September 11, 2024 // Diocese

How to Unlock the Eucharistic Revival in Catholic Education

OSV NEWS

By Tim O’Malley

This summer, tens of thousands of Catholics gathered for the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis. Participants heard talks from speakers intending to foster an encounter with the Eucharistic Lord. They adored His presence in the Blessed Sacrament, joining together with the Church in the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Many of these participants experienced anew the gift of communion with Christ and the Church as the universal Church joined with one voice and heart. Leaving the congress, they were sent forth empowered by the Spirit to transform every crack and crevice of the cosmos through the Eucharistic love of Jesus Christ.

Eucharistic Education

With the conclusion of the congress, the National Eucharistic Revival is not over. The year after the congress is dedicated to the work of mission. Missionary disciples, transformed by the experience of the Eucharist, will testify to the power of Christ in their lives. They will invite neighbors and friends to come to Mass, asking them to discover anew that human beings flourish not when they worship power or prestige but the God who loved unto the end. They will remind the Church in the United States what Benedict XVI once taught: “There is nothing authentically human – our thoughts and affections, our words and deeds – that does not find in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the form it needs to be lived to the full” (Sacramentum Caritatis, No. 71).

Taking the Eucharist seriously, therefore, means that a Eucharistic revival will influence every apostolate of the Church. Those committed to the works of mercy will care for the least of these, because they have encountered Jesus Christ in the mystery of the Eucharist. Those attuned to fostering social justice will discover that their work of enacting social change is grounded in Christ’s self-giving love, His creation of a community where no human joy or suffering is insignificant to our God. Those apostolates that engage in the work of education may also ask themselves: What does it mean to educate in a Eucharistic manner? Can the Eucharist be a source of renewal for our educational institutions?

This is a difficult question, perhaps one that few primary school principals, secondary school administrators, or college presidents have time to ask. They’re trying to increase enrollment, to develop growth in literacy scores in the early grades, to compete in athletics (which is a source of both revenue and admissions), and to hire faculty who can teach an increasingly diverse student population. In colleges, those educators should also be superb researchers. Moreover, such educators need to foster Catholic identity in a way that connects the institution to the Church, while recognizing that Catholic education depends on any number of faculty and staff, who may not be Catholic (or Christian) at all. How can a Eucharistic revival help with any of these significant needs of our educational institutions?

The McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame recognizes that this question is one that should be taken seriously. It is why we hosted a digital conference, asking educators to ponder the Eucharistic nature of Catholic education, to help teachers and administrators alike (especially in the K-12 setting) to see the gift of the Eucharistic revival for their own mission.

Let me say that the Eucharistic vocation of the Catholic school cannot be reduced to (even if it must include) the regular celebration of the Mass. Every dimension of human life may find a place in this Eucharistic mystery. And for that reason, the Catholic school may both benefit from the Eucharistic revival (seeing every activity of the school as leading to the worship of God), while also contributing to the revival (reminding every Catholic that Eucharistic worship does not lead to a sectarianism that rejects engagement with the world). It is to this two-fold dimension of the school’s benefit from and contribution to that this essay turns.

Eucharistic Dignity

Thesis 1: The Eucharist is a prophetic reminder that the human person is made for worship, not measured according to his or her usefulness to the technocratic order. At the same time, the school can invite the Church to see daily life – including the intellectual life – as linked to the Eucharistic sacrifice.

I teach college students, not first graders. Notre Dame undergraduates are prone to consider their value to the social order based on their grades, the number of extracurricular activities they participate in, and their eventual gainful employment. But if you talk to these students, many who attended Catholic schools, they were introduced to these ideas well before they arrived at the Golden Dome. From their primary and secondary schools, they were initiated into an achievement culture that seems to dominate the American educational milieu.

The effect of this achievement culture on education, Catholic or otherwise, is patent to anyone who spends a moment looking at school systems across the United States. For students who achieve – the right test scores that lead to the right high schools that lead to the right colleges, etc. – they are rewarded. But such a reward tends to come with a concomitant anxiety: Any mistake or failure reflects upon the intrinsic goodness of the student.

At the same time, students who don’t succeed (especially those with intellectual or developmental disabilities) are left behind. Insofar as they can’t contribute, at least easily, in what Pope Francis calls the technocratic order, they are placed lower in the hierarchy of importance in the human family. From the technocratic order is born the throwaway culture – if you can’t contribute to economic growth in a way the social order values, you’re left behind. You’re a migrant. A prisoner. The unborn in the womb. The average or below average student.

