Day of Recollection
St. Margaret's Faculty, Bel Air, Maryland
September 24, 2010
But Who Do You Say I Am? (Lk 9:18-22)
By Nicholas Amato
SHALEM’S TRAINING
I was to an intense training earlier this month as a faculty member of the Shalem Institute for Spirituality
As a teacher you have this experience often
It’s sometimes called Teach the Teacher or Train the Trainer
My week was comprised of Morning: the program was as follows:
Mornings: The program itself
Afternoons: Leadership questions
Evening: Reflection
JESUS’ TRAINING
Jesus is doing some of the same with his apostles
They’ve been part of the crowds who’ve heard his teaching so they’ve been through the program
Beyond that, they’ve been singled out to be associate faculty
With the group of these specially selected, he’s been raising leadership issues for example when James and John are quarreling over who is greater
Sometimes they get it; sometimes they don’t
He will soon empower them to do what he does and eventually he’ll send them out two-by-two
TWO CRITICAL QUESTIONS
But let’s stay focused on the two questions that are part of his “Teach the Teachers” program that he’s raising in today’s gospel:
“Who do people say I am?” and more importantly, “Who do you say I am?”
The first, “Who do people say I am?” is to ask them, “What’s going on in the program I’m delivering? How’s it being received by the students in the class?”
The second question: “And what about you? Have you be moved? Been touched? Been transformed by what I’ve been telling them.”
In other words, “Are you ready for leadership in touching the hearts of others?”
WHAT TO TEACH THE TEACHER
A very serious question
As teachers we understand the difference between knowing the information and being able to teach it effectively
If you don’t know, live and breathe the lesson, you’re not a credible or effective teacher of the material
We all know what’s to go on in the classrooms of a Catholic School in terms of our youths’ love of Jesus Christ
How well they will know him through our words, deeds, or values will in large measure depend on our own relationship with Christ and whether that intimacy, union, friendship empower us to have our students want it
“Who do you say Jesus is for you?”
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