From the gospel for Holy Thursday: "So when he had washed their feet and put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, 'Do you realize what I have for you? You call me 'teacher' and 'master', and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the teacher and master, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.'"
From the first reading for Good Friday: "Who would believe what we have heard? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth; there was in him no stately bearing to make up look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him. He was spurned and avoided by people, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, one of those from whom people hide their face, spurned, and we held him in no esteem. Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted."
From the epistle of Easter Vigil: "Brothers and sisters: Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life."
De La Salle (Med. 86.2): "In choosing our state, we ought to have resolved to be as lowly as the Son of God when he became man, for this is what is most noticeable in our professional and in our work . . . Only the poor come looking for us. They have nothing to offer us but their hearts ready to accept our instructions."
The spring semester academic blueprint that we received in January asked for "[m]odeling the lesson in the I do / We do / You do format" and "[b]uilding and using exemplars to monitor student progress". This gradual release of responsibility format is the teaching model that is also being learned by our CWSP coordinators for their classes. But to successfully ask students to follow our academic model means that we must invite them to follow Christ's model of life and relationship. In our lessons, have we modeled how we should wash the feet of others by washing theirs? Are we an example of how students can be of great help to others without being the most popular student on campus? Are we willing to show the young people entrusted to our care how to walk through the most difficult times by walking along with them? To be truly meaningful, the new knowledge that our students acquire must be rooted in the new life of Easter. As we plan for classes in the Easter season, how will we model Christ, being who he is, for our young people?
Live, risen Jesus, in our hearts!