Wedding Photos
Congratulations Brett and Kiera!!!
Brett Cuddy, our music teacher, and Kiera Cuddy (née Fitzpatrick), our art teacher, were married last weekend at St. Agatha and St. James parish. Wow! Hallelujah!
A week or two ago, just doing some chores at school, a foundation was asking for a routine report, and they wanted to know "how does your school measure success." I think you're supposed to talk about SAT scores, where kids go to college, what kind of jobs they get.
Nothing necessarily wrong with that. That stuff matters. Hard work can open doors in life. There's a reason we invest in having a college counsellor.
But here's the better answer, the real answer: our school will be successful if we raise up young men and women who discern their vocations. Our school will be successful if our graduates are the kind of people who can hear God's voice calling them deeper into the mystery of it all. And if our graduates discern for marriage and family life, we want them to be the kind of people who are capable of having a wedding like Brett and Kiera.
A wedding like that is only one day, but it is years in the making.
To have that kind of wedding, your heart has been prepared to love by a thousand small lessons. You have become the kind of person who longs not only for a lover but also a prayer partner. To plan such a beautiful liturgy, your ear and eye have been educated by the whole patrimony of western civilization. To gather your friends and family at such a beautiful Mass implies that you treasure the sacramental life. To have a wedding like that, you are wealthy in a thousand internal invisible ways, ready for a life of fidelity and the rewards of sacrifice. You have character, and you have skills. All of that is worth a feast!
How does Martin Saints measure successful outcomes? If we have graduates who can do what Brett and Kiera just did.
At yesterday's Humanities department meeting, our chair, Miss Casey O'Donnell, asked us to discuss "what makes an education Catholic." Our collective answer: mystagogy. A Catholic education helps students inhabit the mystery and gift of life. Language and literature grow our understanding and powers of expression, heightening our insight into how the heart works and how each moment is pregnant with meaning. History unfolds the story of who we are and how we got here. Philosophy and math hone the mind and trace creation's order. Science teaches us what creation is and how it works, and theology asks about the purpose of it all. And so on, for every class.
Every single aspect of the curriculum cultivates "the soil of the heart," turning over different aspects of existence. When you take a moment to trace each branch of academia to its root, learning is ultimately about cultivating wisdom and wonder, honesty and humility, gratitude and praise, love and the capacity to sacrifice. It all integrates when we bring our whole selves to Mass. Each part of school life, either implicitly or explicitly, is about helping us become the kind of people who can pray the liturgy honestly and well.
Miss O'Donnell, who led us in this conversation, is herself getting married next week. That's right, our teachers and families, our student choir and altar servers, are going to get together and do it again. The whole Martin Saints community is warmly invited to their nuptial Mass on Saturday, November 22, 1pm, at Sacred Heart Church in nearby Bridgeport.
May God bless our teachers and thank you for inviting us! Thank you for sharing your unfolding lives with us. Like the camping trip, craftmanship classes, daily worship at school, Frassati Fridays, or just an "ordinary" regular class, these weddings have become part of the school curriculum. They teach us what it means to be fully alive in Jesus Christ. Amen to all of it!
