Campus Ministry Celebrates Educators

Members of the campus community celebrated the vocation of educators during a special Mass held on Wednesday, Jan. 31, in the Hermance Family Chapel of St. Basil the Great.

The Very Rev. George T. Smith, C.S.B., Superior General of the Basilian Fathers, presided over the Mass, which was concelebrated by Basilian Fathers Kevin Mannara, Al Cylwicki, Joe Trovato, Paul English, Mike Buentello, Tom Dugan, and Father Bill Graf, chair of religious studies. Dr. Gerard J. Rooney, president of the College, and Dr. Michael Wischnowski, dean of the School of Education, were in attendance and were joined by professors, students, and representatives from local Catholic schools.

In his homily, Father Smith spoke of the intrinsic passion those called into the field of education often possess.

“There must be in a prospective Basilian, at least in my mind, an innate desire to educate, that is to enable, to facilitate men and women becoming the men and women God calls them to be, to lead them (that is the meaning of the word), to lead them to the fullest experience of their humanity,” he said. “That can happen in a thousand different ways in and out of the classroom, but educators cannot help themselves, they feel driven to enable others to experience the fullness of life.”

He also reflected on education’s parallels to the Eucharist.

“At its best, education is an experience of communion. And it is therefore profoundly connected with the Eucharist that we celebrate this afternoon,” he said. “To see the connections between education and Eucharist is to see how and why education is a vocation, and to see how and why Jesus is truly the Master teacher. It is he who calls us into communion that is education in its most life-giving forms.”