Wait for it... Wait for it... Wait for it!

News from our schools!

This week Archbishop Lyke was featured on Channel 5 News.  Click on this link to see what Catholic schools offer News 5 on Archbishop Lyke year end parade!

Announcement expected this week!

We have been on quite a ride for the last few months.  Our two year endeavor will come to a head this week.  Look for the announcement!  Recently our country has begun to focus on serious issues that have become so evident during the pandemic.  People have asked me what I think and all I can do is share my personal journey that began since a conversion experience I had in Peru that led to the founding of Saint Martin de Porres High School and now the imminent announcement of the fate of Partnership Schools Cleveland.  A friend of mine, Dr. Matt Cooney has started an audio blog called Shraheens and asked me to tell the story of why I left Saint Ignatius High School to work at building a new school in the St. Clair-Superior neighborhood.  Here is a link to his blog, Shraheens.com.

Fruits of Prayer

For the last two years, I have prayed on a regular basis each day.  At the least I quiet myself and read the daily readings...often I then read about the saint of the day, read a few sections of the Liturgy of the Hours and sometimes continued with spiritual readings.  I take notes and save phrases or quotes that moved me that day.  Someday, I might share those ramblings.  I sat down and thought about the last few weeks of protests.  My own daughter was tear-gassed as a peaceful demonstrator.  She and my son attended another demonstration yesterday which was completely peaceful and no tear gas thank God.  My other son is in Hollywood sending back pictures and videos of what is going on.  The outpouring over the last several days from our country and all over the world has been unprecedented.  So what do I think?

17 years ago I began working with a community that I knew very little about.

My world has been shaped by a deep appreciation for Ignatian spirituality and the Gospel.  My spiritual directors were Fr. Paul Clifford, Fr. Larry Reuter, Fr. John Foley and  Fr. Bob Welsh.  All of them are Jesuits and when I began teaching in 1973 Pedro Arrupe had recently addressed worldwide alumni with a speech entitled "Man for Others." The opening paragraphs of that speech shaped the way I taught:  

"Education for justice has become in recent years one of the chief concerns of the Church.  Why?  Because there is a new awareness in the Church that participation in the promotion of justice and the liberation of the oppressed is a constitutive element of the mission which Our Lord has entrusted to her. Impelled by this awareness, the Church is now engaged in a massive effort to education - or rather to re-educate - herself, her children, and all men and women so that we may all "lead our life in its entirety... in accord with the evangelical principles of personal and social morality to be expressed in a living Christian witness."

Today our prime educational objective must be to form men-and-women-for-others; men and women who will live not for themselves but for God and his Christ - for the God-man who lived and died for all the world; men and women who cannot even conceive of love of God which does not include love for the least of their neighbors; men and women completely convinced that love of God which does not issue in justice for others is a farce."  Pedro Arrupe, 1973

My belief in the spirituality of St. Ignatius and his way of proceeding along with prayer with the Gospel (which, as I mentioned,  I began in earnest only two years ago) has led me to see the world differently.  I am not motivated by politics or ideology, but rather by a burgeoning relationship with Jesus.

My daily immersion in the Saint Martin community and in particular with our students and their families is an experience I treasure.  It has been fruitful in my prayer life and in particular in the aspect of Ignatius where he talks about finding God in all things.  I cannot dismiss my experience because that is where God is!

What does my experience tell me?  It tells me that the worldview and belief system I was raised with and believed in terms of our national history was very one-sided and in many cases misleading.  Remember, I am sharing with you the fruits of my spiritual life and my real-life experience.  The horrific experience of being an enslaved people and the consequent realities faced by a large number of our citizens has never been faced by me.  This more inclusive view of history, which includes the black experience and experiences of ALL of our citizens meshes exactly with what I have learned over these 17 years.  But, am I certain?  I want to share with you a prayer I came across a few years ago from Thomas Merton:

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,

though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

I have always thought that without doubt there would be no need for faith! So, I hope this gives you a sense of my inner life.  Right now, I see the world differently and I hope, whatever happens, all will experience the abundance of God's love!

Subscribe to my Nuzzel!

For the past few years, I have curated news stories, songs, and podcasts mostly centered on urban education and justice.  It is a quick read and comes out each Sunday.  Here is the link! This is the link to the 5/31 edition.  Today's edition comes out after 1 PM.