During this month, the Church and San Miguel celebrate National Migration Awareness Week, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Alumni Day, sophomore and junior class retreats, sophomore and junior college visits, the San Francisco New Orleans District young men’s vocation retreat, a variety of basketball and soccer games, and, on the 31st, the beginning of Catholic Schools Week and the first El Otro Lado of the semester. And perhaps some teaching!

But all of these, including teaching, boil down to how we share God’s love with our students. As the General Council’s Lasallian Reflection 1 (shared yesterday) reminds us, “For over 330 years of this God-is-with-us-story, we have shared St. La Salle’s love for the young, especially the poor. Our century, like the 17th and 18th, also suffers from indifference to those abandoned at the side of the road. Our challenge is to offer a radical welcome, the oil of mercy, compassion, and inclusion." In all of the events of our school year, not just in January, we seek ways to welcome and include those who are economically disadvantaged, those who suffer from the various poverties that afflict our students, show and teach mercy, and ensure that our students will learn to do the same.

To help us in this endeavor, we recall De La Salle’s Epiphany admonition to “[r]ecognize Jesus in the poor rags of the children whom you have to instruct. Adore him in them . . . these children are the members of Jesus Christ." Knowing that Christ abides in our students enables us, in all the opportunities that the calendar provides, to share our love for them in a way that will encourage them to share Christ’s love with others.

Live, Jesus, in our hearts!