Thomas Griffin 1/29/25
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Catholic Schools Week (CSW) is a national celebration of our Catholic schools that takes place during the last week of January each year. During this week, schools are intentionally promoting what makes them different from other schools as well as championing their culture of faith and fellowship. These two pillars of faith and relationships are truly what sets Catholic schools apart and makes them most suitable and effective in forming young people to become the young men and women they are being called to be.
First, faith is the number one priority. From morning prayer to start the school day as well as prayer before each class, it is one’s relationship with God that sits at the center of the Catholic school experience. A Catholic school true to its name will do its very best to ensure that these activities are not mere routine, but that they are embodied with a sense of intentionality and power.
This will only take place if faith is something organic and important for the staff and teachers of the school. Just as the faith of parents is the most important factor for children growing up in the faith, if a school does not have a faculty that genuinely practices the faith – the faith of its students will be stifled. When a staff and body of teachers is praying for their students and when they each personally know Jesus Christ, they are able to transmit, witness and hand on the faith in a way that is life changing.
This is a large reason why Catholic Schools Week exists. To showcase the difference of a Catholic education but to also broadcast the fact that teaching in a Catholic school has rewards far beyond this world. The measurement of education is different in our Catholic institutions for this reason alone: we are called to form students into saints, not just educate them for a diploma.
This occurs in a variety of ways. Religion class is foundational for all levels but there is also a lived faith experience that is meant to embody the entire culture of the school. When an important feast day arises, the school celebrates it with faith and fun. When a tragedy strikes the country or nearby community, we rally in prayer but also in service for those in need. There is a human and organic way to live out the faith.
Truly, the spiritual life of the school directs the entire institution. Days of recollection, prayer services or the celebration of the Mass do not become cluttered with skepticism about “missed instructional time.” These are simply the way that a school lives out its most important mission: to form saints. It is this attitude that can clearly feed the fellowship of our schools.
Students and staff come together to pray but also because it is this spiritual life of the school that allows them to see each other as known and loved by God. This will only lead to a closer connected community. This is why Catholic schools tend to include more frequent days of celebrating their students and staff. This takes place through sports, activities or service-oriented events. These days are not wasted educational days but aid the school in building well-rounded students who know how to interact with other levels of students as well as teachers.
The beauty of the Catholic environment is that all of this can occur while remaining steadfast in providing a challenging academic experience. The goal of the Catholic school is to form the entire person and to never pigeon-hole students into being strictly “academic subjects.” They are not clients to be sold a product but human persons who we are called to cultivate and mold into the saints of the future.
It is this combination of faith and fellowship that separates Catholic schools from others. This is what we celebrate in our schools across the country this week. We champion our faith and our desire to bring all those involved in Catholic schools into direct contact with the living God. It is this endeavor that has the power to change the world and to form young people into the holy young men and women they are called to be.
Thomas Griffin is the chairperson of the religion department at a Catholic high school on Long Island where he lives with his wife and two sons. He has a masters degree in theology and is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Empty Tomb Project: The Magazine. He is the author of Let Us Begin: Saint Francis’s Way of Becoming Like Christ and Renewing the World.
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