Celebrating the vocation of the Catholic school teacher

By Catholic San Francisco

The Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption was buzzing about Catholic education this past Oct. 4. In addition to celebrating the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patronal feast day of the Archdiocese which bears his name, the cathedral welcomed more than 600 teachers and administrators from the Catholic elementary schools in the Archdiocese of San Francisco to celebrate their vocation as Catholic school educators. It was the first time since before the COVID-19 pandemic that all of the elementary school teachers of the Catholic schools in the Archdiocese gathered together in person and it was an opportunity for teachers to meet Chris Fisher, the new superintendent of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and Angela Johnson, the new associate superintendent for elementary schools. Fisher and Johnson began their roles during the summer of 2024. Mike Gutzwiller, director of curriculum development for the Sophia Institute for Teachers, began the morning with a keynote talk on the vocation and mission of the Catholic school teacher. Sophia Institute for Teachers has partnered with the Department of Catholic Schools and with individual schools in the Archdiocese in the past to provide professional development for teachers. “Sophia Institute is a trusted source of resources and support for our teachers to strengthen and inspire their own ministry in our Catholic schools. They are a ‘go-to’ resource for us,” said Ryan Mayer, director of Catholic identity formation and assessment for the Archdiocese.

Each and every teacher in Catholic elementary schools in the Archdiocese of San Francisco receives formation as catechists as a crucial part of their personal and professional development for carrying out the mission and ministry of Catholic education. After the keynote talk, teachers had the option to attend one of five breakout sessions to receive credit toward their Basic Catechist Certification. The breakouts included sessions on Christian anthropology and its importance for Catholic education, celebrating the Church’s liturgical calendar, educating for virtue, and a session on the practice of Lectio Divina, or praying with Scripture. The latter was led by Superintendent Fisher.

In his keynote to the teachers, Gutzwiller made a distinction between a “big ‘V’ vocation” and a “small ‘v’ vocation.” “Each of us has a universal call to holiness by virtue of our baptism. That’s our ‘big V vocation’,” Gutzwiller said. “But each person lives out that calling in a particular way,” he went on to explain. “Your ministry as teachers in Catholic schools is the way you live out your ‘small v vocation’ according to your particular calling. All of you have been called by God. The proof of that is that you are here…God has called you and you have responded.”

The document “Lay Catholics in Schools: Witnesses to Faith” from the Congregation for Catholic Education, which speaks to the role of those who work in Catholic schools, refers to teaching as a “vocation” 44 times in its 82 short paragraphs. The document says, “The work of a lay educator has an undeniably professional aspect; but it cannot be reduced to professionalism alone. Professionalism is marked by, and raised to, a supernatural Christian vocation. The life of the Catholic teacher must be marked by the exercise of a personal vocation in the Church, and not simply by the exercise of a profession… Their response is vital for the construction and ongoing renewal of the earthly city, and for the evangelization of the world.” (Paragraph 37)

The word vocation comes from the Latin “vocare” meaning “to call.” Teaching is a profession but it is also a vocation, a calling. In this sense, those who work in Catholic schools not only live out their own individual calling, each with his or her own unique gifts and talents, but everyone who works in a Catholic school also participates in the teaching office of the Church. For this reason, everyone in a Catholic school is, to one extent or another, responsible for the evangelizing mission of the Church in and through the Catholic school. A 2019 instruction on Catholic education from the same congregation explains,

“Everyone has the obligation to recognize, respect and bear witness to the Catholic identity of the schools . . . This applies to the teaching staff, the non-teaching personnel and the pupils and their families.” (“The Identity of the Catholic Schools for a Culture of Dialogue,” 39) In his keynote, Gutzwiller frequently paused to ask the teachers, “who is responsible for evangelization?” To which their voices echoed resoundingly throughout the cathedral, “Everyone!”