⁷ 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.”¹⁸

Justice, peace, and the integrity of creation—by fully embracing these core elements of humanity, we can each be a beacon in the intellectual, spiritual, and moral education of others. while also humbly recognizing the continuation of our own learning and growth as God’s children.

What can we do? Parents have a right to expect our schools to provide top quality education for their children. They have a right to have a voice in their children’s educational upbringing. This includes fostering an education grounded in a deep respect for the dignity and worth of all persons. No human being should be excluded from this reality.  It is essential for the development of the whole person. Fostering  a holistic education is the vocation of all persons because God works through each of us and in each of us.

By fostering education in all areas of life, we are able to not only live God’s will for humanity but change the future of society positively. Making a difference begins with each of us. The smallest of actions that others experience or witness of us can be a shining example of Jesus’ teachings.

Br. Warren Perrotto, MSC

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.
4. Cf. Thomas Lickona, Educating For Character: How our Schools Can Teach Respect and Responsibility. (NY Banton Books, 1991) 12-22.
5. Ibid. 51
6. Cf. Ibid.
7. Cf. Ibid. 53.
8. Cf. Ibid, 53-62.
9. Fayette Breaux Veverka, “Overview of the Religious Dimension of Education in Catholic Schools: guidelines for Reflection and Renewal,” in The Catechetical Documents: A Parish Resource Washington, DC: USCCB, 1996) p. 488.
10. John-Paul II, Catechesi Tradendae (1979), n. 29.
11. Micah 6:8
12. Guadium et Spes, n. 30.
13. When I taught character building to my students, I asked if they were aware of any organization or club that resonates with the experience of Peter and May. Each year the same club came to the fore. At the same time, I had already knew about the club. Before knowing of this discrimination, I use to go to the club with relatives, and noticed that there were no minorities present. I will not join the club until their policy changes.
14. Luke 6:31
15. United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (UCCCB), Sharing the Light of Faith: National Catechetical Directory for Catholics of the United States (NCD), 1978, n. 105b.
16. Ibid.
17. Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC, “Education,” in New Dictionary of Catholic Social Thought, ed. Judith A. Dwyer (Collegeville, MN, 1994) 330.
18. Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, n. 92.