Address for Teacher Orientation Day
Holy Cross School, Champaign, Ill.
August 16, 2016
In
an article in America early this year,
Jesuit historian Fr. John W. O’Malley is cited for a list of “five hooks that
unify Jesuit teaching”:[1]
1. help students examine their assumptions
about life;
2. help them understand the past
(personal and larger);
3. communicate faith that does justice,
that serves others;
4. study great literature, teaching how
to put ideas into words;
5. teach prudence by sharpening critical
thinking skills.
There’s
some great stuff there, as we’d expect from an order that has given the Church
and society many great educators since 1540.
Other
teaching congregations have their own approaches and styles, of course, e.g.
the LaSalle Christian Brothers, the Irish Christian Brothers, the Marists, and countless
societies of religious sisters. I
enjoyed eight grammar school years with the School Sisters of Notre Dame, who
were wonderful educators, catechizing us, teaching writing skills, fostering my
love for reading—and of some relevance here, thru our 6th grade world history
text introducing me to St. Thomas More, who became one of my favorite saints.
We
Salesians, too, have our educational approach and style. You’ve heard and experienced some aspects of
that in the last three years, e.g., reason, religion, and kindness; Communion
and confession; the three “white devotions” (Eucharist, Mary most holy, and the
Holy Father). Another key phrase or
summary often used by Don Bosco was that we aim to make of our pupils good
Christians and upright citizens. That
aligns very well with the Jesuits’ “five hooks,” but it’s broader in that it
accommodates non-scholars, such as pupils in trade or agricultural schools or
people of all ages learning basic life skills—as Salesian ministry does in many
parts of the world. You can imagine that
would be the case, since our presence in more than 130 countries ranges from
Amazonian jungles to high tech First World universities, from refugee camps in
Kenya to hostels for university students. We cover a wide range of educational needs.
I’d
like to look with you this morning at how we answered the needs of and left
lasting marks on two parishioners from different parts of the world, from very
different contexts, who went on to distinguished careers—to understate it.
Karol
Wojtyla and his widowed father moved from Wadowice to Krakow in September 1938
so that 18-year-old Karol could attend university. They took an apartment in the Debniki
neighborhood, across the Vistula River from the city center with its royal
palace, cathedral, and university. Their
apartment at 10 Tyniecka Street was around the corner and about three minutes’
walk from St. Stanislaus
Kostka Church, served by the Salesians since 1931,[2] and
since 1933 also the seat of the Salesians’ South Poland Province. Every morning Karol attended the six o’clock
Mass before going to class. Even after
entering the underground seminary program in 1942, he remained a parishioner
until 1944. Once the German occupiers
were driven out, the seminarians were able to move safely into the archbishop’s
residence.
 |
| St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, Krakow |
George
Weigel’s biography of John Paul II, Witness
to History, calls St. Stanislaus “a dynamic parish in which the Salesians
placed great emphasis on youth work” (p. 59).
In his autobiographical Gift and
Mystery, John Paul refers to his parish as the “particular place … from
[which] I received much during that period.
I believe that the presence of the
Salesians played an important role in the formation of my vocation” (p. 23,
italics in original).
We
all know of John Paul’s outstanding devotion to the Virgin Mary, something
which every Polish Catholic learns from his earliest years. But in Gift
and Mystery he notes the “special devotion to Mary Help of Christians in
the parish, in conjunction with the ‘Living Rosary’” that the young men and
women of the parish practiced during the Nazi occupation under the inspired
leadership of a layman, Jan Tyranowski (now a “servant of God” whose cause of beatification the
Salesians are promoting[3]).
 |
Chapel of MHC at St. Stanislaus,
with image before which the future Pope prayed.
|
John
Paul writes that “a change took place in my understanding of devotion to the
Mother of God,” viz., that not only does Mary lead us to Christ but also that
Jesus leads us to his Mother (p. 28).
Years later, the Salesian news service reported, “It was precisely in
front of the image of Mary Help of Christians venerated [at St. Stanislaus]
that young Karol came to the decision to devote himself entirely to the service
of the Lord and his Church.”[4] Cardinal Wojtyla said in 1972, “In front of this picture I prayed and I grew strong in my
priestly vocation.”[5]
During the first year of the German occupation, into 1940, the
Salesians—about a dozen priests and brothers—tried to continue their youth
apostolate in the parish clandestinely.
