Making a Difference at Saint Francis Classical

September 13, 2024

Seeking Truth

As Headmaster of a young and growing independent school (that also happens to be the only Classical Catholic school in the Diocese of Allentown), I have the privilege of speaking to many prospective families who have heard good things about SFCCA in general but are unfamiliar with the specific concept of Catholic Classical education. 

While there are many ways that one can explain what makes our school unique, one of my favorite ways to think about what is happening at Saint Francis Classical is that we are striving to form our students into Truth Detectives.  

Encouraging students to seek Truth of course presupposes not only that objective, capital "T" Truth, does indeed exist but also that Truth can be discovered by utilizing our God-given intellects.  Every day at the schoolhouse, I get to see what happens when our faculty intentionally gives students the freedom and the opportunity to pursue Truth, and it really is a beautiful sight to behold.  

The Truth About Making a Difference

Over the summer break, I embarked on some Truth detecting of my own and was prompted by the Holy Spirit to spend time investigating the objective Truth that within each and every human soul there exists the desire to "make a difference" in the world.  This begs the question, What does it mean to make a difference?  Our culture would have us think that the primary way to make a difference is to do something "big", something that everyone will notice, something that gains you celebrity or notoriety. We can all name examples of people who have succeeded (and who have failed) by our culture’s standards; however, the culture is not where we will find the answer to our soul's question of how we can give our lives meaning.  

Instead, we should focus on the essential Christian insight that the best way to give your life meaning is to love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. Therefore, when it comes to "making a difference", our Church also asks us to do something "big", but in an amazing paradox, that usually involves doing something "little" to serve others in your immediate sphere of influence, something that most often goes unnoticed by the world at large. This can be difficult for anyone to grasp, but especially for our students who have grown up in a social-media environment that considers the title of "Influencer" one of the loftiest goals to pursue. Fortunately, we can introduce our children to the examples of the saints who with their varied backgrounds, talents, and temperaments were able to create lives of meaning.

All of this has been on my mind as I reflect on this endeavor to build a Classical Catholic School from the ground-up, a place that provides the love and community necessary to form the eternal souls of our children, and by extension, our own.  It has been truly amazing to see how the Holy Spirit has brought all of us together to accomplish this goal. Although many would not consider this a "big" thing when considered in light of the culture's standards, if we measure success by how well we have loved God and our neighbor as ourselves, this just might be the "biggest" thing we could ever do to make a difference in the world and give our lives meaning. 

Smarter folks in the Church have posited that we are re-entering an "Apostolic Age", where today's Christian believers will face persecution, making intentional faith communities like ours that much more important in defending and propagating the faith in the wider world. Christianity has always been not for the faint of heart, so there's nothing new there; but what might be new is the creative ways that we will be forced to adopt to enable us to spread the Gospel in the digital age we find ourselves in.  In other words, we must "Reimagine Tradition" here at Saint Francis Classical, and I have every reason to believe that together, we will be able to do just that.

As a result, I want to thank you all for joining us in this noble endeavor, especially our new families who have become a vital part of our school family.  By last count, we are up to 57 families and 98 students, and I have every confidence that we will have more than 100 students by year's end.  This is an amazing accomplishment in just our second year as an Independent Catholic School, and the future looks very bright indeed.

Again, thank you for taking this leap of faith with us.  Four years ago, the school in Bally was closed.  Thanks to a few visionary parishioners of Most Blessed Sacrament parish, and their time, talent, and treasure, our new school was re-opened last year, and the fruits of that re-founding are all around us today.  I can't wait to see what the Holy Spirit has in store for us this year.  I know it will be something to see.

St. Francis, pray for us!