By Fr. Cyrus Rowan
Chief Administrative Officer
Hastings Catholic Schools
One of the highlights of my week is my scheduled visit to St. Michael Elementary in Hastings. After having Mass with all the elementary students on Tuesdays, I will go visit the kindergarten class for about 10-15 minutes for each of the sections. This has been very fun and entertaining and it keeps me on my toes.
Usually, I will come into the kindergarten class with something in mind to talk about. But, sometimes it will just become a lot of questions asked about anything from Mass, Kansas City Chiefs football, or riding bikes—and a knee scrape related to it. However, sometimes the kindergarten students will say or ask something that is really profound, and that will guide the direction of the rest of the time spent in their classroom.
One day I came in to a classroom and one excited student wanted to show me the boat he made out of Legos during their class choice time. He was very excited about it, described every detail about the boat he made and then told me he wanted to grow up to be someone who builds ships or works on a boat – either in the Navy, as a fisherman, or actually being a pirate or something like that. Then he said to me that he would build the boat and that he wanted his friends to get in the boat and he wanted to have Jesus in his boat with him wherever he went.
This is where the conversation went with the rest of the classroom visit that day. We discussed being at a Catholic school, having the great opportunity to attend Mass at the beginning of the day, and to pray throughout the day with each other. We also discussed the importance of remembering that Jesus is always with us, no matter what.
There are accounts of Jesus getting into the apostles’ boats in the Gospels and the apostles getting into the boat with Jesus as well. In Luke chapter 5, Jesus gets into Peter’s boat to share his life and grace with him. He tells him to not be afraid and that from now on, he would be catching people. This scene and other boat accounts from the Gospel are about who you are with in your journey, and answering the call to trust and discipleship. Many times, it might be during a storm in life. Other times it could simply be with him to go to work, just as some of the apostles worked as fisherman.
Jesus wants to calm fears and also to just be with us throughout each day of our lives. It’s simply being with him and letting him guide us in our decision making, day to day tasks, and time in prayer. The scene from Luke 5:1-11 is about discipleship, encounter, and mission. Our mission as disciples begins with an encounter with the Lord, listening to his words through prayer, giving good example, and then going out to make other disciples, which is what our Catholic schools are to be about.
As a graduate of Sacred Heart in Falls City, teacher at Bishop Neumann in Wahoo, and now an administrator at Hastings Catholic Schools, it does take a lot of trust in Jesus to make our schools successful. Everything depends on him and he has given us a mandate to teach all nations and we cannot do it by ourselves. In order to do this, we have to let Jesus be with us in our classrooms, be with us in our decision making, discussions in the lunchroom, and when a student studies for some type of assessment. As adults, we can live the mandate of teaching all nations through parish participation, our family life, and through supporting our Catholic schools through prayer, giving of time, and through financial support.
It takes a lot of community members, volunteers, faculty, staff, and students to live out the mandate given by Jesus in supporting our schools to help pass our faith on to our students so that they may encounter Christ, grow in knowledge, and become Christian witnesses (Hastings Catholic Schools mission statement). It takes a lot of people to get into the boat with Jesus so that they may encounter him first and then go forward with him so that our schools be the best they can be in the time we live. And that begins by letting Jesus into our own boats—that is, our lives—and then realizing what he asks us then to do and then doing it.
