Full Homily

It is a joy to celebrate with you this morning. As I look out at all of you gathered here: teachers and administrators in our Catholic Schools, I am indeed heartened. It is through you - your teaching - that so many of our young people will be “educated”, a word with a Latin origin, which means, as you may well know, “to be led out.” It implies, that in order to learn, or “to be led,” someone must have gone there “first” in order to know how to guide another.

You, my friends properly speaking, are those who are entrusted with “leading”, young minds –someplace – so where are you leading them? Yours is a sacred vocation not only to impart practical knowledge, but, as Catholic School teachers, you have a far distant horizon to lead young hearts and minds. Today we proclaim in a definitive way, that it is Jesus - Jesus must be the heartbeat of everything we teach. He must be the inspiration, and the goal of what we are about. If He is not at the center of our daily desires even when we step into a classroom, we may have a great lesson planned, but we are not fully prepared to teach that day. Of course, you all don’t teach religion classes, but you teach many different subjects. I’m assured we have qualified and academically prepared people in our classrooms. I’m so grateful. However the source of all knowledge is a Person with a name: Jesus Christ. In our schools, Jesus is the Teacher, who needs us to represent Him, to our students, who really belong to Him.

The Scripture today, from St. Matthews Gospel, sets the radical tone for what qualifies as a teacher. Jesus is addressing the “Scribes and Pharisees.” They were, of course, the moral and religious teachers of their day. In our Gospel today, Jesus clearly denounces those who teach, but do not practice what they teach. Here we find the classic condemnation of what we all rightly hate: “hypocrisy.” Jesus calls them “Blind fools”.

Perhaps nothing can stir up more indignation, than hypocrisy. And rightly so. Currently, as you know, our Church, in her leadership, is faced with the horror of hypocrisy. In a word, those priests who were implicated in child abuse publicly professed to be who they were not. And more painfully, we learn that some bishops, who were charged with being “Overseers” of those local Churches, failed at their posts at various times over the past 70 years by their seeming unwillingness to face the evil involved and definitively root it out.

As your bishop, I detest that culture of deception, and with all my energy will respond with the grace God gives me to be a Shepherd of this wonderful Church of Metuchen. I need your prayers to navigate these trying times, to continue to rebuild trust, that is earned by integrity. I never imagined I would have these problems to contend as a new bishop. Yet I joyfully accept my call from the Lord, in this time and in this place. He is Who I turn to for strength and assurance. I too, must heed His warning to not give in to hypocrisy. For I, too, am a man who am under His judgment, who seek to be a teacher without compromise.

I get courage from the insight of St. Augustine, the bishop of the ancient city of Hippo in North Africa, who we recall today in this liturgy. He said “I’m terrified by what I am for you, I am given comfort by what I am with you. For you I am a bishop, with you, I am a Christian.” What captivates most people’s imagination about St. Augustine, and why he has had such an impact on the spiritual lives of countless Christian people, up and down the ages, is not what he taught, but who he was - because of his brutal self-honesty.

St. Augustine’s conversion shines a light on what Jesus instructs in today’s Gospel passage: “clean the inside of the cup first, that the outside should be clean.” Jesus always directs us to integrity and authenticity. Our interior life, the “matters of the heart” as Jesus calls them, is what give substance to our character. When we are right with God, we can then speak in light, in the truth - this is our high calling as Christians, to be who we are meant to be: “salt and light” as the Lord tells us.

As teachers in a Catholic School, before anything else, you are called to represent “The Teacher, Jesus.” I do not say this to be intimidating, but to remind us all of our high calling, and great privilege that it is to be a Catholic School teacher. Together, we must show our young people something different, something more than the world has to offer. That something more, is Someone - Jesus, and His invitation to a deep and lasting friendship with Him. St. Augustine had it right when he so poignantly summed up the meaning of his entire life journey: “My heart is restless, until it rests in You, O Lord,” and then his crescendo when he finally met Jesus, changed his wild immoral ways, and surrendered to Him: “Late have I loved you, Oh Beauty ever ancient, ever new.”

Would that every one of our students be able to leave our schools with that refrain in their heart of knowing Jesus personally. St. Augustine became the profound teacher that he was because he knew his subject matter personally. He came to know deeply and personally, Jesus Christ. May we too know the joy that St. Augustine knew when he entered into that lasting, defining friendship. Today as we celebrate this new school year, we have much to look forward to. I believe in you; I have confidence in you and what we can accomplish together. Our students need you, the Church needs you. Jesus is counting on you, and so am I and so many others. May this Eucharist strengthen us for this task!