• Guideposts to God by Elizabeth Stowe Fennell 13 Conversation Starters 15
• Gathering Prayer 16
Faith Feeds is an initiative by Boston College’s Church in the 21st Century Center (C21), which was founded in 2002 to serve as a catalyst and a resource for renewal of the Catholic Church in the United States. Faith Feeds was originally designed for individuals in Catholic parishes who are hungry for opportunities to talk about their faith with others who share it. Considering many Catholic schools are an extension of a parish, a customized set of guides has been developed for Catholic educators. C21 worked in partnership on this project with the Roche Center for Catholic Education, a center that forms Catholic educators to become agents of change who work to create excellent PreK-12 Catholic schools.
Educators in Catholic schools who strive for excellence embody the following virtues: adaptability, joy, attentiveness, vision, and humility. St. Ignatius stated, “All the things in this world are gifts of God, created for us, to be the means by which we can come to know him better, love him more surely, and serve him more faithfully. As a result, we ought to appreciate and use these gifts of God insofar as they help us toward our goal of loving service and union with God.” (The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola)
These Faith Feeds guides challenge Catholic educators to reflect on how they are living out their vocations in their everyday lives. Together, the C21 Center and the Roche Center hope to deepen the faith of educators and bring communities of people together through these Faith Feeds reflections and questions. All authors in these guides are committed Catholic educators who have a deep love for Catholic schools and strive daily in their vocations to love and serve God.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Who should host a FAITH FEEDS?
Anyone who has a heart for facilitating conversations about faith is perfect to host a FAITH FEEDS.
Where do I host a FAITH FEEDS?
You can host a FAITH FEEDS in-person or virtually through video conference software. FAITH FEEDS conversations are meant for small groups of 10-12 people.
What is the host’s commitment?
The host is responsible for coordinating meeting times, sending out materials and video conference links, and facilitating conversation during the FAITH FEEDS.
What is the guest’s commitment?
Guests are asked to read the articles that will be discussed and be open to faith-filled conversation.
Still have more questions?
No problem! Email church21@bc.edu and we’ll help you get set up.
READY TO GET STARTED?
STEP ONE
Decide to host a FAITH FEEDS. Coordinate a date, time, location, and guest list. An hour is enough time to allocate for the virtual or in-person gathering.
STEP TWO
Interested participants are asked to RSVP directly to you, the host. Once you have your list of attendees, confirm with everyone via email. That would be the appropriate time to ask in-person guests to commit to bringing a potluck dish or drink to the gathering. For virtual FAITH FEEDS, send out your video conference link.
STEP THREE
Review the selected articles from your FAITH FEEDS Guide and the questions that will serve as a starter for your FAITH FEEDS discussion. Hosts should send their guests a link to the guide, which can be found on bc.edu/FAITHFEEDS.
STEP FOUR
Send out a confirmation email a week before the FAITH FEEDS gathering. Hosts should arrive early for in-person or virtual set up. Begin with the Gathering Prayer found on the last page of this guide. Hosts can open the discussion by using the suggested questions. The conversation should grow organically from there. Enjoy this gathering of new friends, knowing the Lord is with YOU!
STEP FIVE
Make plans for another FAITH FEEDS. We would love to hear about your FAITH FEEDS experience. You can find contact information on the last page of this guide.
CONVERSATION STARTERS
Here are three articles to guide your FAITH FEEDS conversation. We suggest that you select two that will work best for your group, and if time permits, add in the third. In addition to the original article, you will find a relevant quotation, summary, and suggested questions for discussion. We offer these as tools for your use, but feel free to go where the Holy Spirit leads. Conversations should respect and ensure confidentiality among participants.
This guide’s theme is: Attentiveness
BEING PRESENT
Lindsey Hughes
As a teacher and campus minister in a small Catholic high school, I spend a great deal of my weekdays with teenagers. A typical fall day will go something like this: teach two classes (depending on the schedule rotation), check in with my sophomore advisory, work on any number of campus ministry initiatives in the remaining unscheduled periods, meet with students after school, and then head outside to run soccer practice. Wearing these various hats (as many Catholic school educators will understand), I see students in many capacities throughout the day. Depending on the events or deadlines coming up, it can get a bit hectic. And, as a self-proclaimed introvert, there are rare moments alone when I can catch up on emails and recharge my social battery a bit. To be clear, I truly love spending time with these incredible students - but the breaks are necessary!
