The lives of the saints offer some of my favorite teaching material, and not just for Religion class. They also figure prominently in History, and we read their biographies in Literature. As my good friend and former colleague, Mary Pat Donoghue explains below, the saints are integral to Catholic education and should be studied across the curriculum. What follows are her words.
If it is true to its tradition and nature, Catholic education is marked by a natural integration across all disciplines. This is not a trendy approach but one that finds its roots in Him whom John’s Gospel calls the Logos—all things were created through Him; all things were created for Him; in Him all things cohere.
This integration demands that our approach to knowledge include a broad array of elements from a diverse set of sources. When we seek to form our children in their Catholic faith, we wish to immerse them in a fullness of tradition, encompassed by the Communion of Saints. There are a few reasons why this is so.
Historical Witness
The lives of the saints offer us a window into historical events and the time and culture in which they took place. One cannot fully understand, say, the split from the Catholic Church caused by King Henry VIII’s refusal to submit to Church doctrine without the brave example of St. Thomas More who went to his death “The King’s good servant, but God’s first.”
In the New World, the lives and experiences of St. Juan Diego in Mexico and St. Kateri Tekakwitha in the Canadian wilderness shed light on the brutal conditions at the time and the courageous witness of those whose faith pointed to a deeper reality.
Guiding Lights
Children understand this better as they are instinctively drawn to people, characters, and figures that populate their favorite worlds. Kids don’t just love baseball; they have favorite players whose stats they memorize and whose cards they collect. Their love will transcend time, including today’s stars like Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, and Miguel Cabrera, but also the legends like Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, and Mickey Mantle.
Unlike baseball legends whose talents most of us will never match, the saints reveal a path through this world to the next—a way that we call “holiness.” As there are myriad saints, there are myriad ways to sojourn through this world.
Cultivators of the Moral Imagination
It’s important to encourage children to become friends with the saints. Perhaps their imagination will be captured by St. Sebastian’s brave martyrdom, St. Clare’s radical flight from a life of comfort to holy poverty, or the simple faith of St. Bernadette Soubirous. Some will find comfort in the mental struggles of St. Benedict Labre and the physical weakness that marked the life of St. Therese of Lisieux.
The lives of the saints—including their failures and successes—can be a critical component in forming the moral imagination of our children. This, in turn, is a critical step in forming our children for lives structured around moral and ethical principles.
The lives of the saints are part of the treasure box that is the Catholic tradition. We must share these treasures with our students, not just because they are innately good, but because they are the birthright of our children.
Mary Pat Donoghue currently serves as the Executive Director of the Secretariat of Catholic Education at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Previously, Mary Pat was the Director of School Programs for the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, where she traveled the country consulting with schools, parishes, and dioceses on deepening the Catholic tradition in their programs. Her years in Catholic education began at St. Jerome Academy in Hyattsville, MD, where she served as teacher, vice principal, and then principal, leading the school from near-closure to stability and growth through the implementation of Catholic liberal arts curriculum.