The teacher asked, "So what are you?" Lucy stood up and replied: "I’m a Catholic." The teacher was a little embarrassed. She asked Lucy why she considered herself a Catholic. Lucy replied: "Well, my mother is a Catholic, my father is a Catholic. So I am a Catholic." The teacher’s face turned red. She said sarcastically: "So if your mother is stupid and your father is stupid, what are you?’’ Lucy replied: "An atheist."

Little Lucy is a person with character. She refused to conform, especially if it would compromise her beliefs. I wonder how many students in Catholic schools are like her. I also wonder how many teachers realize their immense power to build up or destroy the fragile moral sensibility of their students.

When I was in Grade 5, my teacher in Arithmetic was so strict she terrified us with her style of teaching. She was a sharp shooter. Whenever she threw the eraser at any student, the eraser was a bullet that knew its target. Mercifully, she was dismissed after a month. She was replaced by another teacher, Miss Lilia Ranido, who for me, was the epitome of a teacher who knew how to make a positive difference in the lives of her students.

When she became our teacher, Miss Ranido, as we fondly called her, was in her early twenties. We noticed immediately that she was a teacher with a "strong character." By the word "character" I do not mean peculiar, eccentric, aberrant, quaint, bizarre – descriptions that apply to many of our politicians. In Miss Ranido’s case, character meant something unique and distinctive; a very personal quality that left a permanent imprint on whoever she came in contact with. Such imprint bore the marks of what we may term as "spirituality."

Many people equate spirituality with activity. For, after all, is not God’s Spirit the origin of all life and activity? But in a very real sense, spirituality is revealed more in BEING than in doing. What made Miss Ranido different from other teachers whom I knew was this: While all the rest were very active, Miss Ranido was attractive. Sometimes I have the suspicion that one of the reasons why very few students want to become teachers is this: Their own teachers were not attractive enough to witness to the dignity of the teaching profession.

Miss Ranido made a difference in my life because whatever she did bore an imprint, an indelible mark that revealed a vibrant spirituality. She was attractive because she was beautiful. St. Thomas Aquinas described beauty as "the splendor of order." Living well is the key to looking well. If we live a life that is in order, we cannot but be beautiful and attractive human beings. I was told that she later became a lay missionary to Africa. She certainly gave credence to what Pope Paul VI said in 1974 about teachers: "Modern man listens more readily to witnesses than to teachers, and if he listens to teachers, it is because they are witnesses."

We need people like Little Lucy and Miss Ranido whose lives can leave a positive imprint on our tired minds and weary hearts. We need people who can inspire us to become better persons, to remind us about the infinite possibilities of human goodness, to remind us of the presence of the Divine in each of us.