Schools: Catholic schools are ‘building an apostolic lifestyle structure’

Guest columnist 

Stella Maris Academy High School has entered its third year of offering Catholic education to senior high students and their families. The academy continues to experience the excitement of new programs and new ideas, the benefits of redesigned facilities and physical updates, and most importantly, the fulfillment of prayers of families and parishioners over the past 40 years to re-establish the mission of Catholic education for children from early childhood to high school graduation. Each step is amazing and miraculous, built with human hands and efforts, but revealed only in God’s time and provision. Generous gifts of funds, amazing talents, creative ideas, and lots of people’s time go into this mission work. In the midst of our celebration and appreciation, I believe it is also important to continually check the direction and purpose of this mission work. 

If you have the opportunity to read Msgr. Shea’s book “From Christendom to Apostolic Mission,” you may relate to (or realize) the challenges that face our church and our Christian faith as we respond to the quickly changing times of a post-Christian culture. With a responsive shift to a more apologetic mindset, we are challenged to be more defined in our beliefs and actions and more courageous in our efforts to participate in the activities that bring us closer to God (think of the last time you publicly prayed before a meal or attended a Sunday Mass on a busy weekend full of secular festivities and/or youth competition). This book articulates the need for families, parishes, and organizations to rebuild lifestyles with an architecture that allows for (and encourages) daily practice of selflessness, prayerfulness, reflection/contemplation, discipline, focus, and obedience. Homes and families are the right place to start, but our children need an exposure to the world outside the home that can reinforce these faith-filled practices to help them develop a faith that reaches out rather than one that is only hidden, isolated, and internal. Our world needs organizations where this architecture normalizes a Christ-focused lifestyle. 

And God answers our prayers with the energy and growth of our Catholic schools. The Stella Maris Academy teachers and administrators, clergy, parents, and even the students, are actively building an apostolic lifestyle structure. 

We see this lifestyle being built piece by piece as we develop the activities and approach of our high school. 

• Our oldest students (ninth to 11th grade) launched student leadership groups with a service-oriented mindset and founded in Catholic Social Teachings. 

• Keeping feast days, Holy Days, and liturgical seasons a highlight in the school year, our recent “Spirit Week” saw a string of festive celebrations from the feast of Stella Maris (on Sept. 27) through the Feast of Our Lady of Victory (Oct. 7), capturing the feasts of St. Michael, St. Jerome, St. Therese, Our Guardian Angels, and St. Francis. May this one day be our Homecoming week! 

• The academic learning environment (focused on order, respect, trust, and virtue) has been built to allow teachers and students to share meaningful intellectual discussions and to integrate thoughtful spiritual conversation. 

• The regular daily presence of clergy and the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus allow a relationship to be built so our children allow relationships to be built with students learning and living a respect, a joy, and a need to support the mission work of religious as a means to carrying our mission into the world and into our future. 

• The student retreats built within field trips and highlighted in special liturgical seasons provide the opportunity (and natural expectation) to be reflective, aligning their world and themselves with a heavenly order and destination. Within the secular world, this is more and more uncommon. 

As our youth figure out their talents, select their professions, and discover their vocations, they need the parish and home-life structure to penetrate their studies and formation. Stella Maris Academy and other Catholic schools in our diocese are called and blessed to be a response to this need. There is a place to continue the work of home and parish where our youth are learning how to seek and share what is true, what is good, and what is beautiful. And this can be lived out in our schools seven hours a day, 180 days a year. 

This is not easy, nor automatic, and it comes with its own challenges and a need to be reflective, intentional, and patient. Yet the heightened excitement and celebration in our academy, along with the daily in-school mission moments, are a testimony that our merciful, loving, and compassionate God has provided us with an opportunity, and we are responding to this call. Lord, continue to provide us with the opportunities, with your strength to respond, and with the clarity and direction to bring this mission to life as a gift to our community and our world. In Christ, we pray. Amen. 

Jesse Murray is principal of Stella Maris Academy High School in Duluth.