Sacramental and Gospel imagination in spiritual leaders in school

The culture in which we live, according to Michael Paul Gallagher, suffers from a wounded memory and imagination.  The pace of change, the rate of exchange of increasing quantities of information seems like a carousel ride that has speeded up so that everything else becomes blurred and our personal stories are compressed and flattened.  Music, celebrities, policies and targets change so fast that there seems to be little that lasts and less than can be trusted.  The first book of Kings (19.12) tells us that God is not found in the whirlwind but rather in the still small voice.  It is part of the leader’s role to find the pauses in a school programme which will allow glimpses of God to ease the emptiness of many of our lives. That view of the need for quiet is well made in many places. What is less well known is the sense of God in busyness; where God climbs onto the carousel with us and shares the ride. St Francis de Sales[i] describes this spiritual experience as “an ecstasy of action”. That busyness is well known to many leaders in school and, in Salesian terms, is not a barrier to a sense of God’s presence. It is, of course, a question of balance; we need to be still and we need to be busy, but it would be a mistake to believe that God is only with us in the quiet moments of school life.

One of the ways in which spiritual leaders in education can help to lead in spirituality is to rescue their own imagination and begin to walk the school with the eyes of Christ.  The narrowness of our culture can suddenly emerge with a spiritual depth when a sacramental imagination is brought to bear on the life of the school [ii].   It is then that the school leader, seeing one pupil comforting another, recognises the Good Samaritan at work in young people.  Noticing the isolated teacher in the staff room, they may recognise the prodigal son or perhaps a lost sheep.  Outside in the corridor the leader will see many good shepherds, easing the flocks of young people to their classrooms.  This ability to “see through” a superficial and functional reality to a spiritual dimension is part of the modelling that leaders need to achieve in order to be faithful to their vocation as educators.  It is this spiritual dimension that connects us all into a deeper story of love and sometimes suffering that permeates all of life. It opens out the narrow perceptions of our culture, re-connects with individual stories and opens up the fabric of God’s work in ordinary things.  It gives us a history, a meaning and the purpose for which young people hunger.

These are sacramental moments of imagination because they are “outward signs of inward grace[iii]” which is one definition of a sacrament.  Another implication of this way of thinking is that a Gospel imagination can also suggest to the leader a specific course of action: to praise the Good Samaritan, to wait for the prodigal son’s return, to intervene as a shepherd when people are lost. Therefore the vision of a school leader in a Catholic school begins with the rush and sometimes chaotic patterns of activity that are part of all school communities.  Within that whirlwind the leader should expect to see God present within the Gospel patterns unfolding in their school.  These patterns, traced out in the Gospel, are the outward signs of God’s grace already at work in people and so the activity of a whole school can become sacramental: Outward signs of God's presence. In short, the leader in a Catholic school must become a mystic or risk, handing stones rather than bread to future generations[iv].   This spiritual awareness, waking up to the Gospel and God’s intimacy with life, is the most important dimension of spiritual leadership since from it springs all that follows. 

It is an awareness that does not bemoan the times but accepts what is happening as the holy ground upon which God is revealed. It is an awareness that is rooted in the vocational call of leaders in education. Putting this awareness into words for others is a way of building spiritual literacy.  Being able to talk in a way that allows the Gospel to emerge from life helps others find a vocabulary and tradition within which they can escape the narrowness of contemporary culture and embrace the Gospel as a source of meaning unfolding in each life.

---

[i] The Saint who founded the Salesian stream of spirituality in the church based on optimism and loving kindness within the ordinary and busy pace of life.

[ii] See On The Way To Life by Fr James Hanvey SJ available on the CES web site.

[iii] Augustine of Hippo (354-430), who was one of the greatest of the early church fathers, defined a Sacrament as an "outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace."

[iv] Matthew 7.9

 It is an awareness that does not bemoan the times but accepts what is happening as the holy ground upon which God is revealed. It is an awareness that is rooted in the vocational call of leaders in education. Putting this awareness into words for others is a way of building spiritual literacy.  Being able to talk in a way that allows the Gospel to emerge from life helps others find a vocabulary and tradition within which they can escape the flatness of contemporary culture and embrace the Gospel as a source of meaning unfolding in each life.

---

[i] The Saint who founded the Salesian stream of spirituality in the church based on optimism and loving kindness within the ordinary and busy pace of life.

[ii] See On The Way To Life by Fr James Hanvey SJ available on the CES web site.

[iii] Augustine of Hippo (354-430), who was one of the greatest of the early church fathers, defined a Sacrament as an "outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace."

[iv] Matthew 7.9