Catholic Schools Week: A+ for America
By Marc Durney | St. John School | North Charleston
What is special about Catholic education? Well, if you ask me, receiving a Catholic education is a privilege and a blessing.
There are many reasons why attending Catholic school is an honor. We are able to pray together and talk about our faith. In a public school, that is not allowed. At St. John School, we pray in the morning, before and after lunch, and at the end of the day.
The “Peace Pledge” we recite unites us as a school community. We use special prayers like the Our Father and Hail Mary plus learn how to just “talk” to God. We learn to “listen” so we can hear God talking to us too! Praying often helps us keep God as our focus. It reminds us to be kind in everything we do and say.
Together, we attend Mass once a week, kindly celebrated by Father Fitzgerald from Divine Redeemer Parish. We all take turns participating by volunteering to do the readings, being gift bearers, and always being open to the homily with the intention of leaving Mass a stronger person.
Father enjoys asking us questions and although I must admit I was nervous at first, I am so proud that I am able to answer him. When we go to Church, we receive Jesus’ blessing and continue to learn about how He died on the cross and rose from the dead for our sins.
Another benefit of Catholic education is that we are free to learn about God and study His teachings. In our daily religion class, we discuss ways we can become closer to Him. We read Bible stories and we are taught the importance of the Ten Commandments and Eight Beatitudes. We learn to act like Jesus wants when we study subjects such as morality and forgiveness.
We are reminded that we are all special and have gifts and talents that we need to share with others. We also have opportunities to act like good Christians by helping people in need of food, money and clothes. For example, we participated in the “Pennies for Peace” Program to benefit Afghanistan, and sent money to help the people in Haiti. In addition, we are all assigned a prayer partner, the sick and shut-ins of our parish, and pray for them daily and send gifts during the holidays and/for special occasions.
Faith is not only taught and discussed in our religion class, it is a way of life in our school. The teachers are kind and caring and the students are nice to one another and very respectful. It is a comfortable place to be every day.
I am very happy that my parents made the choice to send me to a Catholic school. I know I am learning lessons that will last a lifetime. Catholic Education at St. John and across America is definitely a privilege and a blessing! It is outstanding, fantastic, excellent and truly miraculous!
A Catholic education can’t be beat!
There are so many nice people to meet.
We write, read, pray and good friends are made.
Catholic Education gets an A+ for a grade!