Traveling to Rome with my smartphone & faith

In a few short days I will begin my exciting pilgrimage to Rome to participate in the Vatican’s  World Education Congress to discuss some of the more critical concerns in Catholic education. As part of these discussions, the Congregation aims to re-energize the Church’s commitment to education, by means of this World Congress.

The goals of the Congress are as follows:

• To offer schools and universities a place where they can dialogue and debate about the challenges that the “educational emergency” unavoidably provokes for our societies, educational systems and the Church;

• In light of ethical and religious principles, to draft a written analysis of the above-mentioned challenges and their repercussions for every field of education. 

• In light of the Magisterium, to examine in greater depth the ideas that education is proposing and developing about humanity and society;

• To formulate useful suggestions and guidelines;

• To draft a message that is meaningful, descriptive and challenging.

The Vatican has informed us that Pope Francis will be in attendance on the last day of the Congress and will offer his own words on education.
As I prepare for this journey there are a million thoughts and emotions that are running through my head and my heart. As a life-long (cradle Catholic) this is an adventure of a life-time! One that brings me great joy and one that I hope in many ways makes my family proud. 

I've struggle for weeks to try to articulate what this journey means to me and honestly, I've fallen short in finding the words. I'm hopeful that long airplane rides and time spent inside the walls of the Vatican will provide me words at a later time.

So instead, I'll use this blog as I often do, to share my thoughts in hopes that someone will read them....

With Open House recently concluding I remain so proud of all of our faculty, staff and students. The outpouring of emails, text messages, and tweets about our school and the character of our young men has been the prevailing theme this week! It has made me reflect more on our school community, the Vianney family, and what a gift Catholic education is for all of us!

I can't help but think of how fortunate our current, past and present students are to have been blessed with a tremendous gift: the gift of faith through Catholic education. But like any gift, it must be cared for and tended to.

I pray our students don’t put it on a shelf and treat it like an antique; something to be admired and appreciated but never used. My hope is that they don’t treat it like an old favorite toy; outgrown, forgotten and neglected in the bottom of the toy box. Hopefully they will treat this gift like most people treat their smartphones. 

You may have noticed most people take every spare moment to check out their smartphone(I know I do). They take it with them everywhere. When they need an answer to a question they look it up on their phone. When they need encouragement from their friend, they call or text on their phone. It is their constant source of comfort and assurance that they are connected to others and can access help.

Our faith should be like that too. We should take it with us everywhere. When we have a question about what to do with our life, we should turn to our faith and the Church. When we need comfort or assurance, we should turn to prayer. Our faith and trust in Jesus should be our constant source of comfort and connectedness.

As we all know too well, our smartphones will get outdated and we will have to replace it. 

We never have to replace our faith. Our faith comes with free upgrades (sacraments) and free weekly updates (Sunday Mass). Yes, we are committed to a lifetime contract, but there is no iPhone that continues service after you die.

If people (including myself--specifically myself) spent as much time in prayer as we do on our smartphone, imagine how much it could change the way we live and change the world!

Remember this each time you reach into your pocket and pull out your phone.

So as I head to Rome I will take my smartphone and my faith and hope that my connectedness is strong during my travels.