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November 6, 2009 Keynote speaker Reverend Mike Dechant OMI, told Saskatchewan Catholic School Board Association delegates meeting here November 6-8 to make Catholic education dynamic. “Catholic education is building the Kingdom of God,” he told the more than 75 delegates at the annual convention. The Kingdom of God is not something in the future, it is now, he said, living in the moment. Dechant is Director of Oblate Youth Ministries in Edmonton. Dechant used humour, a prepared outline of his talk, a couple of inspirational videos and a dynamic presentation to get across his message; the importance of Catholic education. He acknowledged that many students in Catholic schools are not Catholic and he said one of the roles of Catholic education is helping those students “to live their faith; To journey in the fullness of God; To consciously celebrate the faith of others.” The school should have an atmosphere of hospitality, he said, in an atmosphere of pluralism. “If you want to meet God, service the others, especially the poor,” and he urged delegates to bring the school to the community. “The energy of the school will energize the community.” His second talk of the morning focused on Regaining our Spiritual Equilibrium and he asked the group to spend a few minutes discussing two questions; what is the most important message the Catholic education system needs to be saying to the world today? And, how do we make this message incarnate in our school system? He showed a clip from the movie Ghandi, showing the former Indian leader on his death bed. A Hindu man barged into the room and said he was doomed to hell because he had killed a Muslim boy in retaliation for Muslims killing his six-year-old son. Ghandi told him he had a way out of hell for the man; find a six-year-old Muslim boy in need of help, and raise him as a Muslim. Dechant told the group Catholics have always had the attitude of theirs was the only route to heaven and he then quoted from the Koran; God made us different so we can get to know one another. “We regain our Spiritual Equilibrium,” said Dechant, “by espousing the Spirituality of Jesus. He was guided by love.” Some tables contained plastic building blocks with words pasted on them. He called up, in a specific order, someone from each table to read a prayer attached to that word and place the block in a specific order on an empty table. When the exercise was complete, a cross was formed with the words, Life, Love, Faith, as the foundation. The convention elected Joe Niezgoda of Yorkton as president and Tom Fortosky of Saskatoon as Voce President. Frank Flegel 
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