I had to take a long look at this remarkable image, one of Maria’s “I Am Enough” posters hanging in the brand new Bishop Maginn High School music room.

Like many born Catholics, Maria left organized religion behind her, although she is one of the most deeply spiritual people I know. The church was not a welcoming or comfortable place for her.

Yet this high school in the middle of Albany is a welcoming place, for her, for me, and for her art. It was an important moment for Maria, and it was certainly important to me.

Maria sells these posters online on her Etsy Studio, and people from all over the country have bought them, recognizing this important message of empowerment for women, who still have so many battles to fight.

Catholic schools like Bishop Maginn have their own battles to fight, they had a rough time of it, from changing  demographics to the most awful Church scandals imaginable to a weakening financial and support structure. They used to be rich and powerful schools, no more.

The might Catholic Church is on its knees.

The irony is that these struggles are forcing many Catholic institutions to go back to basics and remember what Jesus Christ was all about. It is no secret, he is about comforting the needy and the vulnerable. That’s what Bishop Maginn is about, and to some degree, that’s what Maria and I are about.

People are talking about the school once more, there is a focus and an energy there. I feel it every time I come in.

This embattled school is making its way back by helping the poorest students, the refugees and some of the poor native children in the city. The school is a haven for children who, like the school itself,  are fighting for their survival.

Maria’s poster would probably never have made it to a Catholic Church High School schoolroom wall a few years ago. But it fits today, the school teaches its students that they are enough, and it was stirring to see how many of them wanted to  have a poster and trace and draw one of their own.

They got the message, it was their message, no matter where they came from.

Maria was startled and moved by this, she has always kept  her distance from organized religion, and so have I. But the teachings of Jesus Christ have always inspired me. I loved seeing that cross and that poster on top of each other.

For me – I can’t speak for Maria – there is a point where faith and empathy connect to  real life. I don’t have to be a saint to be spiritual, or be religious in anyone else’s way. I feel the spirit of my faith in this school, it is something of a sacred space for me.

I Am Enough. I said it a million times when I was going to pieces.

I’ve often written about my search for the people I call the “good Christians,” the original ones, the followers of a leader who said sanctity came from helping the poor and the sick. I wonder where they are today, and I hear from them every day, online, in my e-mail, and my post office box.

It seems they are enough.

I also found some of those blessed people at Bishop Maginn. They are enough. You can read what Maria wrote about it here. She was quite shocked to see that poster on the wall underneath that cross.

She is enough, for sure.