When Jesus calls his first disciples in St. John’s Gospel, we find a remarkable exchange between Our Lord and them (see John 1:35-39). Jesus asks, “What are you seeking?” The disciples reply with another question: “Where are you staying?” He responds, “Come and you will see.”
According to Dr. Jeffrey Lehman, Professor of Philosophy and Theology and Director of the Augustine Institute’s new M.A. in Catholic Education program, this dialogue makes perfect sense.
“In antiquity,” Lehman explains, “teaching and learning were understood as a matter of seeking the truth together. When Our Lord asks the prospective disciples what they seek, he is inquiring about their desire to seek the truth with him as their teacher and companion on the journey.”
“The disciples’ question, ‘Where are you staying?’ is also quite natural. Education was understood as a way of life, and staying with Jesus—living with Him, sharing meals with Him, walking with Him, talking with Him—was the way a student would learn from and with the teacher. The disciples desire to share a common life with Jesus so that they can see this way of life lived out.”
Following Christ the Teacher may begin in a common enough way, easily understandable in its ancient context; but it proceeds in a radical, new direction. Not only does Jesus show his disciples a way of life lived in pursuit of the truth; later in the Gospel he boldly claims, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
And what began as “staying” with Christ—a word frequently translated as “remaining” or “abiding”—ends with Our Lord exhorting his disciples to abide in Him: “I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser. … Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15: 1, 4; emphasis added).
This, Lehman contends, is the essence of discipleship and the essence of genuine Catholic education: “All of our work in Catholic education at the Augustine Institute begins with Christ the Teacher, is daily sustained by Him, and is ordered toward union with Him in the Body of Christ. In various ways, all of our offerings in Catholic education are meant to prepare us for abiding in Christ and seeking to evangelize the world through teaching and learning in the light of the Catholic faith.”
How is this accomplished? The Augustine Institute’s new M.A. in Catholic Education (MACE) begins with a firm grounding in Catholic theology. “In order to establish a sure foundation,” says Lehman, “our MACE students commence their studies with four courses in Catholic theology: Salvation History, The Rule of Faith, Jesus and the Gospels, and Light to the Nations. These courses provide an orientation and grounding that serve students well as they advance to coursework in Catholic education.”
The MACE program was launched last spring with a cohort of 16 students. The program is not just for teachers of theology; instead, current or aspiring educators from all disciplines—mathematics and literature, music and Latin, the natural sciences and the humanities—come together to understand their disciplines more deeply and to integrate them with all other disciplines.
This focus on integration is crucial to Catholic education, according to Lehman: “The most basic meaning of katholikos, from kath’holou, is ‘of [or about] the whole.’ Building upon a foundation of Catholic faith and theology, the Catholic educator constantly seeks to pursue teaching and learning with the ‘whole’ in mind. This includes, but is not limited to, the integration of faith and reason. All the disciplines can and must be integrated, since God is the Source and Origin of all true learning as well as its final End.”
To facilitate this integrated approach to teaching and learning, all MACE students take four “core” courses in Catholic education: Catholic Education: Ends, Principles, and Means; Christian Anthropology; History of Catholic Education; and The Art of Teaching. In addition to a focus on integration of the disciplines, these courses also place special emphasis on the liberal arts, on human nature, and on what it means to be a human person.
Although its first semester was only this past spring, the Augustine Institute’s MACE program is already expanding through a new initiative. In partnership with the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education (ICLE), the Augustine Institute has launched Teachers for Christ. This two-year intensive program will form aspiring teachers in all academic disciplines in the Catholic tradition of the liberal arts and liberal education.
The program will begin in-residence at the Augustine Institute’s beautiful new campus in St. Louis, Missouri, where students pursue graduate study full-time to earn both the M.A. in Catholic Education and the ICLE Catholic Educator Formation and Credential Certificate. In their second year, students will be placed in an ICLE member school where they will gain teaching experience and benefit from mentorship while continuing to take classes to finish their degree and credential.
The Augustine Institute is deeply committed to forming Catholic educators so that they, in turn, may form the next generation of Catholics—so much so, in fact, that it is offering this new course of study with a full scholarship, including tuition, books, room, and board. “Through the abundant generosity of our benefactors,” comments Lehman, “we are pleased to offer Teachers for Christ to train up a new generation of Catholic educators for service to the Church.”
What about Catholic educators who seek a deeper formation but don’t have either the time or the desire for a full graduate degree? The Augustine Institute has begun to develop certificate programs to meet this need. So far, there are two such certificates: The Religious Dimension of Learning and The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: An Introduction to the Liberal Arts. While they are not for graduate credit, these certificates form Catholic teachers and administrators with a Catholic worldview and offer training in the seven liberal arts. And more certificates are on the way.
The Augustine Institute is forming a generation of Catholic educators who are dedicated to keeping discipleship to Christ as the center of their mission and are poised to become leaders in the renewal of Catholic education. As current MACE student Madeline Joerger testifies, “I realized upon graduating, I would have a well-formed Catholic understanding of education from Scripture, Tradition, and the writings of many scholars and saints.”
Students from all of these Catholic education initiatives at the Augustine Institute will take just such an understanding into classrooms, passing along a love of the truth and a knowledge of the Catholic faith that will, God willing, form thousands of minds and hearts.
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This content has been brought to you in partnership with the Augustine Institute.
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