Heartfelt messages inspire Catholic teachers

By JEFF GRAHAM

The Catholic Educators Conference seems to get bigger and better each year. What started 29 years ago as a gathering of Catholic educators in a church hall has now turned into a finely tuned two-day event at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Jeff Graham / The B.C. Catholic Schools Superintendent Janina Diodati and Associate Superintendent Suzanne Dinwoodie, both about to retire, were honoured for their years of service.

The conference, which ran Feb. 28 to March 1, was kicked off by Immaculee Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide and author of Left to Tell. Immaculee shared the moving story of how her entire family was killed and how she was able to overcome the tragedy of the genocide through prayer and by uniting her suffering to that of Christ.

She also related how her experiences during the Rwandan genocide, which forced her to live in a small bathroom with eight other women for three months, led her on an extraordinary journey that including landing a job at the UN and becoming a famous author and a sought-after interviewee and speaker.

Particularly astounding was when she told the crowd how she was able to forgive the man who had killed her mother and father.

"People asked me how I was able to forgive him," she said. "I just kept telling them that I did not want to come between him and God. I did not want to give him a reason to keep on hating."

Educators told to think big

The annual educators conference was also augmented by a number of breakout sessions for talks by Cindy Stickland, Frank Serafini, Thomas J. Sergiovanni, and Father Mark Gruber.

Father Thomas Rosica, CSB, closed the conference with his talk, a Blueprint for Architects of the new Civilization.

"The quality of your educational system is validated and confirmed by the outstanding young people you form and prepare for society and for the Church," said Father Rosica, going on to list a number of people he had worked with during World Youth Day 2002, among other events.

"They are the fruits of your labours in the Independent Catholic Schools of Vancover. Thank you for teaching them and preparing them for leadership in the Church and in the world."

Father Rosica went on to speak about the late Pope John Paul II, his role as father, and how he helped a new generation of Catholics rediscover self-sacrifice, faith, family, and true freedom. He pointed to Pope John Paul as an example of how educators are called to paternally love those they are instructing.

"In his 1964 drama, Radiation of Fatherhood, Karol Wojtyla suggested that becoming a father meant being conquered by love, which liberates us from the terrible, and terribly false, freedom of self-absorption," he said. "To be conquered by love in this way is to be liberated in the deepest sense of human freedom, for only in the radiation of fatherhood does everything become fully real."

"This is the heart of John Paul II's paternity for so many young people today: in a world of delusions and illusions, he made things fully real, because his spiritual fatherhood was a reflection of the fatherhood of God. I am convinced that the young people responded so positively to him because in many cases the old Pope was the father that many of these young people never had, and the grandfather they never knew."

"Pope John Paul II was a great role model for them and for us, teaching what paternity was all about. He was able to draw such love and loyalty because he embodied paternity in a world increasingly bereft of fatherhood, with its unique combination of strength and mercy."

Father Rosica went on to exhort educators, who he said are vitally important in shaping the next generation of Catholics. He also explained how the Gospel must be proclaimed with vigour to students, and how teachers need to help students make big plans for the future.

"What is required of those entrusted with this important work of building the solid foundations of this new millennium is to think big, and to cast out the nets into the deep," said Father Rosica.

"I remember the famous advice of architect Daniel Burnham to Chicago's city planners a century ago, `Make no small plans, they have no magic to stir men's blood.'

"Unfortunately many have made some very small and meagre plans for our futures. We must learn how to think big! Duc in altum! Now is not the time to think small, to retreat, to bemoan losses, closures, failures, scandals, and deaths.

"Something new is happening in the Church and in Canada, especially in the lives of young people who are the new disciples and apostles in waiting!"

"The Gospel must be proclaimed anew with confidence, enthusiasm, and with gratitude for its proven beauty," he continued.

"Jesus understood His sense of mission in terms of reaching out and drawing in, which constituted one fluid movement analogous to breathing. The enterprise to which we are called is far more fundamental than any of our concerns and far more crucial than we can imagine. There must be a priority, urgency, passion, creativity, and hope in our educational ministry and Gospel witness."