As Bishop of the Diocese of Trenton, I have a lot to say.  That doesn’t mean that everyone listens!  I am pretty confident in saying that, as principals, you might know how that goes.  It’s one of the realities of leadership and one of the realities of the freedom we enjoy.  So, what do we do?  The answer, I believe, is NOT to stop speaking or to change the message.  The answer is to make our words and message more compelling and more convincing.  That isn’t always easy but, if we want to be believed, it is essential.  Truth is compelling.  Truth is convincing.  More often than not, however, it’s not WHAT we say alone --- as true as it may be --- that makes the difference in the response we get.  It’s WHAT we say AND the WAY we say it.  I often remind our priests of that for their homilies AND for their conversations with parishioners.

The Lord Jesus knew that.  He preached truth.  He taught truth.  And the WAY he made it compelling and convincing, was living the truth up to the very end.  The Lord Jesus said many things and did many things, as scripture tells us, that have been read and heard again and again throughout the past 2000 years. It is hard to look at his cross, to think about his cross without realizing that he meant what he said and taught and did.

Today’s Gospel from St. John passage is a part of Jesus’ Last Supper discourse. Jesus reminds his disciples that he has chosen them as his friends with a triple mission. First, they are to love others as he has loved them. Second, they are to bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Third, they are to ask God the Father in Jesus’ Name, for whatever they need.

Jesus said to his disciples: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.  If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.  “I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.”

First, Jesus modifies the Old Testament command from “love your neighbor as you love yourselves” (Leviticus19:18) to “love others as I have loved you.” This means that our love for others must be unconditional, forgiving, and sacrificial AS HIS WAS. We, too, must be ready to express our love for others by our readiness to die for them as Jesus died for us. Jesus reminds the apostles that the ultimate expression of love (and especially Christian love, agape) lies in self-sacrifice for others” Second, Jesus explains that the calling to produce fruits, which the Apostles received, and which every Christian also receives, does not originate in the individual’s good desires but in Christ’s free choice. Third, Jesus concludes his advice by referring to the effectiveness of prayer offered in his Name. That is why the Church usually ends the prayers of the liturgy with the invocation “Through Jesus Christ our Lord….”  Those are not simply the concluding words of the priest’s prayer.  They are the WAY OF LIFE for the believer, for the Christian, for the Catholic.

As principals in a Catholic school, we have an awesome responsibility: a responsibility born of faith; a responsibility that inspires hope; a responsibility that draws its meaning and purpose from the Lord Jesus’ command to “love others as I have loved you.” It is that love that makes our words “compelling and convincing.” It’s what and why we do what we do.

You are Catholic school administrators and educators: as Catholics, you already have an identity related to the Catholic faith.  Catholic faith and identity are not optional.  They are the RESPONSIBILITY of the entire professional community in a Catholic school.  Your responsibility, in particular, as principals is to remind your colleagues --- all of them, teachers, staff, volunteers --- why Catholic schools exist in a society and culture where students and their parents DO have an option and are willing to sacrifice for it. They know their children will receive an excellent, focused, disciplined education in a Catholic school.  That is a proven and statistical fact.  But there is more to it than just that: a Catholic school represents values, awareness and service to society, and exposure to faith.  Any school, every school should present values and service.  Only a Catholic school uniquely exposes students to Catholic faith, WHY what we say and do, the leadership we demonstrate has meaning.  It’s in the religion curriculum for sure but it should also be in the very air they breathe in the classroom, in the labs, in the corridors, on the athletic field, in our policies.  When visitors come into a Catholic high school, they should notice, sense, feel the difference right away; If they don’t, something is wrong.

The most important thing that the Catholic Church has as its very reason for establishing Catholic schools is the transmission or handing on of Catholic faith to the next generation.  It is faith that gives rise to hope and hope that encourages love.  Faith and hope and love make connections among people, draw them together, unite them to seek the common good.  Our audience contains young people --- children, teenagers and adolescents, eager to learn but not willing to admit it.  The want SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN!  If Catholic schools don’t offer them that; if Catholic faith is not connected to real life as something essential; if Catholic faith is presented merely as an “add-on,” one among many other things of equal or competing value; if the young do not see Catholic, Christian faith lived by us ---  who, as leaders and educators in Catholic  school --- by us who have been entrusted with their care and instruction as a source of seeking and finding meaning and purpose in life, the relevance of truth given us by Christ in the Gospel and taught by the Church will drift and wither away in a world that sadly does not believe what we say.  Don’t give up, don’t give into the world.

Yes, as Bishop of the Diocese, I have a lot to say … but so do you.  Make it compelling.  Make it convincing.  And remember the Lord Jesus’ words AND his way: “