CATHOLIC EDUCATION

Conversion in a Small School


by Colleen Mary Saka

It was a cool August morning when I walked through the doors of a school which was not unfamiliar to me. Although the hallways appeared more inviting with a fresh coat of paint, I could not help but feel I was returning home. Not quite ten years had passed, despite it feeling like yesterday, when I was the one carrying my blue backpack, rushing down the hallway to Homeroom 133.

    Looking back on that day, in spite of feeling a certain sense of comfort and familiarity, I wondered whether or not I had made the right decision in coming back to my old school to teach. I had just left another parish where I was very happy, but somehow I could not deny the feeling that this is where I was meant to be—at least for the time being. Everything was falling into place, and being my usual self, I immediately waited for the ceiling to cave in. I kept waiting, impatiently, as I surveyed the faces and listened to helpful words of encouragement and much needed advice, yet despite the warm smiles I was still not at ease, until a bubbly woman turned to briefly say that the Eucharist would be present in our chapel everyday. It was then that I felt like Someone was saying, “There you go Thomas...there is your sign—go rush into see.”
    By the second day, I was much calmer, and by the time formal introductions were made I realized, “Yes, this is the place for me.” One of my former teachers introduced me to my new colleagues, and she caught me off guard by announcing to all, that I would be the one who would teach the students, most of whom were Protestant, about Mary. When later recognizing the immenseness of my task, I was rather impressed, because when I first interviewed with the school I was quite concerned about whether or not the religion classes were taught according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church; however, Sr. Joan, our principal, assured me this is the philosophy at Bishop Borgess High School and Academy.
    As the new students were introduced and the school year progressed, I found myself slowly abandoning all my original plans. How could I have thought that I could create lessons without first discovering the students’ degree of spirituality? I was so intent on covering the material in the books that I forgot the purpose of my job. Yes, I am supposed to plant the seed; however, how could I possibly do this by simply reading, lecturing, and testing; after all, were not these religion classes? So out went the impressive lesson plans and in came the basics, and all the while, the premise had to be prayer.
    I started with a group of 22 freshman students enrolled in my Faith class and I challenged them to define the name of their course. Much of the response was faith meant, “having or belonging to a particular religion, which included going to church and believing in God.” Surprisingly, only a few mentioned anything at all about prayer, and here I was about to embark upon a semester of study where we were going to learn about faith.
    The response to this finding prompted each individual in the classroom to question how much time do we spend with God in prayer, and is it sufficient in order to develop a relationship with Him? We soon discovered that a relationship with God is not unlike any other relationship in that to get the most out of it, we need to sincerely and lovingly put much into it. And yet, at the same time it offers us much more because although God may not always approve all of our words, thoughts, or deeds; He never abandons us, despite our abandoning Him.
    So, upon recognizing this, we began to examine our basic Catholic prayers to try and understand what we were really asking of God. It may seem rather elementary; however, many people, including myself, often recite our prayers without ever giving a thought as to what is actually being said. When we began to gain an understanding for what was being asked, it was then that the students started to question where these prayers had come. And, as the students learned more and more I often asked them, “Now how it is that I am supposed to pray?” and the response would be shouts from every direction, “Pray with all your heart!”
    While reading this may lead one to believe or assume this was an easy task, on the contrary, along the way there were many moments of tension. Imagine, if you will, trying to explain why Catholics pray the Hail Mary to a group of young adults who, for the most part, have been taught by people whom they admire or love—that to pray to Mary is considered very wrong. Understandably, I had to anticipate this would be a major point of contention, and by this time we were drawing closer to the month of October—the month of the Holy Rosary.
    I was hoping to have the students prepared with a full understanding of prayer, the Blessed Mother, and ultimately the Rosary; however, things did not look very good and I was not explaining the purpose for praying the Rosary well at all. I remember standing in class being asked, for what seemed to be the one millionth time, why the Rosary should be recited, when Clyde, my thirteen year old student requested my permission to answer his peer’s question. Feeling rather ineffective, I encouraged him to try, because I was tired of my many futile attempts. Much to my amazement, he very matter-of-factly stated, “We pray the Rosary so we can help Mary defeat sin and Satan so that Jesus can come again.” I was stunned, reflecting on a conversation where he stated that he had not been baptized and was not a regular churchgoer; and here, I was beginning to feel exasperated, thinking to teach this was an ideal not a reality and undoubtedly nothing short of a miracle would do. Well, the Holy Spirit delivered once again, just in time and of course in retrospect, very much on time.
