Our job as Catholic educators is to draw the souls we teach into the Church, into her freedom, into His will. If we can begin to do that, God will change the world. We tend to frame the struggle between virtue and sin in slightly different words today, but the reality is exactly the same. When I was confirmed, the bishop gave me a light slap on the cheek to remind me of the persecution that might come because of my faith. But I think it's time to reclaim the truth at the heart of those words.
Spiritual warfare is real.
We are soldiers of Christ, and we are engaged in a war for the soul of the world with spiritual enemies who hate the human person and all of God's creation. The cost of that war is the blood of martyrs, and the history of this century is written in it. That's what I mean by missionary realism. If you teach the truth, brothers and sisters, you are the friend of God. And if you are the friend of God, you are the enemy of those who revile Him.