But it was too dangerous. The
Nazis were highly suspicious of any sort of activity that organized people, and
to reduce any likelihood of organizing had already arrested and either sent to
concentration camps or summarily executed most of the army officers and
intellectual leadership of the country.
At Poznan, five young
leaders in the Salesian youth
center were arrested in September 1940 and eventually executed for the illegal
activity of teaching catechism. (They
were beatified in 1999 by John Paul among 108 Polish martyrs of the Nazi occupation.)
So the Salesians proposed to Jan Tyranowski that he quietly and
secretly organize the youths of the parish with what they called “the Living
Rosary.”
Tyranowski, 39 at the time, was
an accountant by training but a tailor by trade (helping his father) and deeply
spiritual—especially following the Carmelite tradition (Teresa of Avila and
John of the Cross), to which he introduced his young disciples, including
Wojtyla. Weigel writes that this Living
Rosary “consisted of groups of fifteen young men, each of which was led by a
more mature youngster who received personal spiritual direction and instruction
from the mystically gifted tailor.
Tyranowski met with the entire Living Rosary organization every third
Sunday of the month and was also available to any member ... as needed. . .
. In weekly, hour-long meetings in his
apartment, Tyranowski taught his group leaders both the fundamentals of the
spiritual life and methods for systematically examining and improving their
daily lives,” and he included the apostolic dimension of the Christian life,
teaching them to serve others (p. 60).
By 1943 he had four such groups, and Karol Wojtyla was the leader of one
of them. The Gestapo raided Tyranowski’s
apartment once during one of the meetings, but somehow the tailor convinced
them there was no conspiracy going on.
Of course there was a
conspiracy going on, Weigel observes, but not of the kind the Gestapo needed to
worry about. The youths were conspiring
to deepen their spiritual lives, to apply the Gospel to their daily living, and
to plan for a postwar Poland.
On May 23, 1941, a few months after Jan Tyranowski undertook his
secret project, the Gestapo came for twelve of the Salesians, leaving in the
parish, John Paul says, just one old priest and the provincial (p. 23). By the end of 1942, ten of the Salesians had
perished in Auschwitz; one, Fr. Joseph
Kowalski, has already been
beatified among the aforementioned 108 martyrs; the cause of the other nine
priests is being studied. |
Tomb of Jan Tyranowski
St. Stanislaus Kostka Church
|
 |
| St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, interior |
 |
Servant of God Fr. Jan Swierc, pastor of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church,
killed by the Nazis in Auschwitz in June 1941.
|
When religious orders hold their general chapters—worldwide
legislative and electoral assemblies every six years or so—they customarily
request an audience with the Holy Father at the Vatican. So did the Salesians’ GC23 in 1990. They were astonished when, breaking all
precedent, John Paul said, No, I will come to you at your generalate![6] It showed the unusual esteem and affection in
which the Pope held his former parish priests.
Twelve years later, in 2002, he addressed GC25 (in the Vatican),
reminding the chapter members of what he had known first-hand at St.
Stanislaus: The Salesians live among the
young, as Don Bosco wanted. “You are
happy among them,” he said, “and they enjoy your friendly presence. Yours are ‘houses’ [or ‘homes,’ depending on
how you want to translate casa] in
which they feel at ease. Isn’t this the
distinguishing feature of your apostolate in every part of the world?”[7]
And that no doubt is why he returned to St. Stanislaus Kostka two
days after his ordination for one of his “first Masses,” even before going back
to his native city and home parish, and on his last visit to Poland in August
2002 he came back to the church again to recall his roots and the heroic
sacrifice of his Salesian mentors and Jan Tyranowski.[8]
Here are five takeaways from St. John Paul’s Salesian experience;
or “five hooks,” if you liked Fr. O’Malley’s term:
 |
Pope John Paul with youths at a Salesian gathering
Colle Don Bosco, Castelnuovo, probably in 1988
|
1. Karol Wojtyla
learned how to serve the young. The
Salesians were present to the young in the parish, and they modeled Christian
discipleship for the young. Youth
ministry, a presence among the young, became a major feature of his priestly
life, for which he was noted as a university professor. And of course we know how he started World Youth
Days and connected with the young whenever he was among them. The young are the very reason why we are
here—to serve them and to help them meet and fall in love with the Lord Jesus. We are here to be with them, not merely to observe them, not merely to instruct
them. In the Salesian terminology of
recent years, we accompany them, as Jesus accompanied Cleopas and his companion
on the way to Emmaus on Easter afternoon.
