Glad to Be in Plaid

 Catholic Schools Week Reflection, February 6, 2019  

During Catholic Schools Week last week, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed – Facebook, if you aren’t familiar with it, is like SnapChat but for old people—anyway, I was scrolling, and I saw two posts appropriate for today.  The first was from one of our Catholic grade schools in Louisville.  It had two girls in their uniforms holding a sign that read, “So Glad to Be in Plaid.” 

The second was a very appropriate meme for our snowy week.  It read, “Some of y’all never endured an entire winter in a plaid Catholic school skirt and it shows.” 

Today, many of you are wearing sweat shirts from your grade schools.  If you went to a Catholic grade school, maybe you are remembering the plaid jumpers and skirts that you wore for many years before coming to Mercy Academy. 

Your grade school plaid skirt, and your Mercy plaid immediately identify you as a Catholic school student.  You are part of several generations of Mercy women dressed in plaid, similar to you.  The mannequins in the atrium remind us visually of that long history, with some variations in plaid. So, let us take a closer look at this emblem of Mercy that you wear every day. 

Mercy’s Plaid skirt comes from the Schoolbelles uniform company.  It’s described as a “Two Kick Pleated Skirt” and is a blend of 65% polyester and 35% cotton. Hopefully, you have washed it sometime this school year—it may well have more blended into it, if not.  The skirt retails for $49.95.  The particular blue and white plaid design is called Plaid-128, and is one of more than 80 different design options in Schoolbelles’ catalogue. 

The catalogue correctly notes that, “School identity and school colors go hand in hand.” Plaid-#128 weaves blue, white, and black in a distinctive tartan similar to a Scottish kilt.  It is a pattern that incorporates our school colors of blue and white, which also happen to be the colors of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is Our Lady of Mercy.  It is a design that immediately identifies you not just a student of a Catholic school, but a woman of Mercy. 

So, why be glad to be in plaid?  Why take a week to celebrate Catholic schools?    As I was thinking about these questions for this reflection, a news story caught my attention.  There was a trending hashtag on Twitter last week called “Expose Christian Schools.” It was intended to solicit really awful stories about graduates’ experiences in Christian schools to demonstrate that they are terrible places.  As it turns out the hashtag backfired.  Many of the tweets about Christian schools, and especially Catholic schools, exposed not cruelty and dark secrets, but compassion, community, and top-notch education.  I want to read of few of them to you which I think will sound familiar to you—they could describe us. 

"I went to Catholic school from pre-K to 12th grade. I wouldn't change a thing. I learned in a loving environment. My schools were amazing and each day was a fun lesson. The Bible and my faith were integral to my education, but so was being a strong woman and a loving person."

Another wrote, "My parents sacrificed and scrimped and saved to send me to Christian school for the entirety of my education. I was so blessed by my teachers, classmates, and community. I am forever thankful for my parents commitment to Christian education."

“I am an alumnus of the Diocese of Covington school system in Kentucky. One time at Bishop Brossart High School, I said some things that were derogatory toward the L.G.B.T.Q. community. I really didn’t mean what I said, yet I was wrong and paid the price. I ended up getting detention and was scolded for the way I acted. I learned a valuable lesson for the first time that your words hold meaning no matter if you meant them or not. Bishop Brossart taught me how to respect others and how to be open to seeing different viewpoints. While we are not all perfect human beings, with the right guidance and discipline, we can be transformed into good people.” 

Let us celebrate our identity as a Catholic school this week.  As a school of Mercy where we learn act mercifully, to have mercy on each other, to accept the mercy of our sisters, and to be Mercy. 

Let us be a community that does the works of mercy, those actions that are poignantly placed on the stained glass windows of our chapel: feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and burying the dead. 

When we do these things we will live in a manner worthy of the call that we have received, as St Paul wrote in the 2^nd reading.  We will, as Jesus said, “learn from me … and you will find rest.”