By David G Bonagura, Jr., The Catholic Thing, Jan. 30, 2024
David G. Bonagura Jr. an adjunct professor at St. Joseph’s Seminary and is the 2023-2024 Cardinal Newman Society Fellow for Eucharistic Education. He is the author of Steadfast in Faith: Catholicism and the Challenges of Secularism and Staying with the Catholic Church, and the translator of Jerome’s Tears: Letters to Friends in Mourning.
The summum bonum of Catholic education can be expressed in two words: Jesus Christ. Every Catholic school, every subject, every extracurricular activity exists to form students’ minds and characters after the heart of Christ so that they may live in union with Him in this life and the next. Catholic school students, therefore, ought to be immersed in the Eucharist so they can see, taste, and be transformed by Christ, present yet hidden under the veils of bread and wine.
We can rightly call the Eucharist, then, the summit and source of Catholic education. It is the goal to which schools lead their students, and it provides the grace for administrators, teachers, and students to fulfill their vocations. The Catholic school’s mission includes developing students’ understanding and love of the Eucharist. At the same time, a school that places the Eucharist at the heart of its life stands fortified against constant pressures to conform to the world’s – and the government’s – demands. ….