    It was not long after this “spiritual breakthrough,” that I eventually turned to St. Louis De Montfort’s, The Secret of the Rosary. The more I read the book the more fascinated I became; then I decided, in an effort to further encourage an understanding for and interest in recitation of the Rosary, perhaps I could share some of De Montfort’s stories, revealing its many fruits to the students. Not surprisingly, they embraced the narratives and later, very poignantly even related these accounts by informing a guest speaker that when one prays a Hail Mary with all of one’s heart what one does in essence is present the Blessed Mother with a beautiful rose. Needless to say I was beginning to recognize one of many small miracles taking place.
    By the time the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary had arrived, the students were feeling more comfortable with the Blessed Mother and her Rosary. I was relieved because although I initially had hoped to start a cenacle prayer group after school, I was now thankful that we had even achieved this feat. Yet, as the day passed and the student body made it through Mass with good behavior, I wondered whether the Mass had any impact upon them; and then came another small miracle. The following day we were fortunate to have a Dominican priest, from St. Dominic’s Parish no less, come to celebrate Mass. Later we discussed Fr. Willoughby’s homily regarding the importance of the Holy Rosary. Much to my surprise, though I was anticipating the students to comment on Father’s explanation of prayer and the Rosary via his sport’s analogy, instead they expressed how moved they were by his short story of a dying man who had lost his mother when he was a child. He had admitted to be not very religious, yet could not stop recalling his only memory of his mother, which was her praying her Rosary. It was then I noticed the students were responding with what seemed to be the first genuine interest in the Rosary and a somewhat mystifying reaction to the power of prayer.
    Upon witnessing this change of heart, I suddenly felt as if Someone else was speaking through me because I spontaneously invited all those interested in learning how to pray the Rosary to join an after-school, three o’clock prayer group the remainder of October, the month of the Rosary. And almost immediately after it came out, I found myself wishing I had never opened my mouth—no one raised a hand. Thoroughly disappointed, I quickly said, “It’s okay perhaps you want to think it over or see how you could possibly fit it into your schedule...just let me know.”
    A few days passed and not a soul jumped at the chance to come to an after-school prayer group. Whom was I kidding? They were probably praying all day for a snow storm to hit or a blackout to occur so they could get out of school early, and here I thought they might want to stay late and pray. But, as the end of the week drew near, I decided to try the invitation again. I even handed out rosaries, over 150, and still some were turned away, for I had no more to give. They all promised to come to prayer group, but not one showed up. I threw my hands in the air and fell into my chair and whispered to the Lord, “I ‘m sorry, but I did try.”
    I think the good Lord was testing my faith all along, because later that day three students came up to me wanting to pray, and asking when and where would we meet. I was so overjoyed that I did not even care that there were only three—one girl, Paneka, and two boys, George and Donald, and of the three, only one was Catholic. Although George and Donald were on the cross country team and had to go late to practice, they devoutly made it to every prayer meeting. So, the four of us prayed the Rosary and the chaplet of Divine Mercy, and sometimes we would get an additional person or two, as we knelt in our little chapel before the Blessed Sacrament.
    As October came to a close, the students chose to keep up the prayer group, but found time to be a conflict. At the same time, I had more and more students who were wanting to pray but could not make arrangements for transportation for later in the evening, so we voted with one freshman class, who decided by majority rule, to go to chapel at least one day a week for adoration and prayer. Three students turned into twenty-two, and now we have a little over seventy, out of just under 300 students in the school who have asked to learn how to pray. They hear from each other, seeing peers carrying and wearing their rosaries, and finding them in the chapel during the school day and even sometimes after school—this is what has been causing an increase in participation.
    Since January of this year, my ninth graders have been offering up spiritual bouquets for God. They keep a daily log entering in: fasts from favorite foods, offerings of service, attempts to avoid particular sins, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, and recitation of the Rosary—all for Our Lady’s intentions, the pope, the bishops, the priests, and for the preservation of life.
    Recently, we had decided to write Pope John Paul II to send our prayers directly to him. This is the letter which we have sent:

