The Spirit blows where it will

Refer to Saint Joseph's Prep Main Page for President's Blog

2012-01-31T17:23:00.002-05:00

Those of you looking for more entries, please check the President's Message site on the web page for Saint Joseph's Prep in Philadelphia.

It's more appropriate for me to use that site for entries that reference the school. Some personal items are posted there as well.

Thank you

George W. Bur, S.J.

Gesu Spirit Medal

2011-05-07T10:08:00.004-05:00

Words of Gratitude on the occasion of the Gesu Spirit Medal,
May 2, 2011 at the Constitution Center

Thank you, Byron! My gratitude first to those at Gesu who invited me to share this honor not only with Chris Beck but also with Mark Solomon, Ralph Saul, Al and Aline Martinelli, Sue and Bill Shea, John DiIulio and Jay Sherrerd. Thank you, Chris. You made the work of the first ten years of the Gesu independent school a prelude, a kind of seed that fully blossomed in the amazing physical and programmatic additions of the last eight.

I thank the people of what was the Gesu parish whom I first met 26 years ago and who encouraged me and the Jesuits and the Sisters to keep Gesu School alive as a pillar of strength for neighborhood children regardless of what might happen to the parish. Many of those men and women, including Byron McCook are here tonight. They bore the heat of the day, and because of their vision and strength, for a long time into the future children from the Gesu neighborhood can walk happily to Gesu School.

I thank my siblings Eileen, Jeanne, Tony and Mary, and my in-laws Peggy and Frank, for their constant support not only for the children of Gesu but for me personally over a far longer period of time. And my nieces and nephews who took time away from their own children and their other obligations to enjoy tonight’s program.

I thank the Jesuits and the Sisters who went before us at Gesu. Without 125 years of the Gesu Church and the School before 1993 there would be no independent Gesu Catholic School.
I thank a Gesu graduate who joined Byron McCook and me when we first started a development program for the school in 1988: Jim Higgins from the Gesu class of 1945. Thank you, Jim, for your marathon run with us.

I thank my brother Jesuits, present housemates on 18th St., Father Neil especially with whom I served at Gesu for 14 years. He knew my weaknesses from day one and stepped up to fill in for me when necessary.

I thank Sister Ellen and Sister Pat and all of the IHM Sisters who have an uncanny understanding of children and their needs. They and the Gesu faculty and staff are amazing. How many years, Shirley Bright? How many years, Dolores John? They are the chief reason why young boys and girls from Gesu are able to take on confidently the challenges of high school.

In his absence, (I miss him but regretfully he had an unavoidable obligation this evening), I thank my schoolmate and good friend, Win Churchill, for his personal support and for his cheerfully persistent efforts over the past 21 years to place the success of the children of Gesu School before a steadily increasing group of friends. Without him and his many friends the Gesu School would be, if anything at all, a weak image of itself.

I thank Frank and Keith Pension and Bill and Elise Rouse. I thank all of you gathered this evening around a vision of a world where all children have an opportunity to be healthy and to grow and succeed so that their gifts, too, can make a better world.

Finally I thank the children of Gesu and their parents and caregivers who are striving to be the best that they can be and who teach us, friends, parents, teachers, board members, all to believe in our best selves. There is no better world than one in which we show our best selves to one another.

And if I have saved the thanks for God to last, it is because the living God is not only Other but also present in all of us in this room. We give thanks for that divine presence and we count on it as we continue to gather around this wonderful school and its children.

2011-04-22T07:32:00.004-05:00

HOLY THURSDAY LITURGY AT MEDICAL MISSIONS APRIL 21, 2011

This evening we celebrate Jesus sharing his body and blood in the Passover meal of bread and wine with his closest friends. “This is my body; this is my blood.” This evening we celebrate Jesus washing the feet of the disciples as they celebrate the Passover. “Jesus, wash me and not only just my feet but my head and my hands as well.” We focus our attention in this supper room on these images of Christ’s love for us as a way of fostering the faith which has kept these images alive. I suggest them as consoling images. Without these images the atmosphere of betrayal, of indecision and of cover-up in that supper room threatens to give the lie to the entire Christian enterprise.

It is, I suggest, this same kind of atmosphere, that of betrayal, indecision and cover-up, which envelops our local church during this 2011 season of Lent and Easter. The sexual abuse of minors by clerics and the lack of honest disclosure of all the facts leave many of us Catholics feeling angry and dispirited. The local diocesan clergy are not alone as the cause this crisis. Nationwide religious orders like the Jesuits are deeply negligent. We failed to screen and form our members properly. We responded to reports of abuse by protecting the abusers and with little understanding of the abused.

To whom do we go? We hesitate to give church leaders our trust. In this angry and dispirited time I suggest that we remember that Jesus himself understands betrayal. The supper room’s images of nourishment and humble kindness also include other images. There is one of Jesus’ disciples whom he invited to follow him, one whom he entrusted with leadership and responsibility. This man, Judas, betrayed him. None of the other chosen disciples, though they clearly knew the danger in which Jesus found himself, paid any attention to the possibility of betrayal. One disciple, we think it John, even knows the identity of the betrayer. They let betrayal happen under their noses. And then the chosen leader of the group, Peter, engineered his own personal cover-up and denied that he even knew Jesus.

Through all this Jesus himself continues to trust in the God whom he calls his Father.
In seeking how to handle betrayal by those whom we trusted, we remember other Christians in other circumstances who suffered under the sinfulness of the Church. Our African-American brothers and sisters suffered the sin of slavery, a slavery not just condoned by the Church. Organizations in the Church held slaves as well.

We remember the Jews persecuted by Christians especially in European pogroms.

We remember the poor in some of the countries of Latin America where Bishops stayed silent while their political leaders murdered innocent people, a silence to protect the position of the Church in civil society.

We remember especially the women and children whose voices went unheard in all these circumstances.

The slaves, the Jews, the murdered innocents! The legacies from these sufferings continue to poison the world in which we now live. These legacies allow people to speak rationally when they say they want no part in a Church that has such a history.

No hero emerges to accompany Jesus on the evening of the Last Supper. The isolation of the Jesus in his suffering must be complete. In later times of crisis the Church is saved by saints who stand out and imitate the Lord Jesus in their proclamation of the gospel of human dignity: people like Oscar Romero, Ita Ford, Peter Claver, Pierre Toussaint, Franz Jagerstatter and his wife and children, the men and women engaged in the work of reconciliation in Rwanda. And generally, too, in the light of their common suffering some slaves maintained their spirits by singing the songs of the Israelites on their journey from the slavery of Egypt. Some suffering Jews remembered their history, such events as the tears of Babylon and the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Today, in Latin America people remember the suffering of the innocent as united with the torture and death of Jesus.

How difficult for us today to see the saints that are emerging from this current crisis. But saints will emerge from among those who have suffered. Saints will emerge from among those who foster reconciliation. Saints will emerge from among those who tell their stories and help us create safe environments for our children. This request is so little, so presumed, and yet for some children and teenagers it is the wholeness of life.

But back to this evening:
Aside from the Lord Jesus little or no promise graced the supper room whose images we now so reverence. Only a fool would have predicted that these followers of Jesus would be seeds for a Church. May Jesus and the grace of his Father continue to use our weakness for the divine glory.

This I Believe , an excerpt from the WHYY series

2011-04-17T09:13:00.003-05:00

WHYY-FM has a series called “This I Believe.” Prominent people in the listening area have recorded short essays to illustrate the statement. This contribution by Rabbi Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer struck me as the essence of what I believe about the human person. I would elaborate but this is always my picture of the people that come into my life. Without this basic beginning of belief, I have no place to go:

“When I was a child in the late 1950's, before I was able to read, there was a book in my home called The Family of Man, a compilation of photographs that had recently been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The collection was, as I found out later, a "photo-biography of the human race." I recall poring over that book during long evenings. I marveled over the fact that two eyes, a nose and a mouth could take on such variety. These pictures were wondrous, but the awe they evoked was not entirely comfortable. I struggled to reconcile the deep sense of kinship I felt with those faces with the estrangement of being a lonely child.

The conundrum of separateness and connection was bewildering, a bit uncanny. I had a voracious thirst to learn what other people did with their deepest fears and hopes: with their solitude, their sense of connection, their awe.

My family was not big on spiritual practice. Study, however, was a sacred endeavor. So, as soon as I could choose my own books, I began reading about the religions of the world. When I was about 15, I learned something that changed my life. It happened, of all places, -- in synagogue school. We were exploring a passage from the Mishnah, a Jewish law code from the year 200. At one point, it says, 'An earthly king stamps his image on a coin and they all look the same. But the King of Kings, God, puts His image on every human being, and every one is different.'

That felt exactly right: I was a unique coin, but stamped from the very same "image" as every other. Until that moment, I had not known if I believed in God. But that text made sense to me. No person is more holy than any other. This messy reality with all its wild diversity was actually also a unity, a sacred oneness.

