Schools blend learning with spirit

Posted January 23, 2003

Dear Friends in Christ,

Some years ago, our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, wrote an encyclical or universal pastoral letter to all the churches on the Holy Spirit. At the time, many commentators observed that the letter was very difficult and required very patient reading. At the same time, commentators also praised the Holy Father's identification of the Holy Spirit as "person-gift" and "person-love."

Such an analysis revealed the church's conviction that with a deeper understanding of the Holy Spirit, there comes a much deeper awareness of the reality of the concept of "person" in God. Though only divine Revelation can make this known to us, the effects of this understanding on the appreciation of the human person are enormous.

In our day, the various "appreciations" of the human person give us occasion for further reflection and not a little anxiety. Under the guise of a "scientific" explanation of human behavior or motivation, some people make incredible utilitarian and materialist arguments about the human person.

Though none of us would deny that there are material, genetic, and biological dimensions to us all, such analysis does not fully explain or cover an understanding of the human person. "We" are more than that. In our Catholic faith, a further dimension has always been stated as a principle of our constitution.

The term, "soul," has been utilized to express a transcendent dimension of the human person, a dimension that involves mindfulness, intellect and freedom. The many current denials of this dimension among some thinkers is one of the hallmarks of the cultural battle in this as in other countries. For if there is a dimension of soul, then there is an element of providence, of divinity, that permeates who we are.

I raise this issue as a long introduction to a word of praise and congratulations to our Catholic schools. Each year, in late January and early February, we set aside a week in our church to celebrate our Catholic Schools, to express our thanks to the students, parents, administrators, teachers, staff and friends of these superb institutions of faith and learning.

There is such generosity, self-sacrifice and enthusiasm that saturate our schools and their learning environment. Through these schools, we, as a Catholic community, have the joy and responsibility to impart the principles and practice of our Catholic faith in a place where the human person is primary. The human achievements of learning, thinking, judging and acting are blended with our Catholic sense of the Holy Spirit and of the inestimable worth and dignity of each human person.

It cannot be emphasized enough how important the notion of "divine person" is for a complete understanding of the "human person." Our Catholic schools can continually proclaim such a right understanding through the teaching of our faith, through prayer, especially prayer that begs continually for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our teachers and students, and through action and consistent behavior that sees each human being as made "in the image and likeness of God, the Creator," as "redeemed by Christ," and as "a TEMPLE of the Holy Spirit."

If the Holy Spirit is divine "person-gift," as the Holy Father has written, then each human person is, as a creature, an image of such "gift." Every human person is a gift! To believe that in our faith is to act on this in terms of behavior and analysis. Nothing less will do.

It is my deepest hope that the Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Sioux City will make the connection of the Holy Spirit as person and our understanding of the human person as a temple of the Holy Spirit extremely clear and vivid in the minds and hearts of all our students.

During Catholic Schools Week, there will be countless activities throughout our diocese that will display the good work these institutions do. As we participate in them, let us be mindful of the human persons whose beauty and worth are displayed through these activities. Let us never forget how loved we are by God and how precious human life and the human person are. God bless all those who make our schools possible!

With every best wish, I am

Sincerely yours in Christ,

†Most Rev. Daniel N. DiNardo
Bishop of the Diocese of Sioux City