From the Pastor&#039;s Desk

Next week is Catholic Schools Week. And it's always a fun week for teachers, parents, and students of our wonderful Saint Martha School!

Looking back across long years, it's not hard to summon memories. Like so many Catholics of a certain generation, I was blessed by my parents' decision to give me a K-12 Catholic education. We learned our "three Rs" (four, really, if you count Religion) from amazingly dedicated teachers, most of whom were religious sisters truly living their vow of poverty. They laid the groundwork for a lifetime -- if we were willing to accept their lessons -- of virtuous living and earthly success. Blessed be those saintly women!

Of course, the real story of Catholic schools is not to be found in gauzy memories of bygone days. Though fewer in numbers, today's Catholic schools are strong in every important measure. Elementary schools like the one that you support, and high schools like Lansing Catholic, accomplish amazing things, despite limited resources. It's a familiar story in America that government levels of per-pupil funding have little predictive value as to outcomes. A Catholic school that is free to focus on the whole child -- spiritual, academic, physical, emotional, social -- is also free to give a child a powerful education grounded in love for each uniquely blessed child.

We never promote our own school or any Catholic school by disparaging the public schools. And certainly the public schools of this state have a long history of accomplishing the ends set forth in the Northwest Ordinance that organized this territory, and then restated in section 1 of article 8 of the current constitution of Michigan ("Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."). Still, we can say that, in the current culture and climate, those ends are not always paramount in our local schools.

Catholic schools, by contrast, are havens of free speech, where the Virtues can be named, where the Truth of Jesus Christ can be spoken, and where students can see the love of God expressed in the elegant beauty of Mathematics, the rigor of true Science, and the wonder of humanity's long struggle to attain the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

If you don't already know, then let me add that, here at Saint Martha, we are blessed with an incredible faculty all the way from pre-K through Grade 8. There just isn't a weak spot anywhere in the lineup.

Under the guidance of principal Andrea Patton, the children who come here truly live out the school motto that they recall when they gather each day in the church for Morning Prayer -- "Here at Saint Martha School, we are loved. With the gift of God's grace and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we develop our unique abilities and strive to reach our potential. We pray. We study. We serve. We love and are loved. All in the name of Christ. Amen."

If you have a child or a grandchild or a neighbor child for whom, in your love, you truly seek the very best, then come pay a visit. You'll be amazed!

Blessings!

frmike