5/19/2014 – Monday of 5th week of Easter – John 14:21, Acts 14:5-18

      In response to a question from one of his disciples, Jesus tells us that if anyone seeks to know him, all that person must do is to show love for Jesus by keeping his word.  Then, the Father & Jesus will both make their home with that person.  But what does that mean: Keeping Jesus’ word? Our world can be very complicated, so much so that we can find it really difficult to know what it means for us to keep God’s word sometimes in our lives.  A lot of people have been telling me about a segment than ran on the Today Show a few days ago after Michelle Obama spoke at a high school graduation in Topeka, Kansas, marking the anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling of Brown vs. the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas, that started an era of desegregation of the public school.  It was a landmark decision that attempted to provided a good quality education to all.  The Today Show showed a clip about the reality of a school in Greenville, Mississippi, a middle school that has an F rating and that is entirely African American in its student population.

I taught in Greenville Weston High School in Greenville for four years before becoming a priest.  And that school, which in the 1950s and 1960s had been one of the best schools in the state, went from being entirely White in that era to almost entirely African American today.  When I taught there, there were 2 White students out of 1,800.   Teaching the students Spanish and trying to influence their lives in a positive way was something I truly believed in, but some days it was really tough keeping one’s sanity and composure.  It was a labor of love for me, but one with many challenges, many joys and many heartbreaks. I myself went to an inner city type high school in the Los Angeles area where getting an education that would prepare one for college was very difficult and where problems like bullying and violence were everyday realities that everyone just accepted.  A lot of times I felt that I had no where to turn and no one to talk to.  Many times, it felt like a very unsafe to be.  And I am sure many of the students I taught in Greenville felt the same way.   As I watched the clip from the today show, I knew that the reality facing Greenville in schools that in practice are still segregated is a lot more complicated than what can be portrayed in a 5 minute new segment.   The Gospel mentions the Holy Spirit at work in us.  Asking for the guidance of the Spirit is sometimes easier than discerning what the Spirit wants us to do. But being a Christian is not easy, is it?  But the hard work of trying to live our lives devoted to Christ’s word and living it out is exactly what we are called to do.