Province Leader

Education for now

Many students, parents and educators involved in our schools see education only as helping young people prepare for the future. Of course, schools do need to consider the future as they help students to learn “in the present”.

However, education when based on the Christian story is essentially about living NOW, TODAY, THIS MOMENT. It is about how to live our life to the full whether we are six years old, ten years, seventeen, or seventy-seven every day. I am sure all of us have had those special moments of “feeling fully alive” in or “deeply touched” by life experiences. These special experiences are what we as Christians call grace-filled or Spirit–filled moments. It is because our God is present through the spoken Word of creation and has become fully a part of our human experience through the Son of God, Jesus, becoming a man, that we can have these special moments. (see the Gospel of John Chapter One). The journey that you and I have taken is similar to the journey of Edmund Rice as he came to understand and express his special gift of the Spirit: his charism. Through his life experiences, he was able to allow himself to “see”, and to grow in deep compassion for the poor, uneducated and wild young people of Waterford and their suffering. Edmund Rice came to know the love and call of God through both the wonderful, positive experiences and the challenging, difficult ones. This is how he came to be “fully alive”, this is how he came to be the person he was called to be. He was able to see and hear what was happening around him through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is what Catholic schools in the Edmund Rice tradition are providing the opportunity for our students to do, not simply in the future – but NOW. Over recent months, the thirty-seven schools owned and operated by the Christian Brothers have been exploring a Charter for Edmund Rice Schools. This Charter will provide benchmarks against which a school can validly develop and judge itself as an Edmund Rice school. The leadership of the Christian Brothers in Australia will approve this some time in 2004. I wish to share with you some of the thoughts emerging in the Charter. We may re-word the statements over the coming months but the underlying thoughts will remain within the Charter:

• Each person is called to respond (to life) out of a personal relationship with God …….. (and) an Edmund Rice School grows as a faith sharing community through fostering this relationship with the person of Jesus.

• An Edmund Rice School, characterised by the quality of its relationships, celebrates as a

Eucharistic community through the contribution of each person …... and

• The culture formed by these relationships is characterised by respect, connections, hospitality, nurture, care, good humour and right relationships. • Reconciliation is central to the process by which conflict is resolved.

• An Edmund Rice School actively engages all its members in ongoing reflection about the contemporary world. (The reflection, by the way, is based on the teachings of Jesus) • An Edmund Rice School demonstrates, through its practices and teachings, respect for the environment.

As I have written the above excerpts from the draft charter for Edmund Rice schools, it has struck me that they are wonderful ideals for each Christian Brother community and for every family, not just for schools. These ideals are not about preparing students for the future. They are about helping students live disciplined, hard working, happy lives NOW….and seeing the face of God in both the joys and beauty of life and also the sorrows and sufferings. When all of us are doing that we will be experiencing God as Edmund was able to do…we will be a person who is “fully alive”. Jesus said, “I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full”. (John 10:10)

(Br) Kevin P. Ryan Kevin Ryan

Province Leader of the Christian Brothers and Chairman of the Trustee Body

Administration