Keep learning the ‘core curriculum’: Go to Mass

I had the privilege of attending the Baccalaureate Mass and graduation celebrations for the five diocesan Catholic high schools during the first week of June. It is fitting that our graduates, before the commencement exercises, participate in Mass, for within it, we celebrate the Eucharist – the source and summit of the Catholic faith that has been the foundation of their high school years.

Put into educational terms, the Mass is the “core curriculum” of our faith. As an educational tool, a core curriculum is made up of courses a school considers an essential foundation for the rest of a student’s learning. They are varied content ensuring a student has a well-rounded education and foundation for life.

Likewise, a tour of the Mass highlights just how critical it is as the “core curriculum” for our lives as Catholics. We enter the Church, answering Jesus’s instruction to come to Him, to follow Him and to rely on one another in community. We recognize our humanity and ask for God’s mercy in the penitential rite. We recognize God’s place as the center of our world in the “Gloria.” We hear the story of how God created us in love and called humankind into relationship with Him throughout salvation history in the first and second readings and the psalm. Then, we learn directly from Jesus through His words and actions in the Gospel. We reflect on those words through the homily and present our concerns to God through the petitions, or intercessions.

After presenting our requests to God, we present him with the work of our hands, represented by the bread and wine and our gifts at the offertory. Those gifts become the Body and Blood of Jesus, and we receive Him – accepting His invitation to allow Him to literally become a part of us so that we can more fully answer His call to act with justice and love in the world. After this Communion, we are sent forth into the world to continue to grow and live in faith.

Each of us has a unique path, and the Beatitudes and corporal and spiritual works of mercy provide a useful roadmap. In order to know the specific journey that God wants each of us to travel, we need fuel, so to speak, which the Mass provides. God is with us and blesses our efforts to follow Him always, but the Mass is the most foundational – and in a word, the best – avenue we have for growing closer to God and knowing and doing God’s will, through direct relationship with Jesus.

Of course, just like any other “core curriculum,” it doesn’t always feel that way. Sometimes we are tired or distracted at Mass. Sometimes we don’t care for the song selections or style. Sometimes the lights are dim. But isn’t it like that in school, too? Some lessons resonate more than others, some content is more exciting. For the core curriculum, we don’t pick and choose. We keep coming back – we participate – because, as a whole, it provides the foundation for everything else.

I do not have a “speaking role” at high school graduations, but if I could offer one bit of advice to the graduates, it would be this: Keep learning the “core curriculum.” Go to Mass. It will empower you to face the new opportunities and challenges you face as high school graduates, and it will open your heart and your mind to the good that God wants you to do in the world. Your Catholic school education has given you ample opportunities to grow closer to God through the Mass. Now it is up to you to choose to continue to participate in the core curriculum so that you are prepared to answer God’s call to the amazing life He has prepared for you, through whichever “courses” are in store. 

Dr. Bill Watson is superintendent of Catholic schools for the Diocese of Camden.