In this week's article on Catholic education, Mike looks at school life as a pilgrimage. Photo: Savio Salesian College students in Lourdes, 2017

I am missing the daily routine of school. The school day has a rhythm, as does the term and the school year. I have always either been at school or working in a school; at forty-six, I am used to the movement of the school day and how the clock ticks.

In this time of lockdown, I have had to develop a routine, which includes my daily exercise: a cycle or a walk. Whilst walking one day last week, I could feel the sun on my face, the sky was blue, and in the distance, I could hear the bells of St James' Salesian Parish ringing. For a moment, I was transported to Lourdes and the hot sun and the bells of the Basilica. Since I was sixteen, Lourdes has been one of my special places. Over the years, I have had the joy of taking groups of youngsters on pilgrimage to that holy place, where they are free to spend a holy holiday with Our Lady.

Whilst these special journeys have been memorable, he most important pilgrimages I have been on with young people have been the daily ones, which we journey on throughout the rhythm of the school year. The formation of the young is one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching. In one school, a Year 10 student took delight in telling me she was an atheist – she was trying to push my buttons – my reply was, 'well done, you have clearly thought about this.'

Like me, she was on her journey. In RE, the student asked difficult questions. She found many of the contradictions between life and faith difficult to reconcile. She gave me a run for my money. To take offence would have been immature and would have denied her the opportunity to journey through the labyrinth of faith. On the day she left school, she asked me to sign her shirt. I was honoured: for this stage of her pilgrimage, my job was complete.

Each school day is an opportunity to take a further step in the pilgrimage of life. The teacher's job is to offer the youngsters gentle guidance, challenge and support. In John, we hear 'I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.' (John 10:10). I have lost count of how many times I have read this in school mission statements. And each time I do, I am filled with hope. For it is our job to enable each of the souls who we journey with on a daily basis to live life to the full. This, to me, means more than securing economic success – we all know that any education that seeks only that is limited. I gave the pupil I mentioned above, I hope, the respect she deserved on her spiritual journey, to ask the questions, wrestle with the responses and live fully in doing so.

I love the curriculum I teach, which allows a sacred journey of self-fulfilment, as all good curricula should. For at its very core, a curriculum is a map that allows the youngsters to enter into new realms of learning, thinking, acquiring, applying and developing wisdom. This curriculum should allow a sacred journey to new horizons.

To journey with the youngster from 'being a pain' to settling down and getting on with it, is a sacred journey, and one that is full of the joy of the resurrection. To walk side by side with the pupil who struggles with a difficult concept and then finds clarity, is a pilgrimage of discovery. To spend five years with a form/year group/class of pupils is a pilgrimage of the heart. And in these difficult days of lockdown, we must be the guides to help our pupils navigate this difficult and rocky road.

Reflect on Bosco and De La Salle: they were the pilgrimage guides for so many young souls. And those who journey in their footsteps enter the sacred journey of the soul that enables so many young people to be good people of faith and honest citizens, living life to the full.

Michael Bennett