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The last Sunday in January marks the kick-off of National Catholic Schools Week, a time set aside by dioceses throughout our country to highlight the importance of faithful, integral Catholic formation and education to the salvific mission of the Church. During this week we also celebrate the feast days of two saints whose legacies are significant for Catholic education. On January 28, we remember the life and work of St. Thomas Aquinas, a brilliant theologian and philosopher of the late Middle Ages, who is the patron saint of students and educators. Then on January 31, we celebrate the feast day of St. John Bosco, a 19^th century priest who dedicated himself to working with youth, especially the poor and troubled. Even though they lived centuries ago, these two saints are no less relevant for illuminating the true nature of Catholic education.

St. Thomas Aquinas immersed himself in studies of various academic disciplines: history, philosophy, theology, ethics and physics. He loved learning because he understood that “all the sciences and arts are ordained to one thing, namely, to man’s perfection, which is happiness” (Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Prologue).

The purpose of Catholic education is to help us achieve our fullest potential as humans, which is eternal happiness with God forever in heaven. In his writings, St. Thomas showed how reason and faith coexist and, in fact, support and enhance each other. They are not two opposed fields of knowledge but, as Pope St. John Paul II would later say, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth” (Fides et Ratio). The various arts and sciences are pathways for growing closer to God since students learn in these the endless wonders of His creation. This understanding of education as pursuit of the fullness of truth continues to be a foundational principle of our Catholic schools.

Like other schools, Catholic schools “through an organized and systematized teaching activity, offer a culture aimed at the integral education of individuals” (The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue, n. 19). However, Catholic schools have a unique identity, their “reference to a Christian concept of life centered on Jesus Christ” (n. 20). In fact, “the personal relationship with Christ enables the believer to look at the whole of reality in a radically new way, granting the Church an ever-renewed identity, with a view to fostering in the school communities adequate responses to the fundamental questions for every woman and man” (n. 20). Catholic schools provide the setting where an individual’s relationship with Jesus Christ is not only fostered spiritually, but also becomes the starting point for learning about the world in which we live and how we each can make our contribution to it.

With wisdom that still benefits us today, St. John Bosco said, “If we want to have a good society, we must concentrate all our forces on the Christian education of the young. Experience has taught me that if we wish to sustain civil society then we should take good care of the young.” Our Catholic schools, then, have the capacity to greatly shape the culture of our communities and society at large. They are the places where Christ, who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (Jn. 14:6), continues to be the Teacher around whom His disciples gather to know, love and follow Him throughout this life and into the next.

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On Christmas morning, in the opening prayer of the Mass at Dawn, e ask God to allow the light of faith, which radiates from the incarnate Word, to shine through in our deeds. This prayer reminds us of a beautiful truth: the gift of our faith is not something we keep to ourselves; rather, having received the very life of God within our souls, He then calls us to share that divine goodness with others.

Jesus Christ is the model of such self-giving. Out of love for us, with nothing to gain for Himself, He entered into our human nature and offered Himself for our redemption from sin. During the season of Advent, we prepare ourselves to celebrate this mystery at Christmas. Christ’s birth into this world invites us to renew our awareness of the humble nature of God’s saving love and His desire to reveal the truth of our humanity by becoming human Himself.

The Lord, who has given us everything out of love, asks us, in turn, to give of ourselves for others. We live in a world desperately in need of love. Our faith invites us to put the love we have received from God into action, thereby recognizing the inherent dignity of each person created in the image and likeness of God. The Church has outlined the 14 Works of Mercy, the practical, time-honored ways we can put our love into action. The Corporal Works of Mercy are to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, and bury the dead. The Spiritual Works of Mercy are to instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, admonish the sinner, bear wrongs patiently, forgive others, comfort the afflicted, and pray for the living and the dead. There are so many ways in which we can strive to love others as God has loved us!

As we prepare this Advent to celebrate the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation, it is a fitting time to reflect on the love we have received from God and what our response to that love may be. As individuals and families, we can discern how God may be inviting us to grow in our love for others. There are many opportunities to share Christ’s love with others through our parish communities and other groups, including the many charitable ministries which offer assistance or provide services addressing the wide range of needs in our society. Maybe there is one such ministry which is uniquely suited to your own talents and interests. If so, this might be the perfect time to get involved.

I pray that this Advent may be a fruitful period of prayer and preparation for each of you, for your families, for our parishes, and for our archdiocese as a whole. May we welcome the Christ Child and know that with the love He has come to offer us, He also calls us to offer that love to our brothers and sisters here on earth. And may the peace, joy and fullness of life that only Christ can bring be yours this Advent and Christmas!

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In his encyclical Evangelium Vitae on the value and inviolability of human life, Pope St. John Paul II speaks about God’s call for each person to share in the fullness of life for all eternity with Him. Even during our life in this temporal, physical world, we participate in the life of grace and have a foretaste of the blessedness of heaven. It is this call from God to share in His life that reveals the greatness and inestimable value of each human life (cf. EV 2).

As Catholics we believe in the dignity and value of every human life from conception to natural death. Because of this conviction, we have fought against the grave evils which threaten life, particularly abortion, which has claimed the lives of tens of millions of innocent children. The 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization returned the issue of the legality of abortion back to the state level – a critical victory, but certainly not the end of our efforts to defend life.

Now, a little over a year later, human life and dignity are under serious attack in the State of Ohio. The constitutional amendment proposed as Issue 1 on the November ballot is, by any measure, extreme. Not only would it expand access to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, but it would enable the removal of regulations protecting the health and safety of women which abortion centers are currently required to observe. This amendment also would eliminate parents’ rights of notification and consent in the reproductive healthcare decisions of their minor children, something that would do irreparable damage to the family, the cornerstone of society. This proposed change to Ohio’s constitution is so extreme that even those who do not fully share in the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of life at every stage should see how it far exceeds the moral bounds of any just society.

Pope St. John Paul II taught about this reality, stating, “The Church knows that this Gospel of life, which she has received from her Lord, has a profound and persuasive echo in the heart of every person – believer and non-believer alike – because it marvelously fulfills all the heart’s expectations while infinitely surpassing them. Even in the midst of difficulties and uncertainties, every person sincerely open to truth and goodness can, by the light of reason and the hidden action of grace, come to recognize in the natural law written in the heart the sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree” (EV 2).

Every person – regardless of race, nationality, sex, creed, status or any other trait – is worthy of equal respect and dignity because we all share in the same human nature which is the pinnacle of God’s creation, made sacred by the Incarnation of His only begotten Son. We must together build up a culture in which every person not only enjoys the right to life but experiences the life in abundance which Jesus Christ came to give us (cf. Jn. 10:10).

With the imminent threat posed by Issue 1 to the values which we as Catholics and Ohioans hold dear, I urge you to pray earnestly for an increase in respect for human life and dignity; to educate yourself and others about the dangers of this amendment; and to Vote NO on Issue 1 on November 7. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of our Lord and Savior, and St. Joseph, protector of the Holy Family, intercede for Ohio and its families in the days ahead.