From Archbishop Donoghue

Mass for Catholic Schools Week
February 2, 2000
St. Thomas More Church
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Feast of the Presentation

Dear Friends in Christ and especially our eighth-graders, gathered from all across our Archdiocese,

Today is a very special day in the life of our Church, and you are here as the living sign that this is so. For the first time in many years, all the Catholics in North Georgia - the children, the young people, the grown-ups and grand-parents – all of us can be happy that the school situation in our Archdiocese is getting better and better, and that perhaps, not too far away in the future, every mother and father who wants to send their children to Catholic school will be able to do so. For a long time we have not been able to do this – but because of the generosity of our people, and because so many long to have the experience of good schools again, we are turning the corner, we are building new schools, we are taking care of our old schools, and we are witnessing an exciting new age of discovery, for our young people especially, and for our Church in general.

Part of this celebration of Catholic Schools Week is to be aware of all these things, to thank God for the blessing that He has given us, and to ask Him to help us out now, as we try to make all our plans work, and as we try to make our schools the best anywhere around. And another part of our celebration is to thank all the people who give of their lives, so that other people may have better lives, including better education and formation. As we pray today at this special Mass, I know we will concentrate on doing these two things – thanking God, and asking Him to help us, and all the people in this Archdiocese who are working together to make our schools great schools.

This is also a great day of thanksgiving, and especially because it is Catholic Schools Week, because we are celebrating the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.

It was the law for the Jewish people, when they had a child, that within a month or so of the baby’s birth, the parents would take the child to the Temple, and there they would thank God for sending them such a wonderful gift. To show their love and gratitude, the law asked that they would bring a lamb and a dove to the priests of the Temple, as a sign that they knew God had given them something precious, and now they wanted to give God something in return. Some people would make a big thing out of this ceremony, especially if they had plenty of money, and sometimes they would bring a whole flock of sheep or cages full of doves – they would make a parade through the city, and everyone could see how important they were, and how proud they were to have another child.

But Mary, the mother of Jesus, and St. Joseph, His foster-father – they were not wealthy people, and so they brought what was called the offering of the poor – two plain white doves – and they came probably early one morning, when there was not much traffic and not too much going on – it was a quiet ceremony, a ceremony like anyone of you probably had when you were brought by your parents to the Church and baptized.

But that didn’t mean that Mary and Joseph were any the less grateful to God – they knew what a special child Jesus was – perhaps they didn’t understand it completely, but they both knew that Jesus would one day do something very special, and be someone very special.

And if they had any doubts before, once the old man and woman, Simeon and Anna, a prophet and a very holy woman, had seen the child, they would have been doubly sure of how special Jesus was. Simeon called Him God’s “saving deed” – and Anna told everyone that the child would be the deliverer of His people.

We know now that all this was true, and that when He grew up, Jesus became the Savior of the world, our Savior, by dying for our sakes – and that He became our only hope when He was raised from the dead, and promised that anyone who believed in Him would also be raised from the dead. It is because your parents, my parents, and all the mothers and fathers who have lived since the time of Christ have believed in these two things, that we are here today. Each of us has been taken up to the Temple – each of us has been baptized – many of us have been confirmed – many will marry in the future, and perhaps even a few will become priests or sisters. All of these ceremonies, all of these events in our lives are like re-living the feast we celebrate today – the Feast of the Presentation. All of us, whether by our parents or guardians, or on our own power, all of us periodically come before the Lord our God, here in His holy Church, and present ourselves and re-present ourselves, and ask Him to take care of us always, and always to help us and those we love, and to help first, those who need help the worst.

It is very important that we do this, because we are all human, and it is not a very hard thing to forget God, and to forget to be grateful for all the blessings He has sent, and to forget to ask Him to send us more. Even Mary and Joseph, as holy as they were, and she especially, the true Mother of the Son of God, they still kept to the customs and laws of their people, and they did what was the right thing to do, by coming to the Temple, and by celebrating the holy rites.

May this special occasion, our celebration of Catholic Schools Week, be the same for us – and we especially pray, that Jesus, who already lives in us, will stay within us – you, the young men and women of our eighth grade classes, who now prepare to become high schoolers and young adults – we the older ones, the parents and grand-parents, as we try to take care of you, without getting in your way. May God give us the wisdom to see, that both things are necessary, and that we can make it work, if we but place our trust in Jesus Christ, and do everything we can to help His Church here on earth, starting with our own families, and especially, our own schools.

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