Catholic schools – primary, secondary, or collegiate – must think differently about their mission. When we celebrate Mass on campus, we are testifying to the fact that the ultimate source of human dignity is our creation in the image and likeness of God. Human beings are not made to achieve but to make of their lives a worshipful offering to the Father through the Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit. All that we do in the school is made relative (even if it does have a proper importance) through Eucharistic worship.

In that sense, a Eucharistic revival should be a sort of examination of conscience for Catholic schools. Are we so addicted to achievement culture that we have forgotten that the dignity of the human person comes from being created in the image and likeness of God? That our schools, therefore, should educate all human beings: the poor, those on the margins and the disabled? For all men and women are invited to Eucharistic worship, not just those with high SAT scores or who have published their research in prominent journals.

No One Left Behind

At the same time, there is a distinct contribution that the Catholic school can make in the Church relative to the Eucharistic revival as a whole. The Catholic school, even if connected to the parish, is not the parish. The school is dedicated, at least partly, to the intellectual life of the young person and therefore a wider cultural dialogue. I’ve heard many priests say that if the evangelization is to happen, it should take place in youth or young adult ministry contexts (send them to SEEK!) rather than in school. What has happened is a flattening out of the language of evangelization: to evangelize is not only to have one-on-one conversations with your neighbor about Jesus but to create a culture infused with the spirit of Christ.

Here, the Eucharist is an ally for the Catholic school in expressing more deeply its mission. Every facet of our lives, including our intellectual lives, is intended to be offered in the Eucharist. The child who struggles with math can make that struggle into a sacrifice of praise and adoration through the Mass. The hard work of an intellectual insight can bring the student to an act of thanksgiving in the Eucharistic worship. The wonder of a science classroom overflows into the Mass. The school can contribute to an intellectual culture grounded in worship.

Study unmoored from an achievement culture is not only an intrinsic human good but what the Catholic brings to the altar. The intellectual life isn’t ancillary to a New Evangelization but part and parcel of what it means to celebrate the Eucharist in our day. For the young man or woman with an intellectual disability, who at last can read a passage from a book, they should bring that gift to the altar (and the whole school should rejoice in this accomplishment). A Eucharistic Church leaves nothing behind! We need Catholic schools, colleges, and universities that cultivate this worshipful wisdom.

Eucharistic Remembering

Thesis 2: The Eucharist is an act of remembering, reminding the Catholic school, college, or university that we are called to savor the historical sources of human wisdom; at the same time, the Catholic school can show how this wisdom – through Eucharistic love – is called to offer this wisdom to all men and women.

In the 20th century, a conflict has unfolded in many of our schools around curricula. Many educational theorists in the 20th century were less interested in the acquisition of objective truth from certain texts, ideas, and practice and instead focused upon the construction of truth on the part of the student. There was no reason that Shakespeare or Jane Austen should be read if the student was able to engage in those dispositions that characterized the knower.

Now, as the Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain noted, there is a truth to this approach to knowledge. We are always actively involved in the construction of what we know, as any good Thomist recognizes. Just because you have memorized a poem doesn’t mean that you have any understanding of said poem – that you “know” the poem. But the act of remembering, of seeking wisdom in what has been proposed throughout our history, is integral to seeking wisdom. This insight, I suspect, has been the reason why classical schools have begun to flourish in the United States – both in Catholic and non-Catholic settings.

There is a good Eucharistic rationale for thinking about education as a remembering of the past for the sake of present and future wisdom. After all, the Eucharist is fundamentally an act of thankful remembering for what God has done in creating and redeeming the world. We remember the glory of creation because it reveals the meaning of the world as gift. We contemplate the history of salvation, a narrative that culminates in the death and resurrection of the God-man, Jesus Christ. That history is made present to us so that every worshipper at Mass can ponder the fruits of this event for their lives here and now. In this remembering, we anticipate a future where God will be all-in-all.

Pros and Cons of Classical Education

The attractiveness of classical education in the present, I suspect, is this Eucharistic desire to contemplate the fruits of the past for the sake of present wisdom. It is marvelous to read a poem in Latin, to have a world of ancient wisdom opened for you in the present. Mathematics, science, art, literature, political science, geography, and geology – all these fields help us to better receive the world in front of us as a gift, to enter into the great font of human wisdom! You do so not because there is some test on the other side but because such knowing is worth it in the first place. Such a canon is not reducible to the great thought of the West alone but includes a wide swath of literature and thought across the globe.

But the move toward classical curricula comes with some baggage. At times, one is so quick to decry the work of educators – Catholic and otherwise – that we forget that educational theory and practice is itself a source of wisdom. Yes, it would be great to teach someone Shakespeare, but if you’ve ever taught someone with a learning disability, you must first teach them to read. This requires a good deal more than teaching classical rhetoric. It means understanding the science of literacy, how you can initiate a child into the capacity to make sense of letters in the first place. It requires the savoir faire to manage a classroom, to develop assessments that can ensure that students have learned in the first place.

