Patron Feast week was fantastic! Thank you to all of the parent volunteers who assisted at our St. Joseph’s luncheon. Thank you to Mrs. Sweet and the committee for creating a great sequence of days to honor our heavenly benefactors; we even had student representation on that committee and although they may not have drawn the preferred tag day theme out of the lottery, the goal of cultivating maximum engagement from all students was surely accomplished throughout the week. The classroom churches and stained glass windows to commemorate St. Andre Bessette were a great addition. Everyday when I walk into a building now and see the windows created by the students on the glass doors, I am presented with a vivid reminder of the story of our school.
Last Tuesday I recounted the story of our school again for our students, and I even cited the founding document of our school. This passage and institutional mandate comes directly from those by-laws:
The founding and enduring charism of the school is rooted in the spiritual formation of St. Louis de Montfort's True Devotion to Mary, recognizing Our Lady's active role in the establishment and ongoing protection of the school.
On Friday, while Mrs. Sweet wore clothing that admittedly made her very uncomfortable in front of our students, she made a comment that keeps coming to me in prayer: “Sometimes, Lent chooses itself.”
This mystery of divine election confounds the human heart. In my prayer, I often ask God why he chose me. It is an honest question, and I am consoled and encouraged in asking it because of the example of Our Lady. She once said herself, “How can this be…?”
Today we celebrate the absolute beginning of salvation, the famous fiat when Mary consented to conceiving the Word Incarnate in her womb through the power of the Holy Spirit. Pope Benedict XVI - in his precise yet brilliant style, never mincing words yet providing a thought provoking insight that invokes the truth and connects to our human experience - wrote the following words explaining the significance of the Annunciation:
That which is truly great grows unnoticed, and silence at the right moment is more fruitful than the constant activity that only too easily degenerates into spiritual idleness. In the present age, we are all possessed by a strange restlessness that suspects any silence of being a waste of time and any kind of repose as being negligent… We use all kinds of exercises and involvements to evade the real mystery of interior growth before God. And yet in the religious sphere receptivity is at least as important as activity. The mystery of the Annunciation to Mary is not only a mystery of silence; it is also, even more, a mystery of grace… The salvation of the world is exclusively God’s doing and therefore occurs in the midst of human weakness and powerlessness. From the viewpoint of the Bible the Virgin birth is in the last analysis a sign that what occurs is a pure act of grace on God’s part.
Extending this principle of receptivity into the educative work that we do here at Mount Royal Academy, there are two applications I would like to develop:
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Receptivity is in fact far more important than activity: the precondition for learning the truth is to be open. Being open means willing to listen before responding. It looks like hearing what others have to say before communicating what I want to say. A student who is open to knowledge is more likely to wonder, ask purposeful and insightful questions, and allow the truth to be drawn out of the intellect after encountering reality.
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Receptivity in relationships creates the opportunity for revelational mystery: instead of investigating what is unknown, it is essential to focus on what is known first. Identifying the simple facts and story plot lends itself to deeper understanding. Seeing the good in other people is the starting point to seeing revelational mystery too! Students striving to see others as a gift and be a gift to others are capable of greater happiness and fulfillment.
Mary freely assented to divine election and she experienced the same human condition albeit without original sin. When Lent chooses us - to the extent that we are receptive - we can overcome this temptation to control or master reality by surrendering to the mysterious revelations that come to us in the people that God places in our lives.
I have been surrendering to learning from human disability more frequently, and I want to close with two final selections from that text. There is something very revealing about those among us with higher degrees of disability and we should all run towards the opportunity to be more open to their giftedness:
“To be our brother’s keeper is not a curse but a gift, and responding to the call to keep him is an expression of our truest freedom. It is this relational dimension of freedom that connects freedom to the human telos, for our proper end is not to strive through mastery of nature to live as we choose, but rather to take up our place in the Great Economy by giving ourselves to God and to one another in love.”
There is no true education without love.
“Somewhat paradoxically perhaps, the idea of disability as a strange vocation offers agency back to people with disabilities themselves. People with disabilities do not need to be fixed in order to take up their vocations in the world. As human beings in their time and place and circumstance, they already have a vocation to live towards their telos… Perhaps their agency does not play out as productivity in the marketplace or self-actualization that defies boundaries. But it is precisely the taking up of a strange vocation, rather than rejection of it through acceding to the cult of normalcy, that offers true possibilities for agency.”
This truly applies to every person. Mary was not just another person because no one is just another person. All persons open to divine election are more apt to discover the truth and respond in total love to God and others.
As we approach the midway point of Lent, may the intercession of Our Lady nurture the capacity to see our role in salvation history more clearly. - Mr. Derek Tremblay, Headmaster