Now I work in a rabbinical college, creating programs that prepare students for a world of religious diversity. I am lucky enough to get to spend every day honoring my core belief. I believe that no matter who you are--- a bearded orthodox rabbi or a hijab- wearing Muslim woman --- you are, simply by virtue of being human, the spittin' image of the one and only God.

]My work is to bring together people whose looks, experiences and beliefs are different, people who first encounter each other as strangers, perhaps even foes, and leave having seen the holy in each other's faces. It doesn't always happen. Truth is, sometimes it is hard for me to see the image of God, even in people close to me. This is not such an easy belief to maintain. But I know it is worth trying.”

2011-02-05T16:09:00.001-05:00

John B. Kelly, Olympic Singles Champion, 1920, scans the frozen Schuykill, January 23, 2011

The Beatitudes Matthew 5

2011-01-31T06:42:00.004-05:00

The Pennypack near Fox Chase.

The Altar at the Medical Missions Convent

Matthew 5 The Beatitudes Sunday, January 30, 2011

We find all we need to know about ethical behavior in the Ten Commandments. We find all we need to know about Christian prayer in the Our Father. In today’s reading we find all we need to know about the promises that God brings to us in Christ Jesus. The first point: the promises in the beatitudes, these promises of happiness and consolation, are made to the humanity of Jesus. Jesus suffers to bring about these promises but one can say that God so relates to Jesus’ human spirit as to fill it with promised consolations. It is this Jesus that attracted the disciples and the great crowds that followed him.

Blessed, or “happy” as some faithful translations read, are the poor, the meek, those who mourn and those who show mercy. Blessed, too, are the peacemakers, those who thirst for justice, those whose hearts are pure and those who take insults in the name of Jesus. These promises are not merely a poetic turn of speech, not merely rhetoric for an auspicious occasion but they pour out of Jesus own heart and signify both his constant demeanor and his consoled frame of mind.

Let me say something about the nature of God in relation to the beatitudes and then read and comment on a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship.

First we step behind the reality of Jesus: The descriptors in the beatitudes tell us about the nature of God as well as any words in the scriptures. God, for example, is poor in the sense that there is no category of creation whose absence can make God poorer or whose presence can make God richer. God shows us the divine meekness and mercy, mourns with us when we test our freedom to our sorrow; God makes peace, desires justice, is pure of heart and is the first to hear the insults directed to the Person of Christ, the insults that deny Christ and that proclaim the death of God.

How is it possible for us to be like God and to live as Jesus lived in constant touch with the happiness of God? Dietrich Bonhoeffer confidently writes in The Cost of Discipleship the key to the nature of the beatitudes:

“[Jesus calls] the disciples blessed, not because of the privation or the renunciation they have made, for these are not blessed in themselves. Only the call and the promise, for the sake of which the disciples are made to suffer poverty and renunciation, can justify the beatitudes [can justify the state of happiness]. Sometimes Jesus speaks of privation [and the like] as if they implied particular virtues in his disciples, but that is neither here nor there. …Privation [and the like] all have the same ground—the call and the promise of Jesus.”

We value the comforts of the world: our health, our worldly reputation, our lives, our control over circumstance, an independence to make up our own minds about likes and dislikes. But to become disciples, to hear the call engages us in the common enterprise under the leadership of Jesus. We cling less to our worldly opinions; we worry less about our health; we care less about our worldly reputation; we ease our control. We place practical decisions in the hands of God.

Jesus himself experiences the happiness of this way of life and as the first born of all creation he offers it to us. We hear the call to discipleship and then experience the result of our call; it is the experience of Jesus: privation and renunciation. To the surprise of those who answer the call Jesus shares his consolation promising to us who have become his friends: “Blessed are you.”
God does not require most of us to live in such a crisis as the one that enveloped Bonhoeffer for the last decade of his life. God called him to be meek and a peacemaker, to thirst for justice and to mourn the collapse of Christianity under the Nazis.

He criticized publicly not only Hitler’s ideology and war machine but also his fellow Christians who denied themselves in their eagerness to cling to what little influence they retained in the era of Hitler. But Bonhoeffer prayed the Beatitudes finding that God would continue to console and be faithful to him. It is a testament to Bonhoeffer’s great character that even Hitler could not bring him to a legitimate trial and only in a gesture of vengeful weakness during the very last days of the war did Hitler order him executed. God uses the weak to shame the strong.

Our own crises pale in comparison to the crisis of Christianity in Hitler’s Germany but, have no doubt, the call and the promise of discipleship are for us in our own day-to-day lives. Many of us are restless in our search for the way of discipleship. God and the Lord Jesus are even more restless in their desire for our happiness. Blessed are those of us who have ears to hear.

Prep Senior reflects on service trip to the DR

2010-12-31T12:52:00.002-05:00

Will Bankhead, Prep senior, made this presentation at the Senior Mother-Son Mass in December. He relates his experience as a member of a Prep service trip for the purpose of building houses in a rural area of the Dominican Republic.

Hello, my name is William Bankhead. I’m a senior here at the Prep and I’m here this morning to talk to you about one of the most important experiences of my life, my 10 days in the Dominican Republic this past summer.
When I was asked to speak here today, my first worry was at what point in my story I should begin. Well like many great movies and books, I’ll start at the end. What I read now is an excerpt from an e-mail I sent Ligia Bailand on June 21, four days after I returned from the DR, I wrote:
“It’s nice having all of those swell comforts of home back, but there IS something missing. If there is one lesson that I can take from this, it's that despite how much we all missed toilet seats and hot showers, nothing gave me the kind of satisfaction as my days in the DR. No food ever tasted as good as our meals after work; no sleep ever felt as good as our sleep after a hard day's work. I envy you and your current students because you still have those days ahead of you.”

With that in mind, let’s go back to the beginning. It all started when the wheels touched the tarmac at the Santo Domingo Airport. With me were close friends, kids I didn’t know, the head of the English Department and an old Jesuit. Most of us didn’t know what to expect, and minutes after landing, we piled into a large van and started out on a six hour drive to the retreat center. As we drove, the cities got poorer, the conditions rougher. Buildings went from large facilities to tenements to shanties, and eventually there were no buildings at all, and we all faced the beauty of the DR, the sprawling farms, the cascading mountains in the distance, and the endless horizon. It was like this for hours, and suddenly we arrived at the retreat center… where the electrical power promptly went out. Surprisingly enough none of us had a problem with this, we were all just so happy to be safe, with each other, and in close proximity to food and a bed. This was truly our calm before the storm.

The next day, it was out the frying pan, and into the fire, we awoke at sunrise and went down the mountain to begin our first day of work. There was no time for tutorials or learning curves; it was time to start pouring foundations and it was essential that all hands were on deck, willing and able. Work was back breaking, but satisfying. When things seemed bleak, or hands got tired, the realization that what we were doing made a difference was enough to help us push forward. At the end of the first day, the reality of our situation sank in. Chuck Palahniuk said in the preface of his book Fight Club, “Being tired isn’t the same as being rich, but often it’s just as nice.” On the way back at the end of each day, we’d look at ourselves and each other and see the dirt, concrete, and mud caked on our bodies. All we could do was smile and laugh. We were welcomed home by cold showers, and hot coffee. And to us, this was the lap of luxury. For the first four nights, we lacked electricity save that of flashlights. We went to bed when it got dark and woke up when the sun came up.

Around the fifth day, while laying cinder blocks, Ligia told us to drop our tools and follow her; she would take us on a tour of El Manguito. During this walk, the kids followed us, as they did everywhere during the entirety of our stay. At one stop, one nine-year-old boy following us at the time leaned against a motorcycle that had just pulled up. Little did he or any of us know, the exhaust pipe where he chose to rest his leg was still red-hot. When Ms. Bailand went to examine his leg, the burned skin was a sickly pink-white color, the smell haunting, the burn contrasting tragically against his brown skin. It was two days later that we found out this kid’s leg had gone unattended to in our absence; no one cared enough to take this kid to a hospital, or even wrap up the leg. The burn was becoming infected and had Ms. Bailand not given our driver $50 and told him to take the kid to the hospital, I doubt the child would still have that leg.

It was on the sixth day, Ligia took us to see a waterfall and the local beaches, to enjoy the paradise that is the DR. It’s this day however that rings as the most striking in my mind. From that day, the Dominican Republic was a terrible beauty. The entire country, beautiful enough to be a resort, but simultaneously stricken with poverty.

I’m not standing in front of you this morning to tell you that all the money in your wallet will solve all of our problems; all of their problems; it won’t plug up the wounds, cover the scars, or erase their history. But each dollar more we have is another vat full of concrete; another truck load of wood; more sheets of roofing; another entire house or two, or three; another DR trip all together. On July 11, the last day of the final DR trip, 10 more houses stood than at the beginning of the summer.

On the wall in my English class reads a quote, “At the end of my life, I’d like to think that I won’t be remembered for the size of my house, or the car I drove, or the number of toys I had. But by the things I left behind. The people I touched, and the difference I made.” Thank you.

2010-11-11T17:01:00.006-05:00

The "north rose window" at St. John the Evangelist in Morrisville.

A dynamic and explosive universe!

The north rose window at the Cathedral in Chartres.

