Faith Learned, Faith Lived: In Bus Pilgrimage, Thankfulness is the Driver

The Year of Faith is a celebration of our calling to follow Christ and how we can come to know Jesus in our commitment to the ACE community and Catholic schools. Our prayer is that we can learn to find Jesus in the ordinary and routine things of our lives. ACE Teaching Fellows calls men and women to live a simple life as teachers in Catholic schools.

Take a moment and read Luke 17:11-19, which is the gospel for Sunday, October 13. This is the story about Jesus healing ten people of leprosy and how only the Samaritan returns to thank Jesus. Jesus says to him: Has no one but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God? And then he says, stand up and go; your faith has saved you.

It is interesting that Jesus connects being thankful with faith. I have thought about this and have come to see the ACE 20 pilgrimage is being thankful for what is happening and how ACE is born out of faith.

Fathers Tim Scully and Sean McGraw had an idea. They understood that Basil Moreau, the founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross, brought men and women to collaborate in ministry, to assist in the needs of the Diocese of LeMans, France, and eventually to serve in the United States and many parts of the world.

There was a need to do something to help Catholic schools, which were crucial in the development of the faith life of many people. Thousands of sisters in religious orders had been the foundation of Catholic schools, but there was a problem—a declining number of nuns who were available to staff Catholic schools. Fathers Tim and Sean had the vision to see that young college graduates could continue the ministry of teaching. This brought about the birth of the Alliance for Catholic Education.

The first posters placed around the Notre Dame campus read, "Tired of doing homework? Then give some." Nobody, including the founders, knew how this would work out. But 20 years later, we know the work of the Holy Spirit has guided ACE. It has inspired young men and women to teach, live a simple life in community, and grow in their spirituality.

The ACE bus tour to 50 different cities is a pilgrimage in which we thank God for the blessings and the growth of a program that has called forth men and women and continues to do so—to follow in the footsteps of Christ the Teacher. It is to understand the words of Blessed Basil Moreau: "to make God known, loved, and served." This is done by returning to the Lord as the Samaritan did, and giving thanks. We are reminded to do this, whether on pilgrimage or in our daily activities. Giving thanks is an expression of faith that Jesus acknowledges in our Gospel.