We have come to the end of the school year once again. A year of learning and sharing with new friends and classmates. You are all part of our Catholic school. Our parish and the whole Catholic Church invest a large amount of time, money, buildings, teachers, sisters, priests, and personnel on education all the way from elementary school through high school and even post-high school programs, colleges and universities. What is so important about school? Why do you come to school? It is amazing how many kids can’t answer that question. Some say to get a career and make money. Some say it is because their parents make them go. Why go to school? Why not stay home, sleep late, and play all day?
The answer to that question is in today’s Gospel reading. The most important thing in school is learning how to read – so that we can all read and understand the Word of God. God speaks to us through the Word of God, the writings in the Bible. If you don’t know how to read well and understand the readings, you will not have a good contact with God. Most people will say that they go to school to learn a trade and become rich and famous. But for us Christians, everything that we learn in school helps us to live what is in the Word of God.
Today Jesus gives each of us the mission to do good works so that our good works will show to others the presence of God in the local community. Whatever we have learned to do is for the good of others. It is to help us serve others. Knowledge and learning are not just for us and not just to enrich ourselves. Whatever trade we learn – doctor, construction worker, carpenter, lawyer, teacher, friar, electrician, plumber, nurse, or computer programmer – it is so that we can help and serve others. That is how we make our light shine for the good of others.
Take some time this week to ask yourselves what you have learned this year and how you can use that knowledge is help and serve your family, your neighborhood, and those people around you.
Your light must shine in the sight of men,
so that, seeing your good works,
they may give the praise to your Father in heaven.
Image: https://centeredonchrist.substack.com/p/what-did-jesus-mean-by-you-are-the-b88