An ordered, contained universe!

Feast of the Immaculate Conception December 2010

Five hundred years ago when Ignatius of Loyola was a teenager (if they had teenagers then!), the Blessed Mother held a position of great honor in the popular European imagination. In tribute and devotion to her, cities all over Europe had constructed and were still at work on the great cathedrals. These public works projects in every major city created community energy and developed the talents and skills of all kinds of people from stone masons to architects to glass makers to those who worked in tapestry.

The great spaces of the cathedrals embodied the very place where the virgin gave birth to Jesus and provided the security, the peace and the promise that sustained and comforted the faithful.

This effort at creating these beautiful tributes was in reaction to the anxieties that beset these communities often visited by devastating plagues, by wars that resulted in pillage and mayhem and by the usual uncertainties about crops and livestock. Our Lady was accessible both in the community effort to create the Cathedral and in her presence as symbolized by its central place in the community. Our Lady provided her personal guarantee of stability and confidence.

Here in Philadelphia we are no longer subject to plagues that we do not understand, though for a short time HIV wore that mantel. We do not have wars, though we do have a living memory of civil unrest. We are not worried about what we will eat today or in the years ahead. We have lingering anxieties, of course, about the safety of family and friends just as people did five hundred years ago.

But we do have a new anxiety, unimagined by Ignatius and his peers. They imagined the universe, then, as contained and ordered. Today our science tells us that the universe is dynamic and explosive. The number of stars is unimaginable and the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in this universe that we struggle to measure is almost certain. Our anxiety today is about our place on this tiny, fragile speck of earth sustained by a sun that will one day die.

In this contemporary context we need Our Lady just as much if not more than the Europeans of five hundred years ago. She comforts us in the vastness of creation by her witness. Willingly she bears the first born of all creation, Jesus. God in the Lord Jesus, with some power inaccessible to us, rules with divine love over all that we know and do not know in our physical world. But Our Lady remains as accessible to us as our own mothers and gives us confidence by her presence. Just as she did among the disciples in the anxious time after the calamity of the crucifixion, she now offers a posture of comfort. She can see us through our calamities as well.

In approaching Mary it helps us to be humble like the young Mexican couples in Mexico City who bring their newborns, sometimes so young that their skin is still wrinkled and red, to the Virgin of Guadalupe, to present them to her for her blessing and protection. In any joy or sorrow, but especially to ward off useless anxieties, we go to Our Lady and let her love of her son help us to be in love with his changing world with all its uncertainties.

2010-11-06T15:57:00.002-05:00

After forty years and literally hundreds of soccor victories as head coach of Prep soccer, Jim Murray '59 (my classmate) this year coached a team to the Catholic League Soccer Championship for the first time. Senior Pat Kardish scored the two goals in a 2-1 victory over Archbishop Wood. Pat told the press that he and his classmates made a promise as freshmen three years ago to one day win the title for Coach Murray.

2010-10-22T16:12:00.003-05:00

Just yesterday a slight-built boy is walking along the corridor nearly dragging his school bag with one arm. His other arm is in a cotton sling. I assume his collar bone is damaged.

"How did you do that?" I inquired.

Rugby

Will you go back to playing rugby as soon as you heal?

My mother has other ideas!

Well, you need to stay on good terms with your mother.

Mmm.

I am sure that you have many other talents.

I like to think so!

2010-10-22T15:59:00.006-05:00

Every now and then one takes a picture that needs no caption and can stand entirely on its own!

2010-10-22T15:50:00.003-05:00

The smiling guy in the middle is Tom Burgoyne, the Phillie Phanatic, out of costume. His mother is with him. He spoke at the Mother-Son Communion Breakfast. He had a dozen pratfall stories to tell including the one about his first interview.

When the Phillies decided that they wanted a mascot they placed an ad for a mascot in the Inquirer. Whether or not Tom realized that the employer was the Phillies, he sent his resume to the post office box listed. On his resume, of course, was the fact that he had been the Hawk at the Prep.

So the Phillies called him to an interview. Tom talked about his growing confidence during the interview when he was asked to dance and to make funny noises. "Usually," he said, "at interviews the employer is trying to eliminate the idiots. But in this case an idiot was what they wanted and I knew I had a chance."

2010-09-07T15:06:00.002-05:00

Gabriel (Gabe) Infante, Prep football coach, awards the victory pigskin to quarterback Skyler Mornhinweg after the Prep team beats public school powerhouse George Washington in its season opener, 36-25.

2010-09-05T11:58:00.008-05:00

I am sorry to be absent from the blog for the balance of the summer. The pictures are of Bar Harbor taken from Cadillac Mountain and of some of our class of 2014 being welcomed by the class of 2011. It was a great summer for me, out of the city for a number of reasons:

June trip to Jesuit Secondary Education Association Colloquium at Santa Clara University. I was with a dozen faculty and staff members from SJP and we joined over 400 participants from over 40 Jesuit high schools in North America

July trip to Maine with three sisters and brother in law. We spent time on a beach, fished for mackerel that obliged us as usual by jumping on to our hooks, made a collection of beach glass, visited Acadia National Park, watched movies, steamed lobsters and hosted our Maine friends, Peter and Kathy Watko and their sons, Brian and Pete.

August trip to Germantown Philadelphia with seven of our seniors on a service trip to the Vincentian ministries in that part of the city. Terrific young men that confirm the mission of the Prep.

August trips to Avalon and Margate for Masses with Prep grads and friends.

August trip to Wernersville for retreat

August trip to see the Phils lose to Houston during their nervous August slump

Back to school now with 987 boys, 275 freshmen of whom 63 are from Philly and Camden.

Some summer photos now available on picasaweb!

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=Helencohalan&target=ALBUM&id=5513486146932999953&authkey=Gv1sRqCPeegbUlrebcQ&feat=email

2010-07-13T07:05:00.006-05:00

This is Kevin Smith-Fagan and his son Eamon. Both were daily present at Gesu School when Eamon was in kindergarten and Kevin was the Director of Development. They now live in Sacramento, CA but came east to visit Kevin's dad, Dennis, in Wilmington. Eamon is a junior at the Christian Brothers School in Sacramento and plays baseball, especially third base and sometimes pitches for the school team. His dad pitches as Vice President for Development at KVIE, the PBS station in Sacramento. I neglected to picture Nancy, and younger brothers Brendan and Aidan, their other family members.

2010-07-12T15:07:00.004-05:00

Fifteenth Sunday of the Year. July 11, 2010

Mass with the Medical Mission Sisters in Fox Chase

Reading from Luke's Gospel of the Good Samaritan

The Good Samaritan story encourages us to be generous of spirit like the Samaritan and, when we conduct ourselves in the way that the Samaritan conducts himself, to expect also the admiration of all of history. Sometimes I am sure, you are like me and you wish you were as lucky as that Samaritan and that you had two silver coins to distribute to every needy person that you meet on the street. Such activity would certainly gain some admiration and affirm a status even among those who don’t like you.

Father, I hear you say, be careful. This story is among the best in the Christian canon. Please respect it and don’t question the circumstances or the motives of the Samaritan. He certainly acted out of generosity of heart especially in contrast to that ignorant priest and Levite who passed by the groaning man in the ditch.

I do remember a first experience of generosity when I was very small and playing in the backyard of my home. A hobo came to the kitchen door and asked my mother for something to eat. I bashfully watched from a distance while this hobo sat on the back steps, exchanged conversation with my mother and ate some of the food that I thought belonged to me. It was my first lesson in selfishness seeing myself in contrast to the generous spirit of my mother.
Jesus establishes the Samaritan in this story as the ideal, the unexpected stranger usually shunned who quietly reaches out across ethnic and religious boundaries to exercise basic charity, identifying himself as a remedy to human misfortune and suffering.

In the light of the teachings that come down to us in the gospels I think of this story as evidence of the generosity of the pre-Christian Jewish law. Certainly in the story Jesus expresses his discontent with the religious establishment by ridiculing the conduct of the priest and the Levite but the respect for Jewish law is clear. The story suggests a broader way of considering the Jewish law. But the story falls short of a deeper understanding of the place of Jesus among us.

We find a deeper understanding in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 25. 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

I experienced a vivid illustration of this on my visit to Calcutta some years ago. We visited the original of the hospices for the dying poor that Mother Teresa had established. There were two large dormitory rooms in the hospice, one for men and own for women. Those dying and they literally were so, were clothed in green smocks and resting quietly on low cots. The rooms were overseen by hovering sisters. Some young men and women volunteers sat with the dying, holding their hands, feeding them or giving them drink.

Everything was peaceful until suddenly I heard horns honking outside on the busy street and there was a bustling at the street door. Two volunteers, young men who appeared to be from Korea, made their way from the street and through the door; between them they carried an emaciated and street-soiled man, hardly alive. They passed by me and their thin burden accosted my sense of sight and smell. He looked little better than a piece of trash. He had been brought to the hospice by someone who knew he deserved a more dignified death than one on the curbside.

