''Vouchsafe'' is a word from legal documents and prayers of another era. It served to intensify the urgency of the favor being sought. It came to mind when the Florida Supreme Court struck down the states school-voucher system.

After the ruling, I met with each of 62 boys and girls for whom the decision goes beyond political and legal disputes. These issues shouldn't be dealt with without considering what happens to the youngsters who accepted in good faith what the state offered them and their families.

Vouchers assured students from failing schools an opportunity to transfer to other public or private schools. Brother A.C. Cavet, then principal of Archbishop Curley Notre Dame High School in inner-city Miami, had been encouraged by the Archdiocese to consider accepting some voucher students as an expression of solidarity with the families of the area. He opened our school's doors to Opportunity Scholars. They came in large numbers to this small school.

From the outset the venture was a financial challenge. The voucher was several thousand dollars below the real per-pupil costs at our school. Many of the students required remedial help. Enrollment declined. Families from more-affluent areas, not at ease with the new mix of students, transferred their children to other private schools. Stories circulated that we had lowered standards.

Criticism increased, but faculty members who worked daily with these students and delighted in their progress urged the administration to stay the course. The program's second year coincided with the school's 50th anniversary. Founded in 1953 as Notre Dame Academy for Girls and Archbishop Curley High School for Boys, the faculties and student bodies joined in 1981. The school relishes its history as the first high school in Florida to teach black and white students in the same classroom, one of the first schools to admit Pedro Pan students escaping Cuba and now to welcome the Opportunity Scholars.

Cavet made sure that these students would be indistinguishable from the other new and transfer students entering school that fall, even providing school uniforms at no cost. To this day only the principal and the treasurer of the school know for sure who among the student body are Opportunity Scholars.

We do not have the means to make up for students' lost vouchers. But we will find a way -- we will not permit students to truncate their education because of a lack of money. We met with parents and assured them of this. As is the custom at this school, we began with a prayer that concluded: ``Vouchsafe, we beseech you, hear the prayers of your sons and daughters.''

BR. PATRICK SEAN MOFFETT, principal, Archbishop Curley