Blessing Teachers

As National Teacher Appreciation Week began on Sunday (May 1), we took the opportunity to offer blessing of teachers at the weekend Masses. For teachers, former teachers, retired teachers – all educators – we offer this prayer of blessing in the Ignatian tradition of education:

Loving God bless our teachers and give them generous hearts that they may serve you and their students as you and they deserve.
That they lead their students to find joy in learning and to thirst for greater and deeper knowledge of how they are called to labor with you in the wonder and mystery of your ongoing work of creation,
That they witness for their students the personal love and care that you have for each of us, so that they might attain the knowledge and freedom to achieve their full potential as young men and women created in your image and likeness,
That they teach as Jesus did so that by following His example our students will grow up to be men and women in service with and for others,
That they help form their students into persons of intellectual competence, moral integrity, and religious conviction whose actions are informed by conscience, infused with compassion and inspired by a commitment to a faith that seeks justice for all your people, particularly among the poor, suffering, and the neglected.
Amen.

Thank you educators for all you do!