South Bend, Ind., Aug 15, 2010 / 11:04 am
A vocation to work in Catholic education is “a noble mission, a holy mission,” Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades told more than 300 participants and staff in Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) during a grotto prayer gathering at the University of Notre Dame on the evening of Thursday, July 22.
Participants in the ACE formation programs for teachers and principals, preparing to fan out to serve in Catholic schools around the country, assembled for two traditional culmination ceremonies, along with parents and various members of Notre Dame’s growing ACE community.
The grotto service was followed the next morning by a missioning Mass celebrated in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart by Bishop Thomas J. Curry, auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles and a leader in Catholic elementary and secondary schooling.
Bishop Curry, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Catholic Education, addressed those awaiting the challenges and rewards of working in hardpressed schools. They are “beacons of hope,” he told them, “because you are beacons of faith and beacons of learning.”