As teachers, we need prayer, and prayer perfects our teaching. Become a Member of the
Bl. Basil Moreau Confraternity and join
one another through prayer, and benefiting from the prayers of priests and religious offering their
prayers and sufferings for your work.
April 2020
Reading: From Christian Education by Bl. Basil Moreau
Seriousness comes through faithfulness to self-control. It is impossible for teachers to be truly serious unless they are able to control their exterior selves. Seriousness, however, does not force a person into pedantry or affectation. Teachers should carefully avoid mean and threatening looks, gloomy and scowling faces, angry voices, and bitter, biting, and satirical words. The aim of seriousness is not to intimidate students, to keep them from showing themselves as they really are, to make them afraid of making mistakes, or to hinder the development of good qualities that might exist in them. Seriousness does not in any way exclude kindness, tenderness, or an affable way with students, which can win them over and lead them with docility.
Seriousness is a virtue that assumes a mental maturity and wisdom in the one who possesses it, along with a real faith in the presence of God. It is a virtue that requires noble sentiments and true humility. It will give you the dignity in attitude that inspires respect, commands attention, and enables you to exercise the authority and leadership that you need. Although seriousness does not rule out affection for young people, neither does it permit too great a familiarity with them, and it doesn’t allow unseemly clowning, childish pranks and jokes, and ridiculous punishments that will discredit the teacher and earn the dislike of students. Teachers who wish to maintain this virtue in their lives guard against giving any particular student too great attention. This is the way one most often loses this virtue. It is the responsibility of a young teacher especially to develop this virtue in order not to lose the dignity of the mission of teaching and the respect that the teacher is owed by students. §
Meditation — Fr. Frank Brawner
It seems, in the midst of the Novel Coronavirus outbreak, seriousness is a virtue more considered and felt than at any other time in memory. Today in the United States and throughout the whole world every human act, every act of man, is being weighted more gravely as the very health of persons known and unknown rests in the balance. The theme of seriousness in life and in education this month is rather more than apropos.
The student is the object of education, and salvation its purpose. What task is more grave, more serious than this? To cooperate with Christ Jesus in the redemption of the world is the most noble and important of missions, for the potential of a student is to be a saint and a sharer in the very life of God. The educator should bear this in mind; their actions, no matter how insignificant seeming, either lead a student to heaven where they will be like God for they will see Him as He is, or damnation, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. This reality should be at the forefront of every decision made, when the cardinal virtue of Justice (under which in a sense, I believe, seriousness rests) demands that we give to each what is their due. What does a teacher owe their students? Folly? A juvenile and silly posture? Or an earnest and sober engagement?
On the other hand, as joy also belongs to humanity and its end, it must belong in a sense, likewise to seriousness. True, seriousness avoids distractions or affectations ill-suited to the ends for which it is employed. But might we be distracted from holy rest or play by formal study? What school would impose difficult homework, or a luncheon fast on her patronal feast? Is this not also a lack of a certain seriousness of occasion?
We must exercise true seriousness in our life. We must never fail to recognize the gravity of the education of students, because of their divine potential. We must reveal by our own character the value inherent in their lives and callings. There can be no room for vagaries.
Examen
Prayer
Almighty God, you have formed and fashioned a world made for the solemn purpose of your majesty. Direct our hearts and minds so that we might see in our own vocations the gravity and nobility of your purpose, and strengthen our wills to reflect the seriousness of these missions more perfectly in the world.
Through Christ our Lord,
Amen.
(Please also offer one Mass and one Rosary some time this month for the intentions of the members of the Confraternity.)
Please pray for the needs of your fellow teachers:
For the virtues of perseverance and studiousness as I begin graduate studies in philosophy of education. – Tomas
Lord Jesus, bless Annemarie, who is in the hospital, and her husband.
For inspiration, guidance, and blessings for a start-up school working with their home diocese–that the Lord will guide all parties to perfectly carry out his will.
The father of a student of one of our members has died, leaving behind a young family. We pray for the repose of his soul and for the consolation of his family, as well as for wisdom and peace for his teacher and the rest of the school community.
Please pray for Phil, a doctor from Denver, CO, who has been diagnosed with COVID-19. Phil is the father of 7 young children.
Please pray for the family of Matthew and Terrie Walz. Matthew is a professor at the University of Dallas, and a friend of the Institute. Terrie’s father has been diagnosed with brain tumor; the CoVid crisis has made getting treatment difficult and dangerous.
For the healing and containment of the Coronavirus disease and for all those who have been affected – physically, economically, and spiritually.
Please pray for Fr. John Belmonte, SJ, Superintendent in the Diocese of Joliat, Illinois, who will soon be undergoing surgery to repair a broken shoulder.
Please pray for the repose of the soul of Suzanne Fessler, long-time principal at St. Mary’s High School in Phoenix, who oversaw the transition of the high school to a focus on the development of wisdom and virtue.
For Father Frank Brawner and his health, healing, and continued strength in his ministry – Susan
For the healing of Shirley Balangue, mother of Cyril Cruz, Principal of Holy Innocents School in Long Beach, CA.
For the continued health and healing of Simon Vander Weele, son of Rosemary and Jon Vander Weele of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Classical School in Denver, CO
Pray for healing for Mr. K., Latin teacher at an ICLE member school. We ask for healing and relief from fluid buildup in the lung and cancer.
Please pray for a wonderful theology professor who is undergoing persecution for upholding Catholic teaching on sexuality – Andrew
My wife’s conversion to Catholicism – Adam
Increase in fertility, marriage, families; for grandparents; for a special spouse for a friend – Rosemary
For the Holy Spirit’s increase in the hearts of all concerned with Catholic education in the Pensacola-Tallahassee diocese, especially that He lead us into deeper prayer, greater intimacy with Him – Leslie
Souls in Purgatory especially those who have no one to pray for them; those in the Bahamas and elsewhere affected by natural disasters – Lisa
Please pray that I teach and love my students and teachers as would Christ the Teacher – Joseph & Juliana
For a new teacher in 5th grade; for our Johnsburg Catholic school to become Classical Liberal Arts; for increase in marriage, fertility, families; for young adults’ conversion and love for Jesus and His Church – Rosemary
Help making good choices about family issues – Susan
That our parish school community would grow as an evangelizing community, proclaiming, encountering and responding to the kerygmatic proclamation of Jesus Christ – Nathalie
That Catholic schools and parents be of one heart and one mind by creating their institutions and homes coherently, as “missionary outposts of the Universal Church” with one goal: that the truth of all things, beginning and ending in Jesus Christ, be known and loved through the details in everything – Ruth
For teachers everywhere – Chris