I had already seen the bathing room where the volunteers were taking this man and I knew instantly that they accepted the responsibility of carrying this poor dying man there because of what they had learned from Mother Teresa. Written in big letters over the bathing area, Mother Teresa had placed the words, “The Body of Christ.”

With a full understanding of Christian teaching we complete the story of the Good Samaritan by considering Matthew 25, by considering the identity of Jesus and by considering his brutal reception by the powers of religion and government. It is he who is left to die in the ditch, ignored by the priest and the Levite.

As Luke introduces the story of the Good Samaritan, the scribe who occasions the story speaks of the law of the love of God and neighbor. Then Luke has the scribe question Jesus in this way: Because he wished to justify himself the scribe asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Should questions about the law of love of God and love of neighbor arise today in the context of

today’s world, young thoughtful persons might ask the same kind of question. But I suggest that, when they wonder about justifying themselves, their question will not be about the neighbor. They will ask rather “Who is my God?” “Who is my God?” How would you respond? Perhaps you would tell the same story that Jesus told, knowing that our God is present in the spirit of all those in need as well as in the spirit of the one who reaches out in response to that need.

2010-07-07T10:28:00.003-05:00

These two photos illustrate the July 4th celebration at Independence Hall. The drum and bugle corps was a big hit.

2010-07-06T18:41:00.005-05:00

====================(Pictures: Mayor Nutter speaking at Independence Hall. View of Liberty Bell)

PRAYER FOR THE OPENING OF THE
CELEBRATION OF THE FOURTH OF JULY, 2010
ON THE STEPS OF INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA.
Give God the praise and blessings to God’s People!
Brothers and Sisters gathered here on this the 234th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we gather in the same spirit as those who first heard it proclaimed. In our prayer we read the words of George Washington when he resigned his Commission as Commander in Chief of the Army in 1783. This prayer asked the guidance we needed as a Nation in 1783 and continues to ask what we need in this different world of the 21st Century. It echoes the words of the ancient prophet Hosea.

Washington spoke in 1783: “I now make it my earnest prayer,

that God would have You (leaders of the various states), and the States over which you preside, in his holy protection,

that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens
· to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government,
· to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field,
· and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.”

Washington prayed to our God who has ears to hear us and eyes to see us and we pray in this season in particular for those with the duty of governance, our President and those in Congress, our Mayor Nutter and City Council members. We pray for the unemployed, for those beset by disasters such as that on the Gulf Coast, for parents, especially the parents of children who require a special love, for the homeless, for immigrants, for the safety of those guarding our public places, for those serving in the Armed Forces, for volunteers who extend their helping hands.

Send us, O gracious God, your Spirit so that we become more clearly a beacon of freedom, justice and peace for our suffering world. Let us say: Amen.

2010-07-01T15:40:00.004-05:00

At the Jesuit Secondary Education Colloquium June 20-25 at Santa Clara University, we wined and dined. The campus grounds provided a comfortable bug-free site for our meals. Below we ate at Fisherman's Wharf on an evening free of meetings.

Some of us made presentations. All of us learned something from colleagues attending and representing about forty of the 60 or so Jesuit high schools in the USA, Puerto Rico and Canada.

2010-06-10T15:42:00.002-05:00

June 4, 2010: The evening before Baccalaureate and Graduation, Prep senior members of the Black and Latino Culture Club gather with mentors and graduates who decorate them with Kinte Cloth. All of this group from the class of 2010 are college bound, one to Georgetown, one to Stanford, and the rest to a variety of other universities and colleges including Morris College in South Carolina.

2010-06-10T15:35:00.010-05:00

June 6: These two Prep grads in the class of 2010, Chris Dougherty and Harry Smith, are both planning to attend Villanova University. Chris is a pole vaulter who sails well over his 5'9" and leaves the bar at 14'6" Harry refused to yield to senior slump and kept up a blistering pace of As and B pluses.

HERE ARE MY FINAL WORDS TO THE 231 GRADUATES AT THE END OF THE CEREMONY

Prep brothers, class of 1960. Welcome back!

Faculty and staff, parents and friends, who contributed such energy and attention to the class of 2010 and to this graduation, we owe you a debt of thanks.

Prep Brothers, Class of 2010. You have heard a lot of advice over the past four years and there is no need for me to add to it. I simply share some bits of conversation for the benefit of the rest of us here, parents, faculty, relatives and friends.

My dear sister is the principal at West Philadelphia Catholic High School. She is also a religious sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, an IHM. Recently a graduate of West complained to her about the quality of today’s young people. He was referring to Catholics especially. “College kids have no understanding of their faith; they don’t even know the seven sacraments and, if they go to a church, they don’t show the proper respect.” My sister defended the preparation for lives of faith and service that West Catholic students receive. But the man asked her, “Don’t you worry about their souls after they graduate?” And my sister replied, “No!” She was confident. The young people she knew would find their way to be faithful to their families, to their faith and civic communities.

Not long after that conversation, my sister, Sister Bur, they call her at school, came across a West Catholic senior in the school’s detention room, the jug room at West, and she said to him, “What are you doing here?” And he looked a little sheepish. And my sister blurted out the question, “Am I going to have to worry about your soul after graduation?” And he straightened up, “Oh no, Sister Bur!”

Class of 2010. Look around you. See the class of 1960. See your parents and guardians and teachers and coaches and mentors, all those who have been watching your backs these four years. We love you, we know the great good that you can accomplish and we are not worried about your souls now that you have graduated. And if you think we are a bunch of pollyannas, read the astute columnist David Brooks of the New York Times. He said a few month back, "if you want to feel really optimistic about the country, look at people under thirty...this group under thirty is an extremely wholesome and promising generation." God bless you. Go, as Saint Ignatius directs us all and set the world on fire.

June 8: Prep underclassmen prepare for the college tour organized by the Black and Latino Culture Club. This year is a three-day tour to Western Pennsylvania and part of Maryland.

June 9: Three of the grads from Gesu School, class of 2010. All three got prizes at graduation. The two on the left will attend Saint Joseph's Prep. The young man in the handsome bowtie will attend West Philadelphia Catholic High School.

2010-06-01T16:26:00.007-05:00

Memorial Day Trip

Frank and I went to Wernersville to visit our friend Jack Martinez. We knew him in Baltimore where he worked tirelessly to investigate the housing markets that were so tilted against blacks owning homes. Jack told us this story of a surprising rebuke from his Jesuit superior: he had taken part on a picket line at the offices of one of the most unscrupulous of the housing speculators. When he did not challenge an injunction and was not arrested with the other pickets, his Jesuit superior later asked, "why? The others would have been treated better if you had joined them."

Here we are in Maclean, Va. in the Church of St. Luke where my brother has just joined in the Memorial Day performance of the Washington Men's Chorus. Several trained and talented musicians make up the heart of the chorus and my brother enjoys singing with them. This particular concert is a tribute to the men and women in the armed forces. We talked later about the enduring nature of war.

My first cousin, once removed, Sarah Bur Gillespie, came to visit my three sisters and me in Jeanne's Baltimore living room. Sarah has the daunting task of monitoring infectious diseases in the 114 federal prisons around the country. She told of going sleepless some nights recently worrying about the spread of tuberculosis among groups of prisoners in varying places around the country. At this time, though, she believes that she and her assitants have brought the situation under control.
Who is this wonderful family? I officiated at the wedding of Kevin O'Reilly and Carol Beck in September of 1986. Here they are in front of their Baltimore home with their three wonderful children, high school boys John and Andrew and their fifth grader daughter Ann. John and Andrew are members of a Quaker youth group that will hike the Appalachian Trail for three weeks this summer. And Ann is a favorite in the family's church community at Saint Vincent's. The three are blessed to have steady loving parents, Carol who gets things done as a consultant for foundations interested in funding educational projects in the Baltimore school district and Kevin whose architectural skills are put to excellent use at Saint Ambrose Housing Aid Center especially in the hundreds of renovation projects that the Center has undertaken. Kevin and John will go to the Dominican Republic this summer for a week of volunteer work at an orphanage.

NEW EDIT

On the day of this photo, Kevin told me a story about his recent trip to a reunion of his class of architectural majors at Notre Dame University. "My two boys think I'm dimwitted and only got lucky to marry someone with real wisdom and a career. In any case they consented to go with me to my Notre Dame reunion and we drove out there together. After that long ride we got off the Interstate and wound through the suburban neighborhoods on the last miles. We could see the gold dome in the distance but when we made the final turn onto Saint Joseph Drive, the manicured campus unfolded in front of us and the gold dome appeared in the evening sun. My boys looked at me and one said, "Holy crab, dad, you went here?"

2010-05-23T16:15:00.003-05:00

I never expect to see Warblers in this part of North Philadelphia. But this one ran into trouble, perhaps trying to navigate around the massive Gesu Church. This beautiful bird was resting in peace this morning on the sidewalk next to the Church. It appears to be a Canada Warbler.

So...following these pages this spring you will find trout, Eagles and now warblers, all not far from Center City Philadelphia.

