By Father Casey

Like millions of others, my family is in those exciting and anxious days called "back to school." We've bought new shoes, dusted off backpacks, dissected the class schedules, and taken the requisite photos of our girls holding the little signs of which grade they're entering. This is a great time of year, because it's all still in front of us. What the year will bring we do not yet know; the joys and challenges are still ahead.

This time of year we always have some version of a conversation we've been having since our oldest was in kindergarten. Our hope for our girls is not that they will earn outstanding grades or become popular with their peers. Our hope for them is that they will keep growing into their fullest and best selves. We are always proud of them when they achieve in class, on stage, or on the field, but we care far more about who they are becoming as people. We want them to be students not just of academic content but of life, to grow in intellect and also in heart.

The world has plenty of people who are smart, but we could use more people who are kind. There is no shortage of information, but there is a great need for more wisdom. You may be familiar with the expression in American education, "teaching to the test," which refers to the way teachers feel compelled to focus their instruction on preparing students to pass standardized exams. But the truly important tests, the tests we ought to be "teaching toward," are the ones that happen outside the relative safety of classrooms, and passing them depends just as much on the state of our souls as the content of our minds.

There is a line from Paul's letter to the Romans, which we'll hear in church this week (12:2). Here is how Eugene Peterson paraphrases it:

"Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

Developing "well-formed maturity" sounds like a beautiful goal for our kids at the start of school. But it's not just children who need this, is it? This sounds like a holy goal for us all, no matter our age. We can know all manner of things. Our minds can be filled with information, and we can have the entire body of human knowledge at our fingertips. But if we conform ourselves to our culture, if we strive to achieve without ever reflecting on what is right, and most of all, if we allow the world around us to bring us down to its level of immaturity, we will struggle to pass the tests that truly matter.

I am fond of the expression "lifelong learner." We never graduate from the work of learning, no matter how old we grow. We are all still becoming. Our goal, then, should be to focus on developing a well-formed maturity so we will be ready for the tests that await us in the future. Aging and sickness. Broken relationships and bitter grief. Temptation and moral ambiguity. We spent so much time in youth studying for tests that we cannot now remember; how much time are we spending today to be ready for the tests to come that may define our lives?

To be ready, to be well-formed and mature, we need to listen to our teacher, Jesus. Pay attention and learn from him. Do not think yourself too grown to receive a new lesson. Sit at his feet and follow where he leads. He will not only get you ready for the tests to come, he will stand by your side as you take them.

Fr. Casey+