So, one can imagine my initial weariness when I’ve just sat down at my desk for the precious free moment and a student bursts in with “Ms. Hughes! I’ve been looking for you!” or “Are you free — I need help
with…”. Years ago, on a faculty retreat, we listened to a lecture from Fr. Greg Boyle, S.J. who recounted a similar experience. His helpful reflection noted that while there was certainly work to be done, what could be more important than the person in front of you? This question has challenged me; it has also helped me to take a breath when a student stops by, to move the laptop aside, and to listen.
If we believe each person to be created in the image and likeness of God, a unique, unrepeatable creation, then each of these interactions is a privileged encounter. To imitate the God I believe in, I need to start with giving others — even teenagers! — the attention and intentional care that they deserve. At times, it also means giving myself that attention.
Many of us are familiar with the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, two men at opposite ends of the spectrum of wealth — one who lived at the height of luxury and the other, Lazarus, who slept at his doorstep. How many days must Lazarus have been laying there in order for the rich man to become numb
to his presence? In our everyday lives, we can get so caught up in our own needs and work that we can ignore the humanity of others. In all the time that students spend in our schools, they are certainly aware of the fact that they are being watched (in a school of our size, it’s hard to fly under the radar!), but how many feel seen?
To imitate a God that knows and loves me as I am, I have to be willing to extend that same grace to those I encounter each day. I have to be willing to see those around me, and to fully see, I need to commit to building relationships. The Sisters of St. Joseph remind us that “relationships are at the heart of mission.” What could be more important than that? Imitating God’s unifying love cannot be actualized without encounter, without relationship.
In Tattoos On the Heart, Fr. Boyle quotes Anthony De Mello, S.J. as he suggests that we should, “Behold the One beholding [us] and smiling.” This ultimately is the God I hope to image to my students, a God that not only sees us, but delights in the sight. Sometimes this may require keeping my office door open and putting the grading down, but the relationship is always worth it.
Lindsey Hughes is the Director of Campus Ministry at Cathedral High School. She is also a member of the Roche Center’s 2022 Catholic Leadership Cohort.
BEING PRESENT
“The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh
Summary
Lindsey Hughes, campus minister and theology teacher at a small Catholic high school, reflects on the importance of being with the person in front of us, even when we may be craving nothing but a break from all the social time and tasks of our day. She draws this wisdom in part from a reflection given by Fr. Greg Boyle, S.J., who in quoting fellow Jesuit Anthony De Mello, speaks of the act of beholding another as imaging God for those around us. Hughes alludes to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus as an example of the failure to behold, ignoring the humanity of those in need. Hughes calls herself and us to commit to building relationships as the foundation of our ministry, asking the challenging question of how many of her students truly “feel seen?”
Questions for Conversation
1. How do you reconcile the need for self-care with the call to care for others?
2. Where are the places where you feel most seen? Who are the people that you feel know you, or even, delight in you?
3. Who might you have overlooked, in your work or in your life, that may need your attention?
ATTENTIVE LEADERSHIP
Molly McMahon
I am not much of a gardener, but my husband is excellent at it. In watching him over the years, I have learned it is a year round job because it involves a high level of attention. He spends the winter months pouring over magazines and websites, researching crops. In late winter he begins his mini greenhouse inside our home in which tables, soil, grow lights, watering cans and fertilizer appear in our living room, where we get the best light. He draws a diagram of where everything will go. In preparation for planting weekend, he tills the ground, gets new, rich manure delivered, repairs raised beds, builds trellis or cages to support the plants as they grow, and even thinks out how to plant and rotate certain crops to keep the soil fresh. Planting weekend is very exciting in our house. He spends late spring and summer watering, monitoring, making adjustments if crops haven’t taken, and weeding to give them proper light. Harvesting in late summer and into fall yields deliciously creative meals. In late fall and early winter, he carefully removes the
unnecessary weeds and places hay over the soil beds to protect them in winter. And the cycle repeats itself. It is an incredible hobby that I think he has taken up in part due to his love of nature, and in other part because as a Catholic school principal, some of the other seeds he is sowing are not always visibly fruitful on such a regular cycle. I have gotten so much out of watching this process over the years in order to see what is possible when one is attentive. Imagine our Catholic school communities if we all put the attention that I just described in my husband’s garden into the relationships we are tending to in our school communities?