2010-05-22T12:54:00.005-05:00

SCENES: GRADUATION AT SAINT JOSEPH'S UNIVERSITY, MAY 2010

Michael Mungai, SJU 2010, (center) hails from Nairobi, Kenya. He spent some of his adolescence as a street boy with other boys sniffing glue and getting into trouble. Two people who knew his potential share graduation day with him, his mother who traveled from Kenya for the event and Mark Orrs, an SJU graduate, who met Michael in Nairobi some years ago when Michael, then off the street, was working at a center supporting the needs of the street boys.

Here is a happy gesture from Desmond Shannon, Gesu '02, SJP '06 and SJU '10. His degree is in actuarial science and he will have no trouble getting a good job. I take some tiny credit because I helped him prepare for high school math when he was an eighth grader at Gesu. No student but Desmond during the years that I taught pre-algebra demonstrated in his or her work the careful line-by-line illustration of a mind thinking mathematically.

Leya Egea-Hinton graduated Gesu School in 2002, Shipley School in 2006 and Saint Joseph's Univeristy in 2010. I remember her body language during freshman orientation at SJU. It asked the question "what am I doing here and how can I possibly manage it?" But Leya handled her college years with great maturity. None of the rest of us had any doubts about her ability and character.

At the graduation at Saint Joseph's University, I ran into two Prep boys from the Prep class of 2006, Stephen Phillips (center) and Stanley Hendrickson. Stanley was a great help to the SJU Mission Office in the areas related to diversity. Stephen graduated summa cum laude. Congratulations to them both!

2010-05-22T12:37:00.006-05:00

In this season of graduations, I attended that of Immaculata University. Christine Beck, the president of Gesu School received the Immaculata Medal and Philip Martelli, men's basketball coach at Saint Joseph's Univeristy received an honorary degree. I got to sit on the stage and read the citation (below)honoring Chris Beck!

Sister Patricia Fadden, IHM, President of Immaculata, let me join the photo op with her honored guests.

Christine S. Beck

Since 2003, Christine Beck has led the way as President and CEO of Gesu School, an independent Catholic School in the Jesuit and IHM traditions serving children in grades pre-K through 8. One author notes, “She makes everything happen, she’s amazing. Chris Beck is one of the greatest assets the city of Philadelphia has in the world of philanthropy…not because of the money…because she makes things happen.”

Those words were expressed by Mark Solomon, a member of the Board at the Gesu School in the book, A Model School: How Philadelphia’s Gesu School is Remaking Inner-City Education by Jerold K. Footlick. Over time, Mrs. Beck has become central to the mission and life of an inner city school dedicated to the betterment of the children of its neighborhood. While seeking a new charity in celebration of their 30th wedding anniversary, Chris and Leif, her husband, visited the school for the first time some fifteen years ago and left impressed by what they had experienced. Thus began a new love affair with the children of Gesu School. A few weeks later a generous check arrived from the Becks.

Sister Ellen T. Convey, IHM , principal of Gesu School shares these comments: “Christine Beck is making education not only possible but effective in the challenging neighborhoods of North Philadelphia because of her leadership and creativity. The 452 children who attend The Gesu are well loved, truly challenged and enabled to become people who will enrich our society. Chris is a leader who enables all she leads to reach their full potential. Her compassion, her wisdom, her energy are an example for us all.” Mrs. Beck has guided the Gesu team through a highly successful capital campaign. Through the $12 million Building for Tomorrow Campaign which included a $6 million renovation project, the Gesu School has resources, services, and facilities which enrich the lives of the children of today and which give hope to future generations of young scholars. Gesu’s fundraising today focuses on encouraging generous friends to become sponsors of individual children at Gesu School.

When speaking of her students, Christine Beck says, “If only there were statistical parameters to measure inward qualities of character, values, self-confidence, and caring for others, our children would indeed score very high. Of course, to become productive adults in this rapidly changing world, children need both sets of tools - - strong academic skills as well as grounded personal qualities.” This quote speaks not only of an educator and a leader, but a caring woman who has seen through the faces of her students the challenges that confront them in everyday life. Here is a person who advocates that education exists for all who seek it even those in the most adverse of circumstances. Christine Beck models through word and example the essence of the Immaculata mission, developing the “truly educated person.”

Immaculata University is proud to present the Immaculata Medal to a woman who fosters Catholic education, who changes the lives of youth, and who encourages healthy living among all citizens. We honor and congratulate our awardee, Christine S. Beck, with the 2010 Immaculata Medal.

2010-05-22T12:31:00.003-05:00

The Prep painting teacher, Jeremy Foldesey, taught some of our students to make water color copies of the works of Winslow Homer. The copies above, the top by Stephen Gliatto and the bottom by Ted Beck, remind me of my father. This Homer, Breezing Up, was one of his favorites. It reminded him, and those who were ever out with him, too, of some wonderful afternoons sailing on Barnegat Bay.

2010-05-12T16:47:00.001-05:00

I had a great seat for the worst game of the season so far. The Phils lost to the Mets in this game on Friday, April 30. Poor pitching and no batting. Here Chase Utley adds little to the weak team effort.

2010-05-12T16:16:00.002-05:00

So I go to the Proms, to the Senior Prom to greet the seniors as they arrive at the Sheraton with their dates. The dresses are greens and blues this year and I take only two pictures there, one of which is of the three young ladies above. After greeting about 400 youth, we leave and make a short appearance at the Junior Prom, same night but at the Hilton. And I take just one picture there at random , of Joe and his date. Little did I know how popular a certain dress was! It actually made me feel better when I looked again at the pictures and realized that, I guess, most of the dresses were off the rack. The young ladies looked great even in something simpler and plain. And I did not say anything to Joe!

I couldn't have planned these two photos!

2010-04-18T14:36:00.002-05:00

After a performance by the Cape and Sword Drama Society of "The Drowsy Chaperone," the players sat on stage and answered a few questions. The foreground face in the upper picture is that of the director, Tony Braithwaite. His career as director here at SJP spans about twenty years and he gets performances from these young people that are spectacular and lots of fun. The Drowsy Chaperone speaks hopelessly about the prospects of marriage but then these kids, most of them, come from strong families that prepared them for their young adulthood. They are terrific and give the lie to the play's message.

2010-04-18T14:32:00.004-05:00

This bright spring Sunday I was wandering around the city. At the Philadelphia Free Library off Logan Square (bottom picture) was a book festival. These magician clowns (top picture) entertained the kids with tricks of all kinds, even engaged some in their tomfoolery.

The middle photos attempt to illustrate the bald eagle couple roosting in Tinicum Wildlife Sanctuary. You can see them both hanging out to the left of their nest. The viewing spot is a couple of hundred yards from the nest and one of the viewers there guessed that one of the two chicks born in recent days had already died.

We took a shot at ruining the environment here in Philly but nature bounces back when given the chance. Trout in the Wissahickon, the Eagles at Tinicum and Shad running up the Schuylkill.

2010-04-18T14:30:00.003-05:00

Sophomores Visit Retired Archbishop of New Orleans, Philadelphian Francis B. Schulte, SJP'45

2010-04-05T15:32:00.002-05:00

One of the streams flowing along Lincoln Drive and into the Wissahickon.

Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010

Who would have thought that these trout waited all winter for these young fishers? They pulled them from the Wissahickon along Forbidden Drive, just a few miles from Center City!

2010-04-03T09:17:00.001-05:00

HOLY THURSDAY MASS WITH THE MEDICAL MISSION SISTERS

“Each year you give us this joyful season when we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery with mind and heart renewed.”

During Masses in Lent these words of the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer soften some of the harshness of this season, a season when spring is not yet, a season when, as penitents, we realize in our own bodies the suffering of the Lord. Each year we celebrate within a cyclical pattern the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection. In Christ, despite on-the-ground evidence moving us to the contrary, we are a joyful people. With Christ each year we receive hope filled gifts of renewal.

I have the privilege of working with high school boys and also with a talented group of young adults who are their teachers, mentors and coaches. They are a congregation that tests my seniority; my work is sometimes the work of fraternal correction and always the work of challenge and encouragement. And in this work, generally, I protect the young from some of my darker worries. Despite our repeated experience of this joyful season and of Easter renewal, threatening clouds can hover over the hearts of many of us.

Tomorrow on Friday we may speak of an intimacy with Jesus as he joins us in our sufferings. This evening we celebrate with another leading image: Jesus offers himself to us as a young and confident trusted servant aiding us, even leading us when we get weary on our journey from slavery into freedom.

Earlier this Lent we read from the Book of Numbers, the fourth of the books of the Pentateuch. Numbers tells the history of the Israelites as they suffer through the long journey in the desert, repeatedly despondent, rebellious and sinful, repeatedly rescued by God’s mercy and help but never fully satisfied. This book is about the survival of a people on a long trek. As they journey there is a tension between the old and the young. Some of the older among them remember a less challenging past and want to abandon the journey. They want even to return to their slave quarters and the good food back in Egypt thinking the whips of the Pharaoh a small price to pay. The younger among them, however, have no memory of Egypt and have not yet grown weary; they can imagine only freedom and they long for a place where they can settle and bring new life to their offspring.

