I wish to offer a special word of gratitude and encouragement to all those who have taken up the challenge of the Second Vatican Council, so often reiterated by Pope John Paul II, and committed their lives to the new evangelization. I thank my brother Bishops, priests and deacons, men and women religious, parents, teachers and catechists. The fidelity and courage with which the Church in this country will respond to the challenges raised by an increasingly secular and materialistic culture will depend in large part upon your own fidelity in handing on the treasure of our Catholic faith. Young people need to be helped to discern the path that leads to true freedom: the path of a sincere and generous imitation of Christ, the path of commitment to justice and peace. Much progress has been made in developing solid programs of catechesis, yet so much more remains to be done in forming the hearts and minds of the young in knowledge and love of the Lord. (Homily at Washington Nationals Park, 2008)

I wish also to express a particular word of encouragement to both lay and Religious teachers of catechesis who strive to ensure that young people become daily more appreciative of the gift of faith. Religious education is a challenging apostolate, yet there are many signs of a desire among young people to learn about the faith and practice it with vigor…I wish to make a special appeal to Religious Brothers, Sisters and Priests: do not abandon the school apostolate; indeed, renew your commitment to schools. In places where there are many hollow promises which lure young people away from the path of truth and genuine freedom, the consecrated person’s witness to the evangelical counsels is an irreplaceable gift…Know that your witness to the ideal of consecration and mission among the young is a source of great inspiration in faith for them and their families. (Meeting with Catholic Educators at Catholic University of America, 2008)

By Father William A. Hinnebusch, O.P.

The general end of the Dominican Order is the sanctification of its members through contemplation; its special end is the salvation of souls through preaching. These two ends are not contradictory; in fact, they are one. The second implies the first. Preaching is the fruit of the life of prayer. Through contemplation the Dominican loves God so much that he must love his neighbor and become an apostle. He cannot rest until he proclaims God’s glory to the whole world. (Chapter IV)

At this point we again contact the genius of the Dominican Order. The Dominican contemplates, hoping that when he has gazed on the truths of faith and his heart has been fired with love for God, he may carry his knowledge and love to his hearers. It is this inner life which makes his apostolic life germinate. When priests preach and sisters teach, they hope that their words, pregnant with grace, will bear fruit, that their audience will hearken to the word of God and obey it. (Chapter IV)

The means St. Dominic gave his children to make them apostles are identical with those that make them holy. This was to be expected, for the two ends are but one. The charity which leads the Dominican to seek union with God, prompts him to love his neighbor and work for his salvation. The means established by our holy Founder are, first, the vows of religion and the community life. Then come the liturgy, other prayers, monastic observances: fasts, abstinence, silence, and all the practices which the Rule, Constitutions, and custom impose. These means fill their double purpose, sanctifying the member and preparing for the apostolate. Prayers implore God’s mercy, make reparation, and beg graces for sinners. When the Dominican steps from the sanctuary, choir, or cloister into the ministry, he has already prepared the way. (Chapter IV)

This is what the Dominican sister does daily when she enters the classroom. “Laying aside for the love of God the sweetness of the contemplative life, which she prefers, she takes up the occupations of the active life to obtain the salvation of her neighbors” (St. Thomas, Quodl. I, q. 7, a. 14, ad 2). This sacrifice is pleasing in God’s eyes, motivated as it is by love and obedience. She goes into the classroom to reveal the person of Christ, to teach her pupils to know and love him. He is with her when she goes to the classroom in this spirit. As she rises from her contemplation, Christ says to her as he said to St. Catherine of Siena: “I have no intention of cutting you off from me. On the contrary, I wish to bind you more closely to myself by means of love of neighbor…” (Chapter IV)

The Dominican, therefore, must prepare to preach and teach by becoming a contemplative. Contemplation must be primary in his life; he must be a contemplative committed to the apostolate. It is his ideal to contemplate and to have the fruits of his contemplation, of his life of prayer, flow into his apostolate. His apostolic work will bear fruit to the extent that he is personally holy. His apostolate must be “shaped in the sanctuary, the choir, and the cloister.” The Dominican’s contemplation must be Christlike and redemptive. He must see Christ in those who hear him, in those he teaches, in those he nurses. As the early Christians put it: “He who sees his neighbor sees God.” Each listener, each student, each patient has been redeemed by Christ, in a sense, is Christ. The Dominican apostle must see Christ in each human being, whether an energetic child or an aged sick person, even the most annoying, the one who tries his patience most. (Chapter VI)

By Father Paul Murray, O.P.

