Bringing hope to schools

Mother Teresa’s canonization led me to return to a paper I delivered recently at a convention of the Catholic Educators Association of the Philippines (CEAP) National Capital Region. (I immediately accepted the CEAP invitation because I liked the theme of its convention: “Creating a Culture of Mercy.”)

My schedule has been so packed that I have yet to edit my paper and send it back to the CEAP, but I thought I could do a partial rework and share part of it with a wider audience, with additional thoughts that came about with Mother Teresa’s canonization.

Let me start off with the last part of my speech, which consists of suggestions for the CEAP and higher educational institutions, and then return to the start, where I reflected on why mercy and compassion must become part of the agenda of educational institutions, whether Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, or secular.

Restorative justice

First, we need to review many of our rules and policies, and the way we implement them. Are we giving too much emphasis on the letter, rather than the spirit, of these rules? Pope Francis once quoted a principle from Roman law: Salus populi suprema lex, the wellbeing of the people is the highest law. That is sound advice.

At the University of the Philippines Diliman, we have revised our Student Code to emphasize restorative justice and alternative dispute resolutions. We talk with the parties concerned, finding ways to make amends and to restore justice. Community service is now used as part of restorative justice for certain offenses.

We have to ask if we are unduly harsh in our sanctions that use a mainly punitive approach. Do we recognize how we practically destroy a young woman’s life by expelling her because of a premarital pregnancy? Many schools, including government institutions, will not accept a student who has been expelled from another.

Second, and I quote again from Amoris Laetitia: “We need to find the right language, arguments and forms of witness that can help us reach the hearts of young people, appealing to their capacity for generosity, commitment, love, and even heroism…”

Words are important. Have students reflect on the meanings of mercy and compassion. When I was looking for the opposite of mercy, I was at a loss and settled for meanness, which turned out to be difficult to translate into Filipino. The dictionaries provide words that come closer to stinginess, which, when you think about it, makes sense.  A person without compassion or mercy is stingy and, by extension, mean.

Be careful with our words.  I hear Catholic educators and counselors using the word “broken families” too quickly, often deepening the hurt felt by the children. So many Filipino families do live with the burden of separation, of parents who are working overseas, and, yes, of parents who break up. But instead of emphasizing the “brokenness,” even barring children of separated couples from admission, we should open our doors, and our hearts, to the children.

We support these children, too, by reminding them of their overseas-worker parents’ own compassion and sacrifice, and, for children of separated parents, the times when one (or sometimes both) do find ways to continue to give quality time.

Remind them also of the sacrifices of those who help fill the void: grandparents, uncles and aunts, even an elder sibling.

Third, enliven education with Christianity. Discuss the encyclicals and pastoral letters and relate these to people’s lives.  Amoris Laetitia observes: “The Bible is full of families, births, love stories and family crises.”  Animate people’s lives with those stories.  Relate the global refugee crisis to Christ’s being a refugee even before being born, as told in the story of Mary and Joseph looking for a place to stay as she was about to deliver her child. Remind students that Christ was a victim of capital punishment as we campaign against the restoration of the death penalty.

Fourth, confront justice issues. I would like to propose that the CEAP (and UP) adopt new metrics on equity when we talk about academic excellence. How much are we doing to encourage more democratic access, bending the admission rules for students of public schools?  Once admitted, do the poorer students get support, such as tutoring, and allowances for day-to-day expenses (together with financial literacy)? I cannot think of an educational institution claiming excellence when it continues to deprive the poor of schooling opportunities.

I recently had to deal with a student who was about to graduate, summa cum laude, but whose official high school transcripts had been withheld by his school, a Catholic institution, because his parents still owed it money. I found a way to pay the high school, but wondered if it could not have waived or reduced the debt, as a way of expressing pride in its former student.

Fifth, walk the talk. Kilos, hindi salita.  Be a witness, live out compassion in all we do.  When I asked one of our UP barangay captains how we could improve students’ service to their community through the NSTP (National Service Training Program), she quickly replied: “Tell them to smile more.”

We can talk our heads off about compassion and yet forget about the basics, about graciousness, and about taking an extra step when reviewing appeals from students or their parents. The Filipino “Hahanap tayo ng paraan” (We will find a way) captures the crucial message.

Out of the dark night

St. Mother Teresa reminds us that mercy is not about doing good to feel good. Her biography, “Mother Teresa: Come be my Light,” published in 2007, reveals how, for years, she suffered from a “long dark night,” feeling desolate and abandoned. The book consists of letters collected and edited by Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, and one passage says it all:

“Darkness is such that I really do not see—neither with my mind nor with my reason—the place of God in my soul is blank. There is no God in me—when the pain of longing is so great—I just long and long for God.”

Psychologists looking at the letters might even suspect that she suffered from deep depression. But instead of staying in the dark, Mother Teresa turned outward to serving the poorest of the poor, and in doing so, transformed the lives of many.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, one of Pope Francis’ advisers and the author of “Mercy,” argues that the Catholic Church has “criminally neglected” mercy by emphasizing inflexibility in dogma and rules, forgetting that Christianity is built on sacrifice and mercy. Without mercy, there can be no hope, as we see all too painfully today in the killings around us.

The challenges for our educational institutions today are made the more difficult by a world so besieged with problems… and hopelessness. By living out compassion in our schools, we just might reduce the despair that so threatens the next generation.

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