For so many years we have been trudging through the desert and we have not reached the promised land. We know now that it is not within our own power to get there. We worry that stresses of all kinds are leading our world to ruin. Sometimes because of our greed and ignorance there seems no future but the one that threatens to end in global catastrophe. Like the Israelites on their journey, though, we know in our hearts that there is no return to some alleged comfortable past.

The Christ, of course, always remains young no matter the age of the world and its isms. We listen for his voice among the young, men and women of every culture and country. We marvel at the commitment of so many to justice, and at their longing for reconciliation and a new world. God is persistent in giving them gifts of faith, hope and love. But we all must remind ourselves of our duty to walk together, young and old.

The youthful Christ comforts us today by washing our tired feet, feeds us with his own manna and strengthens us for a journey on which the experiences of young and old are blended together. There are those of us who can remember Sister Pollard, a seventy year old early ally of Dr. King. She knew the price of her dignity. During the Montgomery Bus Boycott she refused the offer of a ride and preferred to walk. Her commitment encouraged the young Dr. King when he heard her say: “My feets is tired but my soul is rested.” They both reached the Promised Land!

“Each year you give us this joyful season when we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery with mind and heart renewed.”

2010-03-29T15:37:00.005-05:00

These are senior players and managers of the 2009-2010 basketball season. They gathered for their end-of-the-year banquet and received various awards. None of them, I am told, will be playing on a college team. Fortunately they all have a great deal of personality and other talents. The captains, Sean Brophy and Joe Nardi, thanked especially their coach, Speedy Morris, for his great mentoring and leadership.

Speedy typically used only six or seven players in a game. But he honored the rest of the varsity by awarding them prizes honoring how they quickly learned what scouts taught them about opposing teams. With these new skills they helped the starters prepare for each game.

It was this group that played the semifinal Catholic League championship game against Neumann-Goretti in the Palestra. And I got a chance to say the prayer before the game in that sacred basketball arena:

"We gather, Lord God, first in thanksgiving for your generous spirit. May our game this night be worthy of the dedication in the long history of this arena to teamwork, to skills, to sportsmanship.

Bless our players. May they be free of injury and mean spirits. Bless our coaches, mentors, teachers and parents. Help them to appreciate the efforts of our players and to bring their enthusiasms into every good work.

May you, Lord, enjoy the game as much as we will.

St. Joseph, Pray for us.
Sts. Maria Goretti and John Neumann, Pray for us."

2010-03-26T16:26:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit the New York Athletic Club on Central Park South. the Prep had a gathering there with some Prep alumni. Before the meeting Al Zimmerman and I walked in the park and saw how it was just waking up to spring. Our meeting was on the 12th floor but it turned out to be too windy and chilly to use the balcony.

2010-02-08T12:10:00.002-05:00

Prep entrance after 27 inches of snow 2/6/2010; but the Girard Avenue trolleys were running during and after the storm. The city plows did a good job in our neighborhood but keeping a good parking spot is not easy!

2010-01-31T20:50:00.003-05:00

Mary Greene January 28, 2010

RIP born 1920 and died 2010

All of our words at the funeral Mass ought to focus on the saving power of the Lord Jesus. In the time of loss we seek the comfort of our hope in the Lord Jesus. This hope tells us that life when we leave this earth is not taken away by the power of death but changed by the power of Christ’s victory. Mary with her generous prayerful spirit spoke this truth throughout her entire life. So we can feel confident that remembering her and remembering all of her charity toward us will open us up to this saving power of God. Today we share among ourselves her witness to the Spirit, her love for Jesus and Mary and her confidence in God’s saving power. So we do not hesitate to speak of her.

Mary Greene was among the first to welcome me to the Church of the Gesu parish when I arrived to do parish ministry in 1985. Her faith and charity were already legendary among us Jesuits, among those of us who ministered and lived at Gesu during the second half of the twentieth century including the Jesuit novices who came to live for short periods at Gesu. Mary and her sister Rebecca were the heart of a team that made sure that every Gesu School child had not only a good lunch but shoes on their feet. Mary and her sister Rebecca were the heart of the team that helped with every household task in the large Church of the Gesu and the parish center facilities. Indeed Mary’s daily chores, too, included the care of anyone who was sick, whether it be someone in her family or a parishioner or neighbor who needed care of any kind. Her own home from time to time became an assisted living center or even a nursing home. She never turned away anyone in need. And she often reminded me of whom I should visit with Communion or about anyone who needed our parish assistance.

Everyone who knew her learned lessons about God from her. I remember vividly the day that she came to me to tell me about the death of a former parishioner who had gone astray. Some might think that he ought not have a Catholic funeral in the Church of the Gesu, she told me. She agreed that he had indeed made a mistake but he had done so much for the young people of Gesu and the children in Gesu school. One day, she told me, he, knowing that her own shoes were in bad shape, was looking for her, saw her walking on the street and stopped his car and gave her a new pair of shoes that he had gotten for her. We need to forgive him, she said. When I listened to her, I knew that the Spirit was giving me a life lesson about God’s forgiveness and, of course, the funeral took place in the Church of the Gesu.

And would she not give us some guidance when we were going astray! One day, for example, we were discussing the rosary and I told her that I used the rosary beads frequently but, instead of Hail Marys, I recited a antiphon 10 times for each of the decades. She told me that the Blessed Mother would not like that. I still smile at this…. perhaps at my peril!

One day after she had moved from her home on 18th Street over to senior housing on Franklin Street, I would no longer see her often. The Gesu had closed; St. Malachy’s was a long walk for her from Franklin St. and she often went to St. Peter’s for Mass. She was always up and out for different St. Malachy events or other things but more often than before she would be by herself in her small apartment. I asked her once, “Mary, after all those years of living with other people and constantly out with other people, don’t you ever now feel lonely?” She looked at me with a gentle smile that indicated that I had asked a really stupid question and said, “I am never alone, Father; God is always with me.”

She always prayed for all of us and I know she did simple things for other people down to the last months, simple things like the habit she had of sending me a St. Patrick’s Day card because I had once told her about the only one St. Patrick’s Day card I would always get from my mother until my mother died.

Wasn’t she something? It makes us weep that God has been so kind to so many of us, the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlettered, through this saintly woman. Our remembrance of her supports our faith. Our remembrance of her consoles us. Our remembrance of her fills us with a true hope that we will see her again in God’s good time. A more powerful remembrance of her, indeed the most powerful remembrance of Mary exists in God’s own heart and mind. So powerful is God’s remembrance that she continues to live with God in this new existence.

2010-01-31T20:16:00.004-05:00

This procession of mourners is viewing the body of Rev. John J. Deeney, S.J., a Philadelphian and Prep grad ('45) who ministered in the state of Jharkhand, India for over 50 years. He was buried in mid January at a school and church in Chaibasa, part of the native area of the Ho tribal people. Fr. Deeney was the first to work on a Ho-English dictionary. Over 2000 people attended his funeral Mass celebrated with 120 priests.

The lad leaning over the casket may be anointing Father Deeney with oils as is the Ho custom at funerals.

I was able to be present at a Memorial Mass in Philadelphia that was celebrated on January 30 for about 100 family members and friends, most from the Philadelphia area.

We had no marigolds but we did have flowers and we did present a small bag of rice at the offertory procession as is the Ho custom.

See John's obit article in the Philadelphia Inquirer (with a photograph)

http://www.philly.com/philly/obituaries/83009977.html

2009-12-31T13:07:00.002-05:00

PLUM ISLAND, MASSACHUSETTS

VIEW TOWARD VECCHIO IN TUSCANY

Postings on a damp cold winter day from the archives:

"At that haunted hour of late day, the entire earth seemed itself to be waiting, every needle and seed inclined to contemplation. The air had been full of sun, stunning in its stillness, the sort of afternoon in which the whole world appears finally to have gotten itself to rights. Indeed, anyone would have been hard-pressed to have (paused) on these slopes and escaped a little circumstantial peace with God." John Landretti, "Bear Butte Diary"

[I should have a picture of Bear Butte! If anyone has one, please send it!]

2009-12-24T11:56:00.002-05:00

Santa and his elves arrive in the Prep Dining Hall to entertain the scores of children, offspring of faculty and staff. It looks like one of our elves is wearing a Prep color long-sleeved tee. Where would he have gotten that?

These particular elves were busy at the Prep while others were out in the neighborhood on Christmas Eve. Check out the Prep students who assisted Santa with the delivery of gifts.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/80089482.html

2009-12-19T10:32:00.003-05:00

Our Christmas break began on Friday, December 18. Father Richard Curry, S.J. celebrated our Christmas Mass at the opening bell. Rick attended the Prep for two years before finishing his high school as a student with the Christian Brothers in Maryland. Then he joined the Jesuits as a Jesuit Brother. See this fascinating Inquirer article about him published on Christmas eve.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/80045917.html

Saturday all day the snow fell, time for us Jesuits to hang out at home. Sunday the Prep plow arrived early and helped us dig out our cars.

