'Partnership & Shared Responsibility': A Lenten Reflection

Partnership & Shared Responsibility Macaluso_Gabrielle586
March 12th – 16th
Reflection & Prayer by Gabrielle Macaluso

In our tradition, responsibility for the holistic development of students is shared among faculty and staff, parents, and the students themselves. Through the efforts of faculty and staff, the school is responsible for surrounding students “…with help to form them to good.” (André Coindre, Prospectus of 1818) The school provides instruction, formation, and witness according to its mission. Parents are recognized as the primary religious and moral educators of their children. Therefore, they are expected to guide their children toward maturity, cooperate with the school’s efforts in the holistic development of students, and maintain communication with the school. Students are active partners in their formation with appropriate levels of responsibility and decision-making. They are responsible for actively participating in the programs offered by the school.

 – From Educational Mission & Ministry

As 29 years have come and gone for me as a faculty member ‘teaching’ in the charism of our Brothers, I reflect on our Shared Responsibilities. Our founders, Father Andre Coindre and Brother Polycarp, repeatedly stressed the necessity of ‘being of one mind and one heart and of working together as a team’.  

Through the years, I have witnessed this teamwork day in and day out – and I challenge you to think about how you have witnessed this teamwork; is it in the classroom with your students who are contributing ‘team members’, is it in the Formation Center watching students share the responsibility of helping their fellow Crusaders as ‘team members’ to reach their individual academic excellence, is it in the faculty rooms where there’s collaboration and/or ‘teamwork’ in subject areas, at grade levels, in efforts/discussions to help an individual student grow, is it in communicating with ‘our’ parents, as members of the team, when their son has either taken a step forward and/or has taken a step backward and needs the ‘team’ to push him toward growth, or is it in planning a major event when the ‘team’ of coaches/moderators work together with the food service staff and custodial staff to ensure that Brother Martin is always at it’s best?

We all share in these responsibilities in a spirit of cooperation and communion.  We are here each and every day to inspire, to encourage, to model for each other and for our students and parents what our founders have called each of us to…in the words of Father Coindre to one of his fellow Brothers, “Let the Brothers be closely united together; let them be holy; the greatest harm would be lack of cooperation.”  I say to you that we are ALL those ‘Brothers’ called by Father Andre Coindre that we cooperatively share in the responsibilities of formation, instruction, and witness for each other, for our students, for our parents, and for the greater community. As men and women of faith, may we all remain faithful and put our hope in a God of compassion and mercy, a God with a Sacred Heart, so that one day, maybe even many years from now, our students will look back and come to realize the team effort that it took during their years at Brother Martin to help them to become men of God who will each in their own individual way make this world a better place.

Ask yourself:  How can I become a better ‘team’ member?  How can I share in the responsibility of building a community of faith?  How can I make a difference in the life of a student or a colleague?

Let us pray…

Lord, loving God,
You have called us to build a community here at Brother Martin High School,
Founded on the values You demonstrated
As You built the community of your Apostles.

Today, You call us to build that community daily,
With students, colleagues, and parents.

Enable us
To see You in our communities
To see You evident in our relationships
With one another and with our students and their parents
To echo Your values in our actions, and
To embody Your spirit in all that we do.

May we be people
Of faith, of hope, and of love.
May our Brother Martin community
Be a place of welcome, of growth, and of new life.
May our lived experience
Echo the values of trust and mutual respect.

And may we all be faithful to the charism
And its call to community,
Accepting the daily challenge that is essential to our mission
To make Your love known to all with whom we come in contact.

We ask all of these things in ‘community’ with You and through Your Sacred Heart…

Amen.  Ametur Cor Jesu…Loved be the Heart of Jesus.