NEW ORLEANS - More than 7,000 Catholic educators kicked off
the National Catholic Educational Association's annual
convention with a New Orleans flavor April 26.
After an opening speech by Boston College theology professor
Father Michael Himes and a Mass celebrated by New Orleans
Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond, conventioneers were ushered out
of the main hall of the New Orleans Convention Center by the
rousing sounds of the St. Augustine High School Marching 100,
St. Mary's Academy and St. Mary's Dominican High School bands
and mini-floats topped with riders throwing beads and
trinkets.
"We started with a bang," said Lisa Taylor, associate
superintendent of Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of New
Orleans and local convention coordinator. "We wanted to get
people all excited, and I think we did!"
Atlanta Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory, chairman of the NCEA
board of directors, said NCEA has been a trusted voice in
Catholic education for more than 100 years.
"We recognize that our primary task is the communication of
the person and the message of Jesus Christ," he said.
Archbishop Aymond, a former chairman of the NCEA board, also
said educators must be leaders who give direction and service
in the name of Christ. He said New Orleans has a strong
legacy in Catholic education, dating from the Ursuline nuns
who arrived in 1727. He noted that the first NCEA convention
was held in New Orleans in 1913 with a much smaller crowd.
"Yet in all those years, our mission has been the same - to
teach as Jesus did," he said. "We honor all those past and
those here today that carry on that ministry. ... We carry on
his mission. We teach as Jesus did."
As keynote speaker April 26, Father Himes, a priest of the
Diocese of Brooklyn, N.Y., said Catholic education has a more
important purpose than improving the economy or producing
lawyers or doctors or even priests. Educators have the task
of nurturing human beings who care for others.
"If that doesn't happen, we will become a society ... with
wonderful doctors who cannot relate to human beings; we'll
provide splendid engineers who produce structures but have no
idea how they will unite the communities," he said. "What we
are about is shaping humanity. In the Christian tradition,
humanity is what we share with God."
He cautioned Catholic educators about imposing their own
ideals of God as "God's way" and asked educators what truly
empowers people. He suggested that education is about true
conversations with others.
"Everyone in a real conversation is in some way changed by
the conversation," he said. "That's what we educators do. We
lead people into conversation."
Father Himes said many of the most interesting conversation
partners are no longer here - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
Peter and Mary, William Shakespeare, Thomas Newton, Albert
Einstein, St. Augustine - but that doesn't mean they are no
longer in the conversation.
He said the experience of students learning about someone
else who has lived in a different world and time than ours is
enriching.
"Humanity is enriched by conversation," Father Himes said.
"We honor it (as educators) by being willing to give
ourselves away to service. That's the single most rich
experience human beings have."
He compared the classroom to a cocktail party, with the
teacher as the host and the students as the new arrivals. He
said teachers have the privilege of welcoming new ideas - as
a host would introduce new guests to each other.
"Here is Isaac Newton ... over there is Thomas Aquinas. And
here is St. Catherine of Siena. ... We are the people who get
to assist others to become more human like God and lead them
to holiness. We are the people who get to shape others as
conversation partners."
Father Himes said teachers are constantly being called upon
to surrender tried and true paths.
"Leave the past and seek the future but take your ancestors
with you who have shaped you into who you are," he told the
teachers. "You and I have the chance to do that by
introducing them (students) into a conversation with their
ancestors. Why in the name of God would anybody want to be
anything by a teacher?"
In his homily, Archbishop Aymond said Mary Magdalene mistook
Jesus for a gardener when she went to tomb and discovered
that his body - as she knew it - was gone. But Jesus didn't
look on Mary Magdalene with anger because she didn't
recognize him. He looked at her with compassion and gently
spoke her name.
"She heard his voice and recognized her name," he said. "His
words permeated her heart and her eyes were opened and she
recognized Jesus."
Archbishop Aymond said that same Jesus who spoke so gently to
Mary Magdalene is speaking to Catholic educators today.
"As you commit yourself to Catholic education ... in the next
three days, I assure you the same risen Christ will speak
your name with tenderness, with love and with intimacy," he
said.