2009-12-16T16:51:00.003-05:00

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT: MASS WITH THE CHILDREN OF STAFF AND FACULTYWelcome to this pre-Christmas liturgy. We tend to rush into the season of Christmas, the season of the Lord’s birth with readings that fill us with joy and promise on this Advent Sunday, even now two weeks before Christmas. Today, of course, surrounded by these children we have before us an image of the Lord Jesus as a child. We most often picture him as a tiny baby or as the mature Lord on the cross. But he was a rug rat, too; maybe a hyper-active one, curious about light and fire, about color and sound, about earth and its creatures, about the wind and the water. Today in the presence of our own rug rats, it is this Lord Jesus, the child, whom we wish to honor. He came to us from a heavenly kingdom to secure our dignity.

Today let us consider Christmas as the season, not when we get the present that we really want but as the season when we give away our most treasured possession. I ask each of you here to consider your most treasured possession. It may be a thing; it may be a talent or a way of being. Do a little thought experiment. Am I willing to give it away?

For our children here there is some object, some toy, some game, some favorite piece of clothing that you like to wear. ASK KIDS.

But would you give it away during this Christmas season? Jesus gave away the comfort of his heavenly home with his Father to be with us in this real world of cold and discomfort, of pain and anxiety. Can we think of ourselves in imitation of him willing to give away something that we treasure?

I brought this little model truck with me. It is a model of the pickup truck which the Jesuit saint Alberto Hurtado used to take food to the hungry and the poor in his home town of Santiago, Chile. But I bring it today for a different reason because it represents for me one of my prized possessions when I was a rug rat. One Christmas under the tree was a silver metal pickup truck model about twice the size of this model. But like it. I got attached to it. I did not know exactly why but now I understand. For me it represented all the excitement that I wanted in my future: speed, exploration, making things run, freedom. It was mine. If Jesus himself came to my house to play with me, he would not be allowed to touch my silver metal truck!

I ask the young ones here. ASK AGAIN. What is it that you really like among your toys or in your clothes closet? You might be like me and unwilling to give it away. Or you might be already generous and willing to give it away.

I still had my silver metal truck when I was a teenager. But the wheels had rusted and I moved on to other possessions. Today the wonder of the miracle of Jesus, our God, becoming one with us continues to challenge us to give up our doubts or anxieties or pride. May we enter into his presence in this Mass this morning; he gave up everything for us. May we be with him and allow him to encourage us.

2009-12-13T09:43:00.003-05:00

Pictured with Coach Cockenberg are most of the senior members of the Cross Country Team:

(l to r): James Murphy, Bernie Gray, Chris Dougherty, Matt Chung, Rob Cermignano, Chris O'Sullivan, Jon Sharp and Dennis Walsh (Nine of the Twelve Seniors on the Cross Country Team are members of the National Honor Society and carry a +3.5 GPA on our 4.0 scale.)

The Cross Country all-Catholic runners: Brian Wolf, Chris O'Sullivan, Owen Glatts, Paul Gennaro, Fran Kelly, Matt Chung and Patrick Murphy

2009-12-12T08:56:00.003-05:00

Prep basketball begins with a 44-29 vistory over William Penn Charter

Pictures include Joe Nardi going for the layup and Coach Speedy Morris plotting their next move. The team opened the game with two or three well-executed plays though it took some more minutes for the ball to actually get through the basket.

Before the game we blessed the new floor on the court. Some of it had been damaged by water and had to be replaced; all of it was refinished, recoated and repainted.

THE BLESSING

With this mike in my hand and a silent gym, I feel like giving a sermon on the transcendent, God-like, heavenly quality of all human PLAY, basketball included. Nothing gives us more joy than a leisurely timeless afternoon when we can act like gym rats or be with our posse on a playground. This joy is a sign that God has great things in store for us not only in this life but in the next. In the next I look forward to playing soccer with the Spanish founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola…. on his team, of course. Maybe William Penn will play on the opposing team.

But I have the mike to bless our newly refinished floor here in the Kelly Fieldhouse. Damaged by water this past year, the floor is now refinished beautifully. We bless it this time with holy water. We thank the artists and craftmen who made it beautiful in our sight and in the eyes of God.

So we bow our heads: God and gracious God, we thank you for all the opportunities you give us for the exercise of our talents, physical, mental and spiritual. We thank you especially for this fieldhouse and its floor. We welcome you to all of our activities here. And especially today we count on your presence to guide these team members from St. Joseph’s Prep and William Penn Charter to do their best, to keep them free from injury and to help them appreciate above all the love and guidance of their parents, teachers and coaches, especially head coaches, Speedy Morris and Jim Phillips.

Thank you Lord, bless this floor (WATER) to your glory in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

2009-11-27T14:31:00.003-05:00

Some of the present and former students at SJP, rugby players all.

For the love of the game and of their recently deceased colleague, Josias Sterling, they gathered in Fairmount Park on a blustery Thanksgiving Friday. The gathering honored Josias and is raising money in his memory to provide swimming lessons for kids and to provide help for any Prep rugby player who attends Temple University

The event was organized by Bill and Angela Gregory who coached and mentored Josias. (Bill is kneeling near the center of the front row, in the dark shirt.)

My Prayer

We gather today in a spirit of thanksgiving for God’s glory shown in our brother Josias Sterling during his brief life, a happy life, a life in which a young man fulfilled the hopes and promises suited to his age. We thank God that Josias was a grace for his parents and siblings, for his relatives and friends. We are grateful that God saw fit for Josias to attend St. Joseph’s Prep and Temple University. The emptiness in our hearts caused be his absence reveals to us how eagerly we made a space for him, and tells us how prominent a place he took in his family , among his classmates, on the rugby team, and in the hearts of all who got to know him. His relationship with us is God’s work, letting us know in Josias more about the richness of creation.

So we pray. Dear God, let the memory of this happy young man lift from us the gloom we experience in his physical absence. Help us know that his cheerful, resolute spirit continues to enliven us whenever we who know him gather together. May his spirit help us build on the heroic desires of his own life, help us be men and women for others just as Josias became more each day a man for others.

Yes, Good God, Increase our faith in the saving power of the Lord Jesus who welcomes those who have died into a new heaven and a new earth. When our day comes, give us a place in the new creation so that we may be with our brother Josias in your kingdom. But today on this field, dear God, help us to know that Josias joins us and commits his spirit to bring joy and enthusiasm to our company and our competition.

We ask these things through Christ our Lord.

2009-11-25T16:25:00.003-05:00

The renovated spaces in Jesuit Hall include the room that was once the house library for the Jesuit Community. Now the space, The Quinn Room, is used for small receptions and some meetings. It is also a room with some archival material.

Since the room is off the beaten track and not at all youth oriented, it did not occur to us that some of our students would gravitate there after school to hang out and do their homework. We do have a regular student library with computers and other activity. But leave it to the Prep boys to find a comfortable spot and make it their own. The late Henry Quinn must be happy to look down on this room and see our young men working together between intervals of goofing off.

I remember the same atmosphere when I was a Prep student but without the comfortable setting. In the long-gone 17th St. building, we gathered at the base of a stairwell and leaned against corridor walls! And we didn't know what we were missing.

2009-11-25T15:58:00.003-05:00

From my office I can see our Prep boys carrying two of the 250 Thanksgiving food baskets that they prepared for the less fortunate, some in our neighborhood. Others, mostly seniors from a group called SOWN (Supportive Older Women's Network, "because no woman should have to age alone") came and picked up their baskets.

Our students fanned out through the neighborhood and delivered many of the baskets and turkeys. Some of our students live within walking distance but most do not know our neighborhood. This gesture is a way of learning from others whose struggles are very different from their own.

2009-11-15T20:44:00.005-05:00

A few of the cast members of "Sweeney Todd," the fall production of Prep's "Cape and Sword."

SHORT SERMON FOR MASS WITH THE CAPE AND SWORD DRAMA CLUB AS THEY PREPARE THEIR SUNDAY PERFORMANCE OF "SWEENEY TODD."

TEXT FROM MARK: "YOU KNOW NOT THE DAY NOR THE HOUR"

Those first men and women who had an experience of Jesus Christ risen from the dead believed ardently that he would soon return to usher in the kingdom of God. While Jesus had told them that they could not know the day nor the hour, they imagined that there would be little or no delay. Why would the Lord tolerate the persecution of his friends over a long period of time? The early Christians slowly organized as if for a future but no Christians in that era needed to prepare so much for a long future as for the imminent return of their Lord and Savior.

The return of the Lord, of course, would mean damnation for those not among the elect and physical destruction, too, of anything alien to the kingdom. God had promised never to use the flood again to destroy the earth but, as you know from the chorus of Sweeney, it was to be fire the next time. And the early Christians lived with some expectation and fear.
And still we do. And better not to be complacent. Who knows? The world might end even before I come to the final syllable of this sen....tence.

