A homeschool mother

Years of guiding with love and grace

By Kimberly Smith |  The Catholic Compass  |  July/August 2022

In May 2022, Santiago, “Santi,” the youngest of Mario and Cathy Nunez’s seven children, completed his K-8 homeschool education. As is a family tradition, he recently entered the brick-and-mortar classroom for the first time. This marks the first year in more than 20 that Cathy won’t bear the title “teacher.” While becoming a high school freshman is a new beginning for Santi, the Nunez family all agreed their mom, wife and lifelong educator is the true cause for celebration. 

This past spring, dozens of Sacred Heart Home Educators 
(SHHE) families in Tallahassee attended a special Mass at Good Shepherd Parish to recognize Cathy for her service and dedication to homeschooling. Cathy is one of five founders of the local co-op learning group, which began in 1998. 

“There are certain people who walk so closely with the Lord that you feel the Holy Spirit when you are near them,” said Kelly Bozanik, who attended the Mass. “Cathy possesses a depth of wisdom and strength of character that has helped me through difficult seasons. I feel blessed to be called her friend.”

When Cathy considered home-schooling her children, she didn’t know what to expect. “Back then, homeschooling was the blind leading the blind. There were very few curriculums to choose from and no internet to research them,” she said. “But something captivated me.”

Grammar and history, especially using historical fiction and geography, are among Cathy’s favorite subjects to teach. Part of her mission in teaching was to help each child pair a spiritual text with a book they were reading (in their youth, they often turned to saint stories). She explained that this cultivated within them resilience and a reverence strikingly similar to the period of Christendom described in “Sharing the Gift,” the first pastoral letter Bishop Wack released last year.

“Cathy shows us how to get through hard things just by doing them. She is candid about her limitations but is also never weary of offering herself. I hear all the time from people who feel blessed by the way she can meet them wherever they are. Seeing the spirit in which she does things, I can relate and aspire to that generosity,” SHHE mom Carrie Daunt said.

When called, The Nunez family agreed to live out their faith through homeschooling for one year. When it worked, they committed to another, and so on. Two decades later, this plan — to prayerfully take it one year at a time — is one the couple cherishes. 

“Something Mario said the other night spoke to my heart,” said Cathy. “[Our children] have grown up thinking it’s normal to get together to pray with their friends. A great peace came over us in that reflection. Homeschooling with a Catholic foundation resulted in so much more than academic preparedness and gratitude.”

Cathy has balanced a career as a private practice counselor and teacher. She is also recognized in the community for her public service efforts. All seven children have followed in her footsteps, by volunteering at Open Door Women's Clinic and their involvement in missionary outreach, to name a few.  

About Sacred Heart Home Educators
 The Sacred Heart Home Educators is an association of Catholic families in the Tallahassee area whose central commitment is the formation of children in every dimension of life, within the fullness of the Roman Catholic tradition. The cooperative organization is meant to foster educational excellence in a community of families bound together by charity; founded on a faith that is solidly in communion with the magisterial authority of the Catholic Church; united in mind and heart with the Holy Father and local bishop; and organically linked to the life of respective parishes. The foundation of this cooperative educational work is the belief that God has entrusted to parents the primary responsibility for forming children in body, mind and spirit. That work is best carried out in a communion of families that are each one a domestic Church. 

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