The Eucharistic remembering of the Church, after all, isn’t just reserved for those with innate intelligence. All are invited to the Supper of the Lamb. Perhaps, the Eucharistic revival could bring together a variety of Catholic educators to work together for the sake of forming students into a Eucharistic wisdom. Classical educators, teachers at Cristo Rey schools, traditional diocesan institutions of learning, those who work in special education, Catholic community colleges and technical schools, and a variety of colleges and universities are all inviting students to remember, to seek wisdom, to hope for a future governed by the fruits of this wisdom. This is an education open to all, not simply those who can afford it or those who grew up in the right kind of Catholic families.

Eucharistic Communion

Thesis 3: In this polarized world, a Eucharistic school can lead us toward deeper communion with God and neighbor.

At times, you get a sense that the United States is about to explode. We seem incapable of doing anything more than tolerating our neighbor. You can exist, but I don’t have to like it!

Schools, by their nature, lead us into dialogue with others. As a graduate of a public high school in east Tennessee (a strange one where we studied Latin and art history), I encountered many students who did not share my background. Non-Catholics. Native daughters and sons of the Appalachian Mountains. Teachers who studied at places I could never imagine. Schools, if we let them, are a medicine against the worst effects of polarization.

But the Catholic school is something more. We ground our community in a communion that transcends us. Upon every altar, at every Catholic school, the Eucharistic Lord becomes present. He feeds us with Himself, the body of Christ. We are then knit more deeply into Christ’s Body, the Church. This flesh and blood body leads us into communion not only with those who are present in the assembly but every man and woman on God’s green earth. The true presence of Christ in the Eucharist brings us together, forming us into the communion that the Church was intended to be.

A Catholic school, being Catholic, therefore is grounded in this Eucharistic communion. The school is in communion with the local bishop (whether one is talking about a local parochial school or a research university), in communion with all other Catholics throughout the globe, in communion with the pope, in communion with all those who have gone before us.

Pope Francis has often spoken about dialogue, which is not reducible to having nice chats about things. Rather, dialogue is grounded in the fundamental claim that because I share something in common with you, I can speak to you. I can learn from you. I can dwell with you, even if I find your political perspective limited or even plain wrong.

The Catholic school, grounded in this Eucharistic communion, could contribute something to the universal Church. Look around: It doesn’t take a lot to see that polarization is both a political and an ecclesial reality. We listen and dwell with the Catholics who think like us.

But can’t the school be something different? Because we share this Eucharistic communion with one another, brought about through Christ’s sacrifice of love upon the cross, we recognize a fundamental solidarity with the neighbor in the classroom. The neighbor in the classroom who, perhaps, is a bit different. The neighbor in the classroom who might not even be Catholic. I owe something to you. I owe you the gift of love.

Such love cannot be self-generated alone. At the heart of the Eucharistic school is the reception of a love that makes it possible to love your neighbor. To forgive your neighbor. To long for the good of your neighbor. Especially when the sources of disagreement are fraught.

At every Mass, after all, we process forward with men and women of every nation. Of every language. Of every income level. Of every age. We are made for this kind of communion instead of the violent spectacle that unfolds every day on cable news and social media. We receive our Eucharistic Lord, and we are brought together. The consequence of this reception, as Pope Benedict XVI never tired of reminding us, is a deeper commitment to love. Love of my neighbor. Love of my enemy. Love.

Catholic schools, in my assessment, have a peculiar vocation to this kind of love. We can be spaces that teach our parishes and communities the way of Eucharistic communion. In the Eucharistic friendship cultivated among students and teachers alike, we can provide a perplexing possibility to the rest of the world: See how they love one another.

Looking Forward

In this year of missionary sending, following the Eucharistic Congress, there will be many fruits. The encounter with the Eucharistic Lord changes things. That encounter heals. Raises new possibilities for what constitutes human flourishing. Our schools will see the fruit of this insofar as many of our faculty and staff are involved in their parishes.

But our Catholic schools have a distinctive contribution to make to this Eucharistic revival. We have an occasion to think through the mission of our schools considering the Eucharistic mystery. After all, the saints who were educators recognized that Christ’s gift of Himself – this is my body and this is my blood – was an event that changed everything. How we live. How we die. How we educate.

From this revival, may future generations of Catholic leaders in education come forth who are willing to respond to the signs of our times, continuing the mission begun by Our Lord.

This article was originally published in Our Sunday Visitor. It has been reprinted with permission.

Timothy P. O’Malley, Ph.D., is the Director of Education at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.