In the Dominican tradition, preaching has always been regarded as a spiritual activity, even a contemplative one. ‘The merit of preaching,’ according to Humbert of Romans, ‘wins the gift of an increase of interior grace.’ But that does not negate the need for a regular prayer life. On the contrary, both for Dominic, and for the early Friars Preachers, speaking about God—‘de Deo,’ the grace of preaching—presupposed first speaking with God—‘cum Deo’—the grace of actual prayer or contemplation. In the apostolic life adopted by the friars, the ecstasy of service or attention to the neighbor was unthinkable without the ecstasy of prayer or attention to God, and visa versa. To become a preacher one did not have to be a monk of the desert, or a master of mysticism, or even a saint. But one did have to become, in Humbert of Romans’ phrase, at least ‘a pray-er first.’ As a carrier or bearer of the Word of life to the world, the Dominican needed first to live in intimacy with the Word, and needed also to learn, like St. Dominic, to drink deep from the well of Gospel truth. ‘For,’ as it is made clear in the Dialogues of St. Catherine of Siena, ‘one cannot share what one does not have in oneself.’

Apostolic Exhortation of Pope John Paul II

The Church has always recognized that education is an essential dimension of her mission. The Master of her inner life is the Holy Spirit, who penetrates the innermost depths of every human heart and knows the secret unfolding of history. The whole Church is enlivened by the Holy Spirit and with him carries out her educational work. Within the Church, however, consecrated persons have a specific duty. They are called to bring to bear on the world of education their radical witness to the values of the Kingdom, proposed to everyone in expectation of the definitive meeting with the Lord of history. Because of their special consecration, their particular experience of the gifts of the Spirit, their constant listening to the word of God, their practice of discernment, their rich heritage of pedagogical traditions built up since the establishment of their Institute, and their profound grasp of spiritual truth, consecrated persons are able to be especially effective in educational activities and to offer a specific contribution to the work of other educators…Equipped with this charism, consecrated persons can give life to educational undertakings permeated by the Gospel spirit of freedom and charity, in which young people are helped to mature humanly under the action of the Spirit. In this way a community of learning becomes an experience of grace, where the teaching program contributes to uniting into a harmonious whole the human and the divine, the Gospel and culture, faith and life. The history of the Church, from antiquity down to our own day, is full of admirable examples of consecrated persons who have sought and continue to seek holiness through their involvement in education, while at the same time proposing holiness as the goal of education. Indeed, many of them have achieved the perfection of charity through teaching. This is one of the most precious gifts which consecrated persons today can offer to young people, instructing them in a way that is full of love, according to the wise counsel of St. John Bosco: “Young people should not only be loved, but should also know that they are loved.” (96)

From the Congregation for Catholic Education

Through schools, men and women religious educators help young people to grasp their own identity and to reveal those authentic needs and desires that inhabit everyone’s heart, but which often remain unknown and underestimated: thirst for authenticity and honesty, for love and fidelity, for truth and consistency, for happiness and fullness of life. Desires which in the final analysis converge in the supreme human desire: to see the face of God. (18)

By living their vocations with generosity and eagerness, consecrated persons bring to schools their experience of a relationship with God, based on prayer, the Eucharist, the sacrament of Reconciliation and the spirituality of communion that characterizes the life of religious communities. The evangelical position that results facilitates discernment and the formation of a critical sense, a fundamental and necessary aspect of the educational process. Whatever their specific task, the presence of consecrated persons in schools infects the contemplative glance by educating to a silence that leads to listening to God, to paying attention to others, to the situation that surrounds us, to creation. Furthermore, by aiming at the essential, consecrated persons provoke the need for authentic encounters, they renew the capacity to be amazed and to take care of the other, rediscovered like a brother. (24)

Consecrated persons undertake to be witnesses in schools to the truth about persons and to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. With their lives they confirm that faith enlightens the whole field of education by raising and strengthening human values. Catholic schools especially have a priority: that of “bringing forth within what is learnt in school a Christian vision of the world, of life, of culture and of history.” (38)

When involved in the serious search for truth through the contribution of the different subjects, the life of the educational community is constantly urged to mature in reflection, to go beyond the acquisitions achieved and to question at the existential level…With their presence, consecrated persons offer in this context the specific contribution of their identity and vocation. Even if not always consciously, young people wish to find in them the testimony of a life lived as the answer to a call, as a journey towards God, as the search for the signs through which He makes Himself present. They expect to see persons who invite them to seriously question themselves, and to discover the deepest meaning of human existence and of history. (50)

Encyclical of Pope John Paul II

Evangelization is the most powerful and stirring challenge which the Church has been called to face from her very beginning. Indeed, this challenge is posed not so much by the social and cultural milieux which she encounters in the course of history, as by the mandate of the Risen Christ, who defines the very reason for the Church’s existence: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). (106)