By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
Archbishop Thomas Wenski preached this homily while celebrating a Mass for Catholic Schools Week with the students at St. James School in North Miami, Feb. 3, 2023.
This week we have been celebrating Catholic Schools Week. I am sure you have seen on TV stories in which someone is called to testify in a court. When the witness is called, the bailiff asks him or her to raise their hand and to swear to the tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Each of us is called to be a witness, to give testimony not in a court of law but in our daily life. We are called to be witnesses and tell the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth about God, about Jesus, and about how we are to live as children of God and brothers and sisters to Jesus.
That is one of the best things about Catholic schools. In Catholic schools, we can learn the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We can do this because we can speak about God, and we can speak to God.
Catholic schools teach the three “Rs” very well – reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmatic; but they also teach us about a fourth R – religion.
We learn the truth about ourselves: We learn that God made us to know him, to love him and to serve him in this life so that we can be happy with him forever in the life to come.
Can we say that we are learning the whole truth if we do not learn about God, about how he loves us and how he came to save us by dying and rising for us?
We learn that happiness is not found by getting but by giving, that it is more blessed to give than to receive.
We learn that success in life is not about just doing well – getting rich and having lots of things. True success is about doing good – the good that God wants us to do, the good that our neighbor needs us to do.
So today let us say, “Thank you, God” for your pastor, your principal and your teachers. Let us say, “Thank you, God,” for our classmates and for the opportunity to be a part of St. James Catholic School.
Catholic Schools give us the opportunity to learn how to be better Christians and better citizens – and that’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