Dear Holy Father:
    Greetings from Redford, Michigan! We are writing you from Bishop Borgess, a small Catholic high school and academy within the Detroit Metropolitan area. Our school serves to educate young adults from the ages 11-18 years. For the most part we are 98% Protestant by creed and 99% African American by race.
    Before this year, many were unaware of your role as the head of the Catholic Church and very confused about why the Blessed Mother is revered as a model of perfection. There also have been many questions raised as to why the year 2000 is referred to as, “Jubilee 2000, A year of favor from our Lord.”
    Since the beginning of the 1997-1998 school year, we have been working very hard to gain a greater understanding for these rather commonly asked questions, and what seems to be, a myriad of others regarding the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Despite the Catechism becoming an integral component for obtaining answers, we knew we also had to focus our attention on what it really means to pray and develop a relationship with God.
    Therefore, in an attempt to answer many of our questions and gain a deeper understanding of prayer, we decided to begin our quest by examining the basic Catholic prayers. We soon learned whence the prayers had come and why they were inspired-thus leaving us with the knowledge of how important each word is to the prayer we are offering. “Prayer with the heart,” needless to say, has now become a necessity in our classroom.
    Since uncovering the power of prayer, we have come to an understanding with regards to many of our questions pertaining to the Catholic faith. We have learned the importance of the Holy Rosary, the role of our Blessed Mother, the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Confession. We also acknowledge this year being the year of the Holy Spirit and why it is necessary to call upon the Holy Spirit to touch our lives in preparation for the new millennium.
    In addition to learning all of these significant things about the Catholic faith, we have come to an understanding of your role as the successor of St. Peter. We also acknowledge what an immense cross you must carry in teaching and safeguarding the laws and practices of Jesus’ bride. Therefore, we would like to offer you our prayers and some words of support during this time of preparation for the Jubilee 2000, to which you are guiding the Church. We would also like to say that we are so very happy to have such a wonderful pope during this special period of time! In fact we now have over seventy students, in our school of just under three hundred, who have asked to learn how to say the rosary and are praying on their knees in front of the Blessed Sacrament for you, the bishops, and priests out of obedience to Our Lady’s request!
    We hold a cenacle virtually every day of the week during school reciting the Holy Rosary, the Angelus, our Daily Offering, the prayer to St. Michael, and sometimes saying the chaplet of Divine Mercy while incorporating the Way of the Cross, or reading a story from St. Louis De Montfort’s, The Secret of the Rosary. We hope all of these prayers will help you! We have also included our Spiritual Bouquets for God.
    Holy Father, could you please pray for our little school? We are trying to do the best we can.