Relationships are at the heart of attentive Ignatian leadership. Relationship building is the absolute hardest part of our job as educators but the most necessary, and ultimately, when you learn to cultivate those relationships properly, the most fulfilling. Over my own 12 years in school administration, I have learned a few lessons about relationships that relate directly
to my husband’s hobby of gardening.
First, I strove to find the strengths of each person in my school community and how they fit into our larger community. Even the difficult parent, the trying child, or the complaining staff member. Our “human capital,” or our students, staff, and stakeholders, are our greatest assets. Bringing out their strengths for the good of our community is essential. This is similar to something my husband taught me called companion planting. The Native Americans learned to do this so that crops would help each other. It involves: Planting corn that grows straight up. Planting green beans which wrap around the corn and provide nitrogen to the soil, and then planting squash on the perimeter because it keeps the animals away. The corn, beans, and squash are known as “the three sisters.” Just as the three sisters’ crops serve different roles for the good of all three crops, we also need to find the assets each member brings to the community. These are the different crops we can plant strategically to support the larger school goals.
Second, I strive to have empathy in order to understand the different perspectives and different needs within the community. I have tried to put myself in the shoes of others to seek to understand the motivations at play. I seek to listen, really listen, and then reflect back why something is important to a community member. I use this information when being transparent about why I have made a decision or choice that I have, even if I know it will not be well received. This empathetic listening and open and honest communication is the trust work that we do in schools. This is the hard work of pruning and shaping our school culture through relationships.
Finally, attentive relationship building is a year round job. It is not something we schedule on our calendars or make sure we get to once a week or per term. It is not something that can be in a strategic plan. Like gardening, it is not just about the actual planting day if we want our crops to succeed. It is the winter planning and indoor seedling growing; it is the spring preparation of the garden beds; it is the summer of monitoring, watering, and weeding; and it is the careful fall clean up to protect the next years’ crops. Attentiveness to relationships is at the heart of leadership. We are Christ for others through our attentiveness.
Molly McMahon, Ph.D. is the Director of Leadership Programs at The Roche Center for Catholic Education.
ATTENTIVE LEADERSHIP
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener... Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.”
- John 15:1,4
Summary
Molly McMahon lays out a thoughtful metaphor of building relationships as caring for a garden, an experience she witnesses every year through her husband’s hobby of gardening. Such a dedicated process of preparing, growing, planting, watering, monitoring, weeding, and cleaning up is likened to the attentiveness required, especially of Ignatian leaders, in “the hard work of pruning and shaping our school culture through relationships.” McMahon describes her own experience of putting this process into practice by looking for the strengths of each individual in her school community and putting those strengths together, as the Native Americans paired crops together to help each other grow well. McMahon’s second focus is empathetic listening, trying to “understand the motivations at play” in considering different perspectives and needs of her community. Lastly, she affirms that the year-round task of attentiveness to relationships is at the heart of leadership.
Questions for Conversation
1. How do you seek to attend to your relationships with students? With staff? With parents? Where could you improve upon this attentiveness?
2. Is there any “companion planting” that you need to do within your classroom or school community in order to build upon the human capital strengths that exist?
3. There is a great quote by Margaret Wheatly, an American writer, about the importance of relationships. She says, “It is possible to prepare for the future without knowing what it will be. The primary way to prepare for the unknown is to attend to the quality of our relationships, to how well we know and trust one another.” How does this relate to your experience in your school?
GUIDEPOSTS TO GOD
By Elizabeth Stowe Fennell
Having attended Catholic schools from Kindergarten through my Master’s degree, I am a direct product of Catholic education. With a deep desire to give back to the institutions that formed me, I have discerned my love of Catholic schools as my vocation. Whether as a teacher, coach, board member, or parent, I continue to choose Catholic education for its dedication to service, social justice, and academic excellence. Within Catholic schools, academic, athletic, and spiritual accomplishments are not ends in and of themselves, but merely guideposts that lead us to something greater than ourselves, to God.
