Despite the number of years it’s been hanging on the corkboard, the prayer card shows surprisingly little wear. Even with slightly frayed edges and pin holes scattered over the surface, it’s still looking good after almost three decades. The tan background of swirling ivy and the reddish floral border, not to mention the words themselves, are as familiar to me as anything else in the room. I’ve read it, reread it and thumb-tacked it back up again, in moments of both joy and frustration, each time praying that God would grant me the wisdom, truth, vision and love written on this handheld card, one whose title is simply “Teacher’s Prayer.”
Though this short verse is not attributed to a priest or a saint, I never doubted its authenticity, given to me by Sister Donna Marie, who taught my seventh grade Confirmation prep class. When she learned that I, too, was becoming a teacher, she offered, along with the card, to provide a recommendation or classroom materials, but all I needed were her blessings. They came through occasional correspondence and through that little card, which remains with me today.
When the profession led me to a public school, I wondered if “Teacher’s Prayer” would have to be tucked away in my wallet instead of secured on the intended bulletin board. Though this was not a Catholic school, wouldn’t anyone want a teacher to shape their mind and to teach with truth, I wondered, taking a risk and thumbtacking it up for the first time. I tried to do just that as I moved from the middle school to the high school, Room 18 to 111 and finally Room 106. It is here that I saw—12 years ago—the power of this “Teacher’s Prayer.”
Sister Donna Marie’s gift has affected not just me but at least one confused freshman as well, she who struggled with the angst of adolescence and searched for solace in writing and prayer as I did so many years before. Together, we’d talk about literature at lunchtime when she refused to enter the dreaded cafeteria. Accompanied by a friend, she’d come after school to finish homework. With guidance and time and surely the intercession of the Almighty, she persevered through high school, never once mentioning the “Teacher’s Prayer”—until the day before graduation. It was then she said how often she had read it while in my classroom, even though it was tacked beyond the view of most students. It enabled her to persevere, empowered her to attain confidence and even encouraged her to become a teacher herself, she said, not unlike what Sister Donna Marie did for me, long before “Teacher’s Prayer” ever fell into my hands.
This young woman, now a 28-year-old English teacher in Georgia, met me one afternoon when my family and I vacationed in Savannah this summer. She’s one of those I’ve kept up with over the years, one who texts or emails every once in a while, a student turned colleague turned friend. We visited bookstores, sipped iced coffees, talked of former classmates and long retired teachers and ducked into the Basilica of St. John the Baptist, where she’ll be married next spring, as sudden Southern showers tried to drench us. Then, earlier this month, she emailed me an essay we had talked about, and I sent her a color photocopy of “Teacher’s Prayer.” Would she hang it near her desk as I had done? Would it comfort a confused freshman in her room, looking for encouragement or inspire a future teacher, hoping to be empowered?
The answer came in a text from her one evening: “I still love that prayer, and it’s been such a tough week. Thank you, feels like perfect timing.”
Maybe it will be tacked on her board for 30 years, too.