Jesus’ Peace,

Your Friends at Bishop Borgess High School and Academy

    Writing to the Pope has peaked a renewed interest in not only the Rosary, but an overall interest in prayer! In fact, a couple of days had passed when I announced to several of my tenth grade classes that my ninth graders and myself had decided to write to the Pope. I was attempting to spark a concern for prayer in them as well, when JaVaughn, directly and rather vehemently asked, “Miss Saka, I don’t believe in prayer, God doesn’t ever answer mine because I’ve been praying for a very long time and I haven’t gotten an answer yet.” He was not even finished before my mind immediately retreated to a story Bishop Fulton Sheen once told about a young girl who prayed for a thousand dolls for Christmas. On Christmas morning her father jeeringly asked, “You see God didn’t answer your prayer now, did He?” and the little girl quickly replied, “Oh yes He did, God said no!”
    Without hesitating I relayed this story to the class explaining how we might ask God for something now; however, as we grow our needs and desires change and over time we will slowly realize why God said no, and begin to thank Him for denying us what we could not possibly see. Unfortunately for me, they were not accepting this reasoning very well, so I scrambled to find the right words to say; something that would appease them, at least to get me off the hook from not really knowing how to explain God’s time.
    It was then that I suddenly decided to share the frustration from the past sleepless night of which I had been trying to understand. The previous night I found myself hopelessly trying to sleep when the phrase, “the power of prayer,” deprived me from some much needed rest. After fighting the thought countless times, I finally gave in, then reaching for my notebook and pen. I sat there scribbling down many disjointed ideas and twice I even turned out the lights. I was giving up, or so I thought, when looking at the clock I decided I was determined to finish. I asked the Holy Spirit in a quick prayer, “Please help me finish and provide me with the energy to get through the next day—Tuesday, still the beginning of the week.” It was two hours later, I think record time, and including two words which I did not really know what they meant. It was finished and I was rather pleased, yet I was still left pondering why I felt so compelled to write, when it would be only hours later that I would recognize the intervention of the Divine.
    As I concluded my story of what happened the night before, I could not help but feel I had been inspired to write this piece to share with my students. When the following poem was read, it was rather amazing to me, they were moved by the content and were beginning to understand the difficult concept of God’s time and the power of prayer.

The Power of Prayer

Forced down on my knees by someone greater than me,
Yet, I continued to rage until the pain became too much
to let be.

Forced to recognize there was no where to go,
But to the only one who ultimately knows.

Forced to see why conversion is needed,
Despite the actions of mistakes continuously repeated.
Forced to acknowledge the reality of the sublime-
The truest love-who carries the weak time after time.

Forced to accept the Divine invitation,
When showered with love-
Then running to embrace without hesitation.

...For sanity lies in recognizing Him,
And courageously giving way to much needed discipline.

And so, the secret of the deepest self, can only be revealed by the Divine’s help.

And this is when the eyes are opened, the heroes change, the talents grow;
And the emptiness is found to be eventually retreating...

...For this is when we begin to share,
How we know we have succumbed to the power of prayer.

—cms
3/3/98

    If someone would have asked me where do I see my classes in four or six months or more, I would never have guessed where we are today. And speaking rather candidly I must admit within the first three months I was exhausted and questioned God many times whether this was really where I was supposed to be. More days than not had passed while wondered if I was failing at teaching because this was the good Lord trying to tell me, “Hey, Colleen this is not your cup of tea...”
    In retrospect it seems rather clear, the dear Lord was not only trying to teach these students, He was also attempting to guide, teach, and ultimately test me. I failed in the beginning, just like I am still failing now, and how I will continue as long as I choose to follow Him; failing, not because He fails, but because it allows me to recognize the necessity for the virtues of faith, hope, patience, love, and humility, as well as the constant need for Him through prayer. Although I am not close to having successfully embraced these virtues, I am trying to realize what I should have recognized long ago, but as time goes on and serendipitous meetings persist, there are many more souls I must remain open to meet, and as I move from one to another I must learn to expect the unexpected if I truly desire to see.
    Our school is far from perfect, as God only knows—we have our share of problems, but one by one we are trying to allow the Holy Spirit to work in our little school, one moment, one hour, one day, and one soul at a time.

Colleen Mary Saka, 27, of Detroit, Michigan, is currently a Religion teacher at Bishop Borgess High School and Academy.

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(© Copyright 1998, As translated into HTML for Catholic Information Center on Internet by Jill Gooler 9/19/98)