From Archbishop Donoghue

Mass
September 11, 2000
Holy Redeemer Catholic School
+

Dear Friends in Christ, and especially, my dear young friends and students here at Holy Redeemer School,

In about a month from now, on October 12^th, we will be celebrating a holiday that most people now don’t even notice – Columbus Day. People in today’s world have a curious habit of judging people in the past as if those people should have known everything that we know today, and because of this, many no longer think of Christopher Columbus as a great man.

But he was a great man, a brave and courageous man, who was not afraid of the unknown, not afraid to go where no one had been before. He loved his family, he loved the King and Queen of Spain who were paying for his voyages, and he wanted to honor them by discovering new worlds, new riches, and he wanted to succeed enough for himself, that he would be able to take care of his family and all his friends. And he was also a good Catholic man, who believed that wherever men and women went in the world, they should also take the news of the Faith with them, the Good News that we all believe, that Christ came to earth to save us, to teach us a better way to live, and to make the world a better place when we leave it than when we came into it.

Columbus was very brave to set off across the ocean, and it took him over two months, about seventy days, to cross the Atlantic, and to finally arrive in what we now call the Bahamas. This was, and still is a very long time to be on the sea, with no land in sight, to have storms blow up, and to live with the fear that your ship might go down, and everybody aboard be lost at sea. Think about where you were two months ago, and then think about all the time that has passed since, and all the things you have done, the sixty or seventy times you have gone to bed, gotten up, dressed, perhaps gone on a vacation and then come home again, done all the shopping you needed to do to get ready to go back to school – two months can be a very long time, and if you’re in a ship sailing away from home, away from the land, and you don’t even no where you are going, two months can seem like an eternity.

But Columbus had three very good ships to sail in, and he had very strong men, very religious men, to help him on the voyage, and to make sure that things were kept in order – we know all about this because there is a record, and he wrote down everything that happened, so that one day, men and women everywhere would be able to read, and to learn and appreciate the great thing he had done, when he sailed away from his home, sailed away into the great unknown, looking for a new world.

Now you may wonder why I am telling you all this – why I am remembering Columbus and his great voyage, his fine loyal sailors, and his three strong ships.

Well, it is because tonight, tomorrow, and this year, we are also starting out on a great voyage of discovery, and we are calling that voyage, Holy Redeemer Catholic School. And though we are the first to set sail, many will come after us, so it is very important that we all put our best into hat happens this year. Many of us are involved in this voyage – in its planning, its financing, and in its actual everyday working. But together we are like the three ships that Columbus sailed, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. And this is how.

One ship is like the families here at Holy Redeemer, especially the parents, the mothers and fathers who are providing almost everything it takes to make the voyage – not just the money, not just the time, not just the involvement – but more than anything, the care, the devotion, the love that you have for your children, to let them ride upon your shoulders into this great adventure of Catholic education, and as you share, through their eyes, once again, the thrill of what it is to be young, to be learning things for the first time, and to not really know yet where it will all end up.

And one ship is like the professionals – the administrators, the teachers, the school staff, and all the workers who will operate the systems, and make sure that everything runs smoothly, and every day, for though we may all love the ships, they won’t sail very well unless some people are constantly taking care of them, making sure that the bills are paid, the floors are scrubbed and the windows cleaned, and above all, that a constant flow of knowledge, the oldest and the newest, are always available for the children who have set sail, and who will come to this school to feed their minds and souls on what the professionals will have ready for them.

But the third ship is the most important of all – and like Columbus’s own ship, it is the biggest and the most important. And it is the ship of our Faith, the ship of our Catholic Church, the ship in which we all sail together under the banner of Christ’s love for us, and under the name which recalls His great love, the name Holy Redeemer. For Christ our Lord is the one, who will bring all the others along in His wake – He is the one who will make it all work in the end – He is the one to whom we all entrust our futures, because already, in the past, He has worked the miracle of our salvation. He has made it possible for us to sail into the unknown world of our own futures, and to do it knowing that He will protect us, and that He will bring us eventually to safe harbor, and to solid, dry land.

These are the three ships of our voyage together, and they are called, Family, School, and Church – we sail together, children, young men and women, mothers and fathers, teachers and their helpers – and we see in the distance, not only our own personal success, but the success of all who will come here after us, and who we also include tonight in all our prayers and in all our plans. For Christ, our Redeemer, has told us to love one another, and this is the way we can do it best. To stick together, to travel together, to live and love together, to offer our thanks to God together, and to keep our eye on the goal – the new world of our own bright future.

God bless you all, and keep you safe and strong throughout this school year, and throughout your lives.

+