Education as an Act of Hope

Bro. Tom Wendorf, SM, the new Assistant for Education & Co-chair of the Marianist Family Encounters Project, shares his reflection on teaching in a Marianist and Catholic way in our institutions, where education is an act of hope, as described by both Pope Francis in 2019 and now Pope Leo XIV in 2025.

With classes and school retreats well underway, I wanted to introduce myself and offer some words of encouragement and gratitude.

I am Bro. Tom Wendorf, and following in the footsteps of Bro. Jesse O'Neill, I am serving on our Provincial Council in the role of Assistant for Education. My office is in St. Louis, Missouri, and I live in the nearby Maryland Avenue Marianist Community.

Being educated in public schools in a suburb of Cleveland, I first experienced Catholic and Marianist education at the University of Dayton in the early 1980s. It changed my life. I joined the Society of Mary right after graduating from UD with a degree in English; I professed my first vows in 1988.

As a young brother, I did my student teaching at Chaminade Julienne in Dayton and then taught high school for three years in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Graduate study followed at Washington University in St. Louis, after which, in 1999, I returned to The University of Dayton. There I taught English for almost twenty years before coming to serve on our Provincial Council.

Teaching has been central to my life as a brother so far. Being an administrator is new for me! Fortunately, the wise people here in St. Louis and in the Office of Sponsorship are helping me along. Not surprisingly, so much of my work continues to be about relationships. As educators and companions of young people, we must remember we are never alone in our work. Teaching and administration can feel isolating at times, but in a Marianist and Catholic institution, that should not be the norm. We depend on relationships, community, and collaboration to do our work and grow in our faith.

Both Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV have described education as “an act of hope.” It’s a helpful perspective as we navigate the rapid and sometimes alarming changes of our own times - the incredible accessibility and barrage of information; the paradoxical blurring or even rejection of fact and truth; and the erosion of our attention spans. Most recently, of course, the sudden emergence of AI has presented both opportunities and challenges that stretch even those of us who cultivate the capacity for adaptation and change!

If you do not do so already, I encourage you to think of your work as a bold act of hope in these times. By cultivating a fuller understanding of what it means to be human, to live in community, and to contemplate the world and the loving God Who brings it into being, we are preparing our young people for whatever will come.

Your leadership is vital to enlivening and deepening the Marianist and Catholic identity of the schools and retreat centers where you serve. I am grateful for your generosity and dedication. Your presence and service in our Marianist institutions are an expression of our shared Marianist mission of, with Mary, bearing Christ to our world today, and of fostering communities of faith wherever we are. Thank you for saying yes to this vocation and ministry!

Be assured of my prayers as you begin a new academic year in your schools and retreat centers. I look forward to seeing you in person in the near future.

With gratitude and prayers,

Bro. Tom Wendorf

Assistant for Education

Office of Sponsorship Newsletter, September 2026

On October 12, we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of the Pillar. In 1797,  during the French Revolution, Father Chaminade chose to go to Saragossa, Spain, to live near and pray at a shrine dedicated to Mary, known as Our Lady of the Pillar. While praying at the Shrine, Chaminade was inspired to establish what we now know as the Family of Mary. Since 1888, Marianists have celebrated this feast to commemorate Blessed Chaminade's Marian inspiration. Today, the Marianist Family includes the Society of Mary (SM, Marianist priests and brothers, founded in 1817), the Daughters of Mary Immaculate (FMI, Marianist Sisters, founded in 1816), and Marianist Lay communities.

Do You Know Your Watershed? 

Tony Garascia, MSJC's Integral Ecology team member and Marianist Family Encounters Project team member, shares his reflection on water, the theme of the Season of Creation 2026: Living Water.

The Integral Ecology Team of the Marianist Social Justice Collaborative has been thinking and talking a lot about water — water safety, quality, and access to clean water.  Just recently, I listened to an episode of The Rights of Rivers hosted by Big Picture Science. The episode is devoted to the question of granting legal rights to rivers just as we grant them to incorporated legal entities. It is worth a listen.

Molly Bentley, the Executive Producer, commented during the program that maybe we should list the watershed where we live in the same way we list our zip code. That got me thinking about how we Marianists often do a “land acknowledgment” where we acknowledge our indebtedness to the native tribes who for thousands of years have tended the land we now occupy. I thought to myself, “maybe we should also to a "watershed acknowledgement” where we acknowledge the watershed that not only drains the lands we occupy but which also supplies us with life giving water.

Another insightful comment during the program was that we carry rivers of water in our bodies. I grew up being taught that we carry in our bodies the same composition of the sea— that the composition of our blood resembles that of the oceans in terms of mineral and salt content. The program made me realize how much our bodies resemble the watersheds that sustain us. From our “blood streams” to the glymphatic and lymphatic systems in our bodies that help flush out toxins in our brain-bodies, we seem to mimic the earth’s own natural rhythms of hydration and flowing and living waters.

So if you get a chance, use a search engine to find the watershed that sustains your community. I put in my zip code and found not only my local sub-watershed (Bowman Creek), but my regional (St. Joseph River watershed) and the Major Drainage Basin of Lake Michigan.

As Marianists, one of our icons is that of Mary at the Foot of the Cross. In John 19:34, the Centurion pierced Jesus in his side when he died, and out flowed “blood and water”—which, for the Church, became a sign of rebirth through the waters of baptism. For the Church, water became a principal sacramental symbol.

But there is more to this symbol of blood and water.  Jesus’ own “water and bloodshed” first encountered the earth, which received life-giving water and blood. Mary and John were there to witness the renewal of creation and the regeneration of earth, air, water, and all living creatures touched by the gift of Jesus.

In our present day, we assume water will always be there for us, yet we know that this life-giving reality cannot be taken for granted. Because of the call to Integral Ecology of Popes Francis and Leo XIV, we are called through our Baptism in "blood and water” to continue to care for the earth and all living creatures.