Dear Parents and Friends of St. Michael’s School,
This week we celebrate Catholic Schools Week, a time dedicated to highlighting the value of Catholic education in the United States. The exact date, location, and student population of the first Catholic school in the Americas is unknown – it may have been Spanish Franciscans who instructed a few children in a mission outpost; or perhaps a member of an early French exploration party secretly taught and preached to the youth; or maybe the first students were apprentices that were educated by the ship’s chaplain. We do have documented evidence that the Franciscans opened a school in what is currently St. Augustine, Florida in 1606, and shortly thereafter, the Jesuits instructed Native Americans such as Saint Kateri Tekakwitha in Christian settlements near Montreal. The first Catholic University, Georgetown, opened shortly after the American Revolution in 1789 as an academy for boys aged 10-16.
From that first primitive school in Florida over 400 years ago, to our modern schools in the present, parents have not only understood the importance of educating their children in the “3 Rs,” but they have been committed to ensuring that their children comprehend the basic tenets of their faith, that they develop a rich and meaningful prayer life, and that they engage in service to others. According to the
National Catholic Education Association
(NCEA), last year 1,789,363 students were enrolled in 6,289 Catholic schools in the United States. While overall enrollment is lower than the historical high in the 1950s, that is still an impressive number of students who will one day be the future leaders of our church and nation. And if you take into consideration all of the U.S. citizens alive today that were educated in some way in a Catholic institution, that number is staggering and most definitely impactful.
If you attended the 9:00 AM Sunday Mass this past weekend at St. Michael’s Church, you heard Fr. Tom’s passionate declaration about the impact of Catholic education. The faculty and staff of St. Michael’s School recognize and accept our role in fulfilling Christ’s mission, and we are committed to providing a rich faith experience for our students that is intertwined in an exceptional academic program. We embrace our role in helping our students become persons with high moral values and character ready to accept the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
This week will be a week of fun and a little less structure, but it is also a time that we reflect on who we are and what we are called to do. Our prayer service this morning most certainly characterized our purpose and passion. I am
including it here
so you can be a part of this experience.
