This is National Catholic Schools Week, so I want to give a shout out to the students from our Faith Community who attend Catholic Schools.  Mary Campbell Kelly, Grace O’Hayer, Natalie Schroder, Mary Kelly Sheehan, and Bailey Smith attend St. Vincent’s Academy.  Maria and Nora Buelterman are students at St. Peter the Apostle.  And I’m hoping that Scarlett and Lilla Gillen will be heading off to Catholic Schools this August.  I grateful that their families see the value of Catholic education and are willing to make the sacrifices needed for them to attend Catholic Schools.
 
National Catholic Schools Week is an annual celebration of Catholic education in the United States.  The observance starts the last Sunday in January and runs all week, which in 2018 will be January 28 to February 3.  Catholic schools across America typically celebrate Catholic Schools Week with special Masses, Open Houses, and other fun activities for students, families, parishioners, and the community at large.  This celebration week was established in 1974 to recognize Catholic education as a great gift to the Church and the nation.  The theme for 2018, “Catholic Schools:  Communities of Faith, Knowledge, and Service", encompasses several concepts that are at the heart of a Catholic education.  Faith, knowledge, and service are three measures by which any Catholic school can and should be judged.  These priorities are what make Catholic schools stand out from other education institutions.
 
If Catholic Schools have a vulnerability, it is the rising costs of education.  It is hard for me to believe but 50 years ago when I entered LaSalle College High School my parents paid $550. so that I could attend a private Catholic High School.  In those days most of the cost for running our parish grade school and the local Diocesan High School which four of my siblings attended came out of the parish offertory.  Today, my brother, Dave, and his wife, Kimberly face a tuition bill of nearly $25,000 each to send their two sons to LaSalle.  It isn’t much, but I offer them some financial help in meeting that tuition bill.  And LaSalle has developed many family scholarships and a large endowment that helps many families send their sons to LaSalle who otherwise could not afford to do so.  If you’ve had some financial success in life and want to do more for Catholic Education, I’d encourage you to contribute to one of our local Catholic Schools.  As a former pastor of a Parish School I followed Msgr. Costigan’s lead in making sure that through stewardship, Catholic Education was open to all families who desired it regardless of their ability to pay.
 
I know education has changed greatly since I was a schoolboy.  The infrastructure of technology required to stay up-to-date is expensive and is a cost that was unheard of in past generations.  The sisters, brothers, priests and laity who provided large classrooms of children (I started in a class of 100 in the first grade with one young nun until we moved to the suburbs and a more affluent parish school with only 56 students in my class) with minimum-wage labor are now a distant memory.  And here on Tybee the demographics simply could not sustain a parish school with children only from the Island. I know many still grieve the closing of St. Michael School.  But I pray that Catholics throughout the Savannah Deanery will continue to be advocates for the remaining Catholic Schools.  Strong Catholic schools strengthen all other programs of evangelization, service, catechesis and sanctification. The entire church suffers when Catholic schools disappear.
   
We just finished the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and our neighbors, the Chapel by the Sea, celebrate the 70 ^th Anniversary of their founding.  We offer our congratulations to them on this happy milestone.  If you are friends with Pastor David or anyone who is a member of the Chapel do remember to “make a fuss” about this special moment in the life of their congregation. We pray that the next 70 years will bring our two faith communities closer together.  When we pray together and collaborate in proclaiming the Gospel and in the service of others, as Pope Francis has reminded us time and again, we move towards the heart of Jesus' prayer that "they all may be one."
 
 
 Fr. Jerry Ragan