The mission statement at my children’s Catholic school is: “Seek God first. Strive for academic excellence. Share our gifts and talents. Serve each other and the world.” The students recite this mission statement every single day. From preschool through eighth grade, the students come to know this mission statement and learn to live it.
Seek God First. Aside from home, my kids spend more time in school than any other place. (Although, there are days that hockey rinks are a close second!) It is so important to me that what I teach
my kids at home about seeking out and responding to God’s love is reinforced in the classroom every day. If my children come to know God’s love and learn about their call to love others, then I am doing my job as their mom. My son, Michael, gave me a birthday gift when he was seven years old. It was a shoe box covered in messages of love. Each message was written in a heart. One of the messages read, “Nothing you do can make me stop loving you.” This is the message he hears at home. This is the message he hears in school. My children know that they are loved and are called to love others. How we see ourselves, how we see others, how we treat ourselves, how we treat others all have their foundation in seeing ourselves and one another as God’s children.
Strive for Academic Excellence. In my experience as both a Catholic school student and a Catholic school parent, the academic standards of Catholic schools are top-notch. The goal of Catholic education is to recognize the academic gifts (and struggles) of each student and strive to challenge that student no matter where the child is on his or her academic journey. My son Patrick’s first grade teacher was ex-
cellent at differentiated learning. The teacher challenged those who excelled in a subject area to go beyond the grade-level content. Those who needed more support worked with the teacher to better understand the material. Without judgment and from a place of love, the teacher recognized each child for who the child was and motivated the student to grow to the student’s maximum potential utilizing the gifts God had bestowed.
Share Our Gifts and Talents. Each one of us is unique and each one of us is made in the image and likeness of God. In Catholic schools, teachers, administrators, and staff help students recognize who they are and the gifts that they have to offer the world. Students are called to share their talents with others and recognize the talents of their classmates. I recall a group project that my son worked on in fourth grade. Each child brought a different gift to the table. One was an artist. One was an excellent researcher. One had a gift of seeing the big picture and how everything came together. One was a gifted presenter. The students used their talents to contribute to the project in their own way. They understood that they created a better project together than they could have as individuals.
Serve Each Other and the World. Once students realize God’s love, gain skills through instruction, and recognize their unique gifts and talents, students in Catholic schools are then called to direct all of that hard work towards the service of others. This is perhaps the most distinguishing feature of Catholic education. It is not enough for students to excel as individuals. Students are called to utilize their education for good and serve each other and the world for the greater glory of God — whether that be helping a friend who is sad, drawing a picture for a loved one who lives alone, or volunteering to teach little ones how to skate. These are ways my children have chosen to use their education and talents to serve others.
This is what Catholic schools have done for me and my children. This is how I recognize the true gift of Catholic education. This is why Catholic schools matter and why I am thankful every day for Catholic education.
Elizabeth Stowe Fennell is the Associate Director of School Partnerships at The Roche Center for Catholic Education.
GUIDEPOSTS TO GOD
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education.”
- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Summary
Elizabeth Stowe Fennell writes in gratitude of her Catholic education, sharing how she found Catholic schooling to be her vocation through its “dedication to service, social justice, and academic excellence.” She grounds her reflection in the mission statement of her children’s Catholic school: “Seek God first. Strive for academic excellence. Share our gifts and talents. Serve each other and the world.” These goals of knowing God’s love, meeting each student where he/she is and challenging them to strive for greatness, putting individual strengths together, and offering the work at the service of others make up the corpus of Catholic education for Fennell, which she calls “a true gift.”
Questions for Conversation
1. What do you see as the gifts of Catholic schools?
2. What are your gifts and talents?
3. How are you called to serve each other and the world?
GATHERING PRAYER
Personal Prayer of Pedro Arrupe
Pedro Arrupe, S.J. (1907-1991)
Grant me, O Lord, to see everything now with new eyes, to discern and test the spirits, that help me read the signs of the times, to relish the things that are yours, and to communicate them to others. Give me the clarity of understanding that you gave Ignatius.
