Dry Bones

(Given during a day of recollection for Pius V Catholic School, Providence RI)

There was a song we learned when I was a child back in the 1950s. It was sometimes called the skeleton dance.

It was actually a spiritual, with words written by James Weldon Johnson. We didn’t know that, and if we did it wouldn’t’ have made any difference to us.

The words were so eloquent.

Toe bone connected to the foot bone
 Foot bone connected to the heel bone
 Heel bone connected to the ankle bone
 Ankle bone connected to the leg bone
 Leg bone connected to the knee bone
 Knee bone connected to the thigh bone
 Thigh bone connected to the hip bone
 Hip bone connected to the back bone
 Back bone connected to the shoulder bone
 Shoulder bone connected to the neck bone
 Neck bone connected to the head bone
 Hear the word of the Lord.

We did not know that the source of this was the prophet Ezekial.

It seems to me the readings today, and this song, are quite appropriate as we prepare to begin a new school year and to teach young minds.

The song is about making connections, and that is the role of a teacher… to help students make connections.

In a Catholic school we have a mission to connect students with God. This is supremely important. But almost as important is helping students make connections between their academic subjects, especially math and science, to God. It is important because secular society often uses those subject to separate people from God.

God is the source of and is himself, truth, beauty, and goodness. And all those things are found in the subjects we teach in our schools.

Another important role of a teacher in a Catholic school is articulated in the gospel reading we just heard. And I gather it may be the topic of your day of recollection. Students need to learn how and what to love.

This is a bigger problem than it seems. Young people especially are confused when they hear the word love used by people like us in Catholic schools and in church, and also the same word being used by popular singer, by influencers, by sellers of ideas and agendas of secular society. A young person will naturally assume that we are all talking about the same thing.

But we definitely are not. Jesus and Taylor Swift are talking about very different things. Young people are very tuned in to Taylor Swift, Sza, Frank Ocean and all the media voices.

We need to tun them to God, and the frequency on which each young person will find God is likely to be different. That is challenging for teachers.

But a teacher who loves his or her students will follow St. Benedict’s instruction to listen with the ear of your heart.

The root meaning of the word obedience, a term dear to the heart of teachers, is to listen. If we listen to our students, we will know how to respond, and how and where to direct them to make those all important connections.

All truth, even hard truth… all beauty and all goodness, from head to toe… are connected to God.

May the Holy Spirit guide your hearts and ears this year.