2,000 educators from Detroit-area Catholic schools gather at F.I.R.E. conference for a day of prayer, reflection and community
NOVI — More than 2,000 Catholic school principals, teachers and administrators gathered April 4 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi to pray, learn and discern the primary reason for Catholic schools: to make disciples.
The first-ever F.I.R.E. (Formation. Innovation. Renewal. Evangelization.) conference was a chance for teachers and school leaders from across the Archdiocese of Detroit to take a break from the classroom and spend time with one another and with the greatest teacher, Jesus Christ.
“It’s an honor to be with you today, surrounded by so many dedicated, faithful colleagues from Catholic schools throughout the archdiocese,” Eric Haley, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of Detroit, told those gathered. “Thank you for being here, and more importantly, thank you for saying 'yes' to this mission. What unites us is not just our shared profession or place of work; it’s our shared mission. Every one of us in every Catholic schools across the archdiocese is part of something much bigger than ourselves.”
The daylong conference featured two keynote addresses by Fr. Mike Schmitz, host of the popular "Bible in a Year" and "Catechism in a Year" podcasts by Ascension Press, as well as Mass with Detroit Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger, who offered his own words of encouragement to educators.
“Just to be in a room with people who are living on mission — I genuinely mean this — is so honoring,” Fr. Schmitz said. “To work in Catholic schools is to be on mission. Whether that’s behind the front desk, in administration or those who teach in the classrooms, every single day, you go into mission territory.”
The mission of education — particularly Catholic education — isn't something to take lightly, Fr. Schmitz said, quoting from James 3:1.
“This is James, the Word of God: ‘Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters.’ There, let’s just stop. That’s all,” Fr. Schmitz joked to a laughing audience.
“‘Not many of you should become teachers, brothers and sisters, for you realize that we’ll be judged more strictly,’” Fr. Schmitz quoted. “All of us have to represent Jesus, and if we don’t represent Jesus accurately, then we’ll be liable to a stricter judgment. But there is a converse to this: We can be hopeful for a greater reward, not necessarily for our own honor or glory, but a reward for the fact that we’ve been entrusted with one of the most incredible things any person can do: be entrusted with the formation of the minds and the lives on the next generation.”
Fr. Schmitz said the primary mission of Catholic schools is to create disciples, and despite all the other great things about Catholic schools — from rigorous academics to good athletic programs and a strong sense of community — if Catholic schools aren’t creating disciples, they are failing. “The great commission is, ‘Go and make disciples.’ Therefore, if our schools aren’t making disciples, our schools are a failure,” he said.
For a Catholic school to stay on mission, it needs to have a clear understanding of what it means to be a disciple, Fr. Schmitz said.
“In the simplest terms, a disciple is someone who’s willing to change their schedule in order to get closer to Jesus," he said. "And when we have that, when our schools take the time to get closer to Jesus, we will make disciples.”
During afternoon breakout sessions, teachers and school leaders discussed ways to improve campus culture in order to make their schools more conducive to discipleship.
The day also served as an opportunity for spiritual renewal for teachers and principals. Fr. Mario Amore, director of evangelization and missionary discipleship for the Archdiocese of Detroit, called the teachers across 79 Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Detroit the “largest army of evangelizers we have here in the Church in Detroit,” teaching more than 27,000 students.
“It’s always good for us, like Jesus, to take the time to just step away and be together,” Fr. Amore said. “All of us need those renewed hearts and minds to remember who we are, to remember who has called us and why we’re in the work and ministry we’re in. All of these pillars lead to true evangelization that first and foremost needs to take place in our own hearts, listening to the voice of Jesus and then constantly sharing through that encounter the blessings he’s bestowed upon us.”
Archbishop Weisenburger celebrated Mass for conference-goers and delivered the homily, focusing on the conclusion of the Gospel of St. Matthew, in which Jesus gives his apostles the great commission to “go and make disciples of all nations.”
“These final words of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, ‘I am with you until the end of the age,’ are a bookend to how the Gospel opens,” Archbishop Weisenburger said. “It opens with Jesus saying, ‘I am Emmanuel,’ God with you. And it closes with, ‘I am with you until the end of the age.’ And he’s with us in remarkable ways: his enduring presence, Scripture, and of course, the sacraments. Matthew teaches us, ‘Where two or more are gathered in my name, you will encounter me’ — in the poor, the sick, the lonely, the immigrant, the unborn, and, of course, in a most unique and wonderful way, in the Eucharist. He promises to be with us, to be Emmanuel.”
After Mass, Archbishop Weisenburger thanked the teachers for their work, noting he attended Catholic school during second grade, when the family moved to his mother’s hometown of Hays, Kansas, while his father was serving in Vietnam.
The archbishop recalled the influence of his second-grade teacher, Sr. Francis Rose Dinkel, CSA, remembering how she would play the accordion in the classroom. Years later, when he was rector of the cathedral in Oklahoma City and vicar general of the archdiocese, he recalled receiving a phone call from his former teacher.
“And in an instant, I was reduced to a 7-year-old running down the hallway,” Archbishop Weisenburger said. “When I was bishop of Salina, two years after being there, I was so privileged that after her long life, I presided at her funeral. She would oftentimes tell people, ‘Be kind to your second-graders; you don’t know who they’ll be.' We sometimes get the last word.
“You have the last word,” Archbishop Weisenburger added, encouraging the educators in the room. “I want you to know that, in so many good ways, you have the last word. You have the word of faith you carry with you. And through what might seem to you at times to be incidental interactions, you’re really conveying faith.”
