On World Teachers’ Day, we share a special message from Susan M Kumnick, Coordinator of the RSCM Global School Network.
Dear Global Network friends,
Sending special wishes and the following reflection to you and your faculty members on this year’s World Teachers’ Day for the transformational and important work you do to prepare the students in your care to make a difference – in their school, in their family, and in their community! This is an excerpt from a treatise by Father Gailhac titled CHRIST AS A MODEL OF CONSTANCY in which he expresses his understanding of the RSHM pedagogy that is our legacy to carry on. May Father Gailhac continue to inspire our vocation as educators and may God bless us on this happy day.
Much love,
Susan M Kumnick
Coordinator of the RSCM Global School Network
Now, what should be your attitude towards the girls (and boys)? You should lead them to piety, encourage them to make progress in virtue, imbue them with the desire to please God, correct in a gentle way those character defects which vitiate virtue. Make them understand, by example rather than by word, that there is no real goodness without self-sacrifice.
And how should you act in the case of troublesome girls (or boys)? In dealing with girls (and boys) of this nature, you prove your real devotion, for solid virtue and absolute self-renunciation are demanded of you if you are to effect even a little good. First, you ought to make a careful study of their character and not only their defects and their predominant failings, but also of their good qualities, for, with rare exceptions, good is always to be found mingled with evil. Then you must use great and persevering patience, unbounded kindness, unalterable calm and gentleness, if you wish to gain their hearts and their confidence. Once you have accomplished this, your love for God and zeal for souls will so effectively guide your efforts that, with God’s grace, you will triumph over the most obdurate hearts. May a consuming desire for the sanctification of souls, as well as your own personal sanctification, motivate your every action and inspire you with generosity in the work of our redeeming Christ.
Dear brothers and sisters, these admonitions will be of great value to you provided you ponder over them, master them thoroughly and, above all, put them into practice. A great love of God is indispensable for this, because it will make every burden light and every task possible. Every difficulty gives way before Divine Love; and as fire melts the hardest metals, so love changes and softens and transforms the most obdurate hearts.
Now, so that I may end as I began, I say to you: You must love, love, love God. May love animate your whole being, all your thoughts, desires and actions; then you will succeed in everything. Love will make you saints and will enable you to lead others to sanctity, for grace is born of love, and grace and love together work miracles. AMEN.