2. Karol’s Marian
devotion, already present from his earliest years, was deepened and transformed
at his Salesian parish, and he apparently felt Mary directing his life. Addressing her, he became totus tuus, “all yours.” We have to help our young people meet Mary,
pray to her, let her into their lives—and do all that ourselves; not because
Mary is the end of our piety but because she and her Son are inseparable. She shows us how to listen to Jesus and stay
with him in life’s most difficult moments.
3. Karol’s vocation
was nurtured in his parish, and nurtured particularly by a spiritual
guide. One of his companions in the
Living Rosary group, another priest, said that without Jan Tyranowski neither
one of them would have become a priest.
Every child in our school has a vocation, and it’s part of our ministry
to nurture that vocation—starting with their baptismal vocation, their call to
be disciples of Jesus and to be saints.
Then we all live that out in a particular way, or over the course of our
lives, maybe in more than one way (like last Friday’s saint, Jane Frances de
Chantal, or Mother Seton). Obviously,
our kids aren’t going to make any definitive decisions about how they’re going
to live as Christ’s men and women, but it’s part of our ministry to help them
explore, in age-appropriate ways, how God might call them eventually to married
or single life, to some form of consecrated life, or to the diaconate or the
priesthood.
4. Karol Wojtyla saw
the heroic witness of his Salesian priests and brothers—and many others, to be
sure. The Nazis were as ruthless against
the Polish intelligentsia and structures of civil life as they were against the
Jews. He saw that tyranny could be
resisted and that the Church could be a rallying point for maintaining the
dignity of the human person and the eternal truths of God. He put what he learned into practice as
bishop in Communist Poland, and as Pope in tearing down the Iron Curtain. Similarly, our ministry includes the utmost
respect for our children as God’s children; and for our co-workers—teachers,
administrators, and staff. It includes
instilling in our students and even their parents an appreciation for truth and
for a free conscience that can choose that truth and follow that truth in one’s
daily life. It includes teaching them to
be sensitive to injustice and to resist it.
We don’t leave “truth, justice, and the American way” only to Superman!
5. Karol experienced
the power of lay witness and lay leadership in the example of Jan
Tyranowski. Emphatically, he insisted
that the clergy don’t belong in partisan politics, neither in the developed
world nor in the developing world. But
further, the civil or political sphere is where lay Christians must be active
and influential, bringing their convictions about human dignity and human
rights to bear on all of society. That
was part of Don Bosco’s method, e.g., in his helping youths find employment and
monitoring them and their work environments, in setting up mutual aid
societies, and in sending his young men out to nurse and otherwise assist the
victims of the cholera epidemic that ravaged Turin in 1854 (protected by the
Virgin Mary and their own commitment to avoid sin).[9] The Christian layman and laywoman has the
apostolic mission of transforming culture and society. So we teach our kids to be attentive to the
poor, the afflicted, immigrants, people of different races, religions,
cultures, etc. We teach them responsible
use of social media and the mass media.
We teach the boys to respect the girls, and we teach the girls
modesty. We strive to raise them up as
responsible citizens of both our country and their heavenly homeland.
 |
| Pope John Paul in Turin, 1988 |
May
we all find in this great Salesian “old boy,” Pope Francis, something to
inspire us and help us be, not just better teachers, but better educators,
better evangelizers, better servants of the young.
Part II: What Jorge Bergoglio Learned
from the Salesians, will follow.
[1]
Raymond A. Schroth, SJ, “Teacher, Heal Thyself,” America, Jan. 18-25, 2016, p. 24.
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