Spelling or Math

Tricks of the trade in order to survive Catholic schools

08/19/2022

MT 22:34-40 When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law, tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Boys and girls, as you begin a new school year I want to share some school survival strategies. Catholic schools can be hard, so here are some tricks of the trade to help you make it to May, 2023, the finish-line of this school year. The three survival strategies are: (1) beware of false friends, (2) sometimes losing is winning, and (3) everyone gets different gifts and talents.

First, beware of false friends. When you learn another language, like Spanish, or French or German, you come across some words in those languages look and sound like English words, so they seem “friendly”. But their meaning is very different from their English counterpart, and so they are “false friends”. For instance, what does the Spanish word “embarazada” sound like? You may think it means “embarrassed” in English, but it really means “pregnant”! That is a false friend.

What does the French word “preservatif” sound like? You would likely say a “preservative” like we put in food to make it last longer. But that French word actually means “contraceptive” (you’ll have to look up what that means). That is a false French friend. Or take the word “gift” in German. That is not a Christmas present, as you might think at first sight and sound. Instead, “gift” really means “poison” in German. Gift is another false friend, who looks like he might help you but only ends up hurting you.

So, too, in school you will find true and false friends. You will meet all kinds of people at school this year. And of course, you should be kind and loving to everyone, because that is what Jesus would do. But you cannot be best friends with everyone. So, choose your friends carefully. You do not have to be best friends with the first person you meet. And the best test of a “true friend” versus a “false friend” is someone who wants to help you get to heaven, so that you can be friends forever. Someone who just wants to cause trouble, or get you to try smoking or vaping, or drinking alcohol, is a “false friend”. They might look like a “gift” in German, but they really turn out to be poison for you.

The second trick of the trade to survive Catholic school is how sometimes losing really turns out to be winning. What does that mean? No one likes to fail a test, or lose a volleyball game, or come in fourth in cross country, or get fired from a job. But years later when we look back on those tough experiences, we can see we learned great lessons from them.

I will never forget my final exam in philosophy at the University of Dallas. In order to graduate, you had to take a comprehensive exam in front of three professors. They could ask you anything you had studied in all four years in school! I answered all the questions right, but I missed two of them. Do you know which questions I still remember today from that final exam in 1991? You got it: the two I got wrong. So, which questions taught me the most the ones I got correct or the two I missed?

That is how losing sometimes turns out to be winning: what I got wrong is what I remembered best. So, don’t worry if you fail a test, or lose a basketball game, or have trouble later in life. I am not saying it is a good thing to go ahead and fail! But our failures – which inevitably come our way – can teach us lessons we will never forget. That is how losing can turn out to be winning. Keep that in mind as you go through this coming year.

And the third survival strategy for Catholic school students is to remember that everyone gets different gifts. No one is born empty handed. You coming into this world with at least some gifts and talents. In school, you will discover that you are good at some subjects but you really struggle in other subjects. For instance, I was always really good at spelling but terrible in math. On the other hand, my brother, Paul, was great at math but terrible at spelling. Today, though, he is the senior vice president of a global home improvement company, and I am a priest. So, forget about spelling and pay attention in math class!

But this discovery of your gifts and talents is part of the adventure of a Catholic school. You may still be finding out what you are gifted in: maybe you are a great athlete. Perhaps God has given you a brain for technology. Others love history and social studies, and excel in those fields. Still others gravitate to science, and chemistry and love to blow things up in the laboratory!

The point is, each one of us must discover and develop our God-given talents to make this world a better place. That is why God gave you those gifts in the first place. In other words, you are here for a purpose: to build up the Kingdom of God. You are not an accident. And you are not a mistake. And you will discover the meaning of your life when you find your gifts. I am a priest because I can spell “priest” in Latin – "s-a-c-e-r-d-o-s" – and my brother can’t.

Let me summarize these survival strategies and invite you to keep them in mind for the coming year: (1) beware of false friends in languages and in life, (2) sometimes losing is winning, and our defeats end up as some of our greatest victories, and (3) everyone possesses gifts and talents, and your gifts and talents are the keys to the meaning of your life. Discover your talents, and you will know what will make you jump of bed every morning.

Praised be Jesus Christ!