18/11/2024
Archbishop Nolan has urged people to prioritize hope and positivity over criticism and negativity in a powerful letter to mark Catholic Education Week.
And he reminds people that Catholic education does not end when we leave school but should continue throughout life.
The full text of the letter follows:
We are blessed in Scotland to have so many people committed to the education of our young.
Yes, we can look around and see that all is not perfect in our schools or in our parishes. We
can bemoan the fact that that there are pupils, parents, teachers, whose commitment to the
faith is not as strong as we would wish, and we can look at the threats to the Catholic
education system coming from the secular world. But we should really rejoice that so many
good people do so much good work in the field of Catholic education.
That is why we are pilgrims of hope. That is this year’s theme for Catholic education week.
We are all pilgrims as we journey through life, often facing an uncertain future. But we journey
with hope, and we face the future with hope - because we put our trust in God. And we see
the signs of hope in Catholic education. We see the seed of faith being sown. Yes, sometimes
it lands on barren soil or is choked by weeds, but elsewhere it produces a harvest thirty, sixty,
a hundredfold.
Catholic education is for all of us and it is for life - it is an ongoing lifelong experience. We
often concentrate our thoughts on Catholic schools, but we, each of us, at every age and at
all stages of our pilgrim journey, need to benefit by being educated in our faith and having an
understanding of that faith relevant to our situation in life.
It is not easy to live the faith in today’s world - it is not easy to pass on the faith to a generation
immersed in a secular world.
But we are pilgrims of hope in the world of today, and what gives us hope are the signs of
faith, the visible shoots, which in some places might just poke through the weeds of
secularism.
We are pilgrims of hope because we are like grains of salt scattered over the land. Like salt
enhancing a meal, every follower of Jesus is there to enhance the world, to bring to it the
flavour of Christ’s teaching
Our hope comes not from our own abilities, it comes from God, knowing that the Spirit of God
is with us and is working through us. It is a hope that is not based on seeing results. As St Paul
says: one sows another reaps. We may be the one sowing the seeds of faith, but we may not
be the one to see the fruits of the harvest
We are all pilgrims. Some of us are further along the journey of life than others by time and
age. Those of us who are older must have a special concern for ensuring that our young people
receive a Catholic education: an education that gives them insight into the meaning and
purpose of life, an education that assures them of the personal love that God has for each
one of them. But we all need to educate ourselves continually in the faith, so that we can
better understand and come closer to God.
Our faith is a great blessing to us. We would all benefit from understanding it better. As we
progress on our pilgrim journey, we need to keep the faith, but not keep it to ourselves. We
need to share it, to pass it on. So that all generations can journey through life as pilgrims of
hope.
