The Clock Tower Resort and Conference Center, located near our office here at the Diocesan Administration Center in Rockford, is being torn down. Each day brick walls come crumbling down in a matter of minutes. The debris is gathered, scooped and trucked away, preparing a foundation for something new.

 

Watching the progress each day as I commute to work, I can’t help but think about how much harder it is to build something as opposed to demolishing it. And I think that is true with just about everything. 

 

A lot goes into building. Before construction can ever begin there are plans and permits to be obtained. Before that there are ideas and concepts that give birth to the entire project. As I said, this whole process is relevant to so many things.

 

In this season of graduations, ordinations, and weddings, building is certainly something to think about.

 

Sometimes as we mull over the decisions required to build out our lives, it is a good exercise to look back to the past then ahead to the future in order to see where we are and where we need to go and how we can form a way to get there. 

 

For a graduate, it means stepping away from the comfort of the classroom routine and building a life on the slab of lessons learned. Whether it be moving on to college, trade school, or into a working environment, the future will be built on the foundation of the past based on where you want to be in the next five or 10 years. 

 

The same is true with brides and grooms who come together on a mutual foundation of love and respect. What will you decide to build together that will accommodate children, friends, family? 

 

At ordination, men take all their training and seek to build a life of service that will build up the body of Christ both within individuals and the Church itself. What will be said of that service when the servants look back on it decades from now? Reflecting on a question like that can help build better bridges from this world to the next.

 

Perhaps the words in 1 Corinthians can help. 

 

“According to the grace of God given to me like a wise builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it. But each one must be careful how he builds upon it, for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, the work of each will come to light, for the day will disclose it. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire (itself) will test the quality of each one’s work.” (1 Cor. 3:10-13)

 

In the Rockford Diocese we have talked a lot about that kind of process lately as the building of a new future for Catholic education takes place in Aurora and Rockford. 

 

As you have heard and read, because our culture, demographics and populations are changing, the one-parish, one-school model is changing. Schools in those communities are working to build a new future together. Instead of simply closing schools like so many other Catholic dioceses have done, parishes and schools in Aurora and Rockford have taken a more challenging path. 

 

They are consolidating themselves and, together, working to build a new bridge of strong Catholic education that will take a new path to cross into the future. The task force and joint schools committee in those communities are building a new tomorrow on the foundation of the past so that families they may not ever know will benefit from it years from now.

 

Whenever the process or the decisions become contentious, all those involved have had to ask themselves — “Ten years into the future, what will be said about what is being done and decided right now?” Building something is a great responsibility — physically, financially, emotionally and spiritually. It can not and should never be self-serving, or as Scripture tells us, it will be revealed. 

 

All indications are that the new plan for diocesan Catholic education is being built in such a way that it will gloriously outlive those who are building it. And that is how faith teaches us to build. 

 

So congratulations to all those working to build the future — whether you are a new graduate, new priest, newlyweds or member of the Aurora or Rockford schools committees — may God guide you and bless your future.