When my wife and I were younger, we would occasionally talk about Family Missions Company. We were fascinated by their model of sending young families to underserved parts of the globe to spread the message of Christ. It is something that we both would have loved to do. However, we also both agreed that it was not where we were being called at that time in our life. Instead, I served as a religion teacher at a Catholic high school near my hometown. Soon, we began to joke that it was pretty much the same thing as Family Missions—we were doing hard work to spread the Gospel to people who seemed to not have heard it before, and we were doing it for pay that really wasn’t sustainable!

Of course, as the years have gone by, I certainly acknowledge that the work done in mission fields around the world is very different than teaching in an American Catholic school. But I have also realized that the analogy holds up well in many ways. The work of Catholic education is hard. Many of the students and parents in Catholic schools really are not open to hearing the Gospel. The pay is less than the “market average” when compared to public schools. Clearly, the idea that Catholic schools are like missionary work is not completely unfounded. Now, as a Catholic school principal for over 15 years, I see more clearly that Catholic education is mission work, and, in some particular ways, I have begun to approach it as such.