Last week, we celebrated the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls, as we began this month dedicated in the Church to the remembrance of all the faithful departed, our beloved dead. As teachers, we acknowledge that we have been influenced by those who have gone before us. It is likely that there was a teacher that inspired us to become a teacher, or, perhaps, a better teacher. I know that as I look over the last set of writings that I received from my freshmen, I think about, and ask for the intercession of, Dorothy O'Connor, who made me, and generations of high school seniors in northern Illinois, immerse ourselves in the writing of Flannery O'Connor, then pour ourselves into our writing, edited through several drafts until it was clear and economical. Doubtless there are hundreds of others who taught us and are watching each of us struggle, as they did, to bring knowledge and truth to our students. "These are they whose hearts were riven,/Sore with woe and anguish tried,/Who in prayer have fully striven/With the God they glorified:/Now, their painful conflict o'er,/God has bid them weep no more." (Theobald Schenck, "Who Are These Like Stars Appearing?")

As we live our vocation (particularly during this Vocation Awareness Week), let us take this opportunity to pray for, and with, all those who have died, those known and dear to us, who guide us by their example even today, and all those whose faith is known only to God:

God, give us the grace to be truly holy people. Help us to have concern for our neighbor so that we may love you with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves. Teach us to forgive, for as we forgive, we are forgiven. Help us to trust in you and never to doubt your goodness and his mercy. Give us a concern for the widow, the orphan and all the marginalized. In this season, we celebrate all those named and unnamed whose lives portrayed these qualities. May the prayers of the saints deliver us from present evil; may their example of holy living turn our thoughts to the service of you and all your people. We ask these things in the name of Christ, our Lord. Amen.
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Oh, what a joy we will have when we see a great number of our students in possession of eternal happiness! What a sharing of joy there will between the teacher and her students! What a special union with one another there will be in the presence of God! It will be for them a great satisfaction, sharing together the blessing for which the call of God had given them hope, the wealth of the glorious heritage of God in the dwelling of the saints.

Live, Jesus, in our hearts!

(Prayer adapted from Rev. Brian D'Arcy, CP and the solemn blessing from the Feast of All Saints; the quotation is adapted from De La Salle, Med. 208.2)