There are times when I have prayed that the Lord Jesus would come quickly. Why would he not? Why would the Lord not join us in our desire to save children who suffer from hunger and lack of love? Why would the Lord not come to save us from our own failures? I do not know the answer that has led to this two millennia delay. This only: I believe that God loves a good story; some say, and not cavalierly, that God creates us in this world with the same hope as authors who let their characters write the authors’ stories. In our lives, it is said, people write the story about themselves. And there have been some splendid stories written in the lives of our fellow human beings in these two millennia.

The life stories of so many just since my own birth support the notion that maybe, just maybe, despite the genocides and the tsunamis and the random brutality and the plagues of illness, we human beings are working out a redemption of some consequence in tandem with the Lord Jesus. We have reason to be astounded at so many of the redemptive stories of our brothers and sisters in recent decades. The stories of the stars of the civil rights movement in our own country, for example! So many stars but I have a favorite: Rosa Parks. No one could deny that this dignified woman, a dedicated teacher of the young in her church, deserved to sit on a bus wherever she wanted to sit. If the Lord Jesus had come to end the world before Rosa was born, God even in the divine person would have felt a void in the divine heart where she belonged.

Make a list of like persons of the past century: Anne Frank, Nelson Mandela, Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, Mahatma Gandhi. And on and on. God surely has some purpose in raising up men and women like them. They would not have lived their heroic lives if the world had ended in 1900. God could put an end to this world and to our suffering but the cost may be too great, too great for God who doesn’t want a good book to end.

We may be reluctant to put aside a desire for the end of the world and its suffering. We must, however, surrender ourselves to God’s mysterious plan. Right here in front of me I see a good reason, too, for hope in an immediate future. You who are involved in the Cape and Sword know about stories. You study and recreate stories. You learn to love not only the technique of music and motion, but also the beneficial power of a story to move hearts and free them for what is good. Surely the God who loves you wants you, with good reason, to finish writing the best of your stories, the masterpieces of your own lives. Give us time, Good Lord, to finish our work.

2009-11-10T16:58:00.004-05:00

This gathering and cake were a surprise since my birthday year is nothing special at all. A cake with the Prep seal on it was above and beyond.

I told those gathered that I wonder now why it took me a few months to decide to apply for this job. Working with those pictured encourages me day after day.

And I retold the story of Andrew encouraging this old man (see entry of October 24).

2009-11-01T08:30:00.002-05:00

TODAY ABOUT 500 FAMILIES WILL VISIT ST. JOSEPH'S PREP AS PART OF THEIR DUE DILIGENCE TO CHOOSE A HIGH SCHOOL FOR THEIR BOYS.
(photos to follow)

Speech at Open House November 1, 2009

The saints in heaven are on my mind today because today we celebrate in our Catholic tradition All Saints Day. Recently Mitch Album who wrote the popular book “Five People You Meet in Heaven” gave a talk here at St. Joseph’s Prep. In his book a dead man meets people in heaven, people he does not necessarily expect to meet, who so engage him as to give him an understanding of his life. The point of the book, of course, encourages us to search for the meaning of our lives right now. Why wait until we get to heaven?

Why postpone understanding ourselves until we meet some relative or friend or some famous saint in heaven when today there is such a wealth of understanding available in our living experience? The 400 plus Jesuit high schools around the world just like St. Joseph’s Prep embrace the mission of so interacting with students as to open their hearts and minds to self-understanding. We know that only with such understanding can any of us make a positive difference in the lives of others.

Here at SJP every day I observe such interactions. Indeed I myself was a subject in such interactions fifty years ago when I was a student. I had to study, of course: Latin, History, Trig etc. In my mind’s eye, though, no particular chalk board lesson or lecture or sports event remains so strongly in my memory. But certain interactions with teachers and mentors and coaches remain as if they happened yesterday. In a particular class -- I still cringe when I remember it-- I disrespected one of my lay teachers. I cooled my embarrassed heels in jug for three days. In another class I made a flip answer to his question and Father Convery launched into a fifteen-minute lecture warning us about the arrogance and cynicism that he perceived in my classmates and me. There were happy more affirming moments, too, as when a teacher called me to the front of the room after class and asked me quietly why I was having a bad day or when with others in the class I joined in collecting some funds and buying an end-of-the-year present and giving this class present to our esteemed math teacher, Earl Hart. All these interactions helped me understand who I am. As a footnote to the last, it meant a lot to me when in this church in the summer of 2008 I celebrated Mr. Hart’s funeral Mass as one of my first duties as president.

I know for a fact that not a day goes by without countless such memorable interactions taking place in Jesuit high schools everywhere in the world. They are the essence of what we mean when we talk about the personal care of the student. It is my privilege to observe such interactions here at the Prep and to know that each one offers a memorable vision of hope and understanding to our students.

So I say to you young men here. Thanks be to God. The saints are an encouragement to us. Study them. Look forward to meeting them in heaven. But you don’t need to wait until heaven to meet the five people who will help you find the meaning of your life. You can find at the Prep among the adults and also among your classmates those five and more.

God bless you.

2009-10-26T08:38:00.004-05:00

For my Sunday exercise, I took the subway to 5th and Market and then walked back and forth across the Ben Franklin Bridge. A beautiful day for it! But who knows what happens on the bridge? I would not have noticed it except that my foot kicked the little prescription bottle on the walkway somewhere near the top of the span. The medication filled for Raymar Washington on October 22 was a strong antidepressant. The seal was still secure. I pray that Raymar simply lost the bottle. But I can't shake the notion that he left it behind as part of his choice not to walk off the bridge!

There was more intrigue at the 5th and Market subway stop. I picture above the small yellow signs at the opposite ends of the platform. It is certainly important to open the passenger doors on the proper side of the train and this depends on the direction in which the train is traveling! But who would have guessed that the train engineers needed these signs to remind them? Could they not see the platform as they came to a stop?

My sister and I, who are often confused, realize the importance of these reminders: “right” and “left.” But it's startling to think that without them the engineer might open the doors so that passengers would step out and fall onto the parallel set of tracks!

My father also knew the necessity of these signs as an extra precaution and made it the subject of one of his limericks:

“There once was a lady named Dexter
Directions always had vexed her.
When she came to a light
She knew what was right
It was left that always perplexed her.”

2009-10-25T19:24:00.004-05:00

TYLER PATCHEN '13 MEETS EDWIN MCKEON '47

A generous Prep grad, Ed McKeon, visited me at the Prep recently and when I greeted him at the entrance, I noticed a freshman, Tyler, nearby and I invited Tyler also to greet our visitor. After I congratulated Tyler for recent success on the forensics team, Ed noticed the heavy bookbag that Tyler was carrying and asked him about his homework. “I have tests and a quiz tomorrow,” Tyler said. And then he asked, “Don’t you have a classroom named for you in Jesuit Hall?” Ed said, “Yes.” And Tyler announced that he has history in that classroom and gave Ed some credit for helping him get an A in history. Then Tyler looked at me, “And I have math in the Bur Room.” “What’s your math mark?” I asked. And Tyler replied, “I don’t want to say!”

Maybe we should put Ed’s name on the math room, too! Meetings like this illustrate the multiple relationships with teachers, staff, alumni and parents that support our students!

2009-10-24T14:46:00.004-05:00

Pat McKenzie at DePaul Catholic School in Germantown. Pat is a graduate of St. Joseph's Prep and of Scranton University. He is the chaplain and service director at DePaul, a school for 350 children sponsored by the Vincentians. Few of the children at DePaul have the advantages that the Prep boys have. The Prep has a weekly service program devoted to the needs of DePaul and its children.

In the top photo, Prep boys intersperse themselves with the DePaul children to play a circle game during a day of service and fun.

2009-10-24T14:41:00.006-05:00

Andrew and Brianna show off their straw-blown art creation.

I had the opportunity of accompanying some freshmen on the service segment of their October 23rd retreat day. The service took place at DePaul Catholic School in Germantown. Pictured here is a Prep freshman giving encouragement and sharing a project with Brianna, one of the younger children at Depaul.

This freshman, Andrew, came to my attention in another context. He was subjected to one of my random conversations around the school some weeks ago and this is the record of our talk:

Being a long-in-the-tooth cleric makes it easy for me to approach any of our students to find out what makes them tick. The freshmen readily answer my questions: Are you up to the challenge of the Prep? What‘s your favorite subject? Which is the most difficult? I sized up a freshman, who introduced himself as Andrew, not many weeks ago. At the end of our short conversation, I thought to encourage him by saying: “I hope I’m still around when it comes time to give you your diploma.” And he eyed me with a puzzled look and turned the tables on me. “Father,” he said, “it’s only three and a half years!” Our students often encourage us! As in these pictures!

2009-10-13T16:38:00.001-05:00

My '59 Prep classmate, Jim Murray, has been coaching soccer at SJP for a long time. Each year he comes close to a championship season but never quite gets there. His team looks like they are hanging their heads during this half time instruction from the coach. The game against Ryan ended in a tie.

2009-10-13T16:37:00.004-05:00

Mitch Albom signs his book "Have a Little Faith" after lecture at St. Joseph's Prep

Albom's evening lecture drew a crowd of over 700 people, many of whom had never been inside our building. He is an energetic speaker and told stories from his "Faith" book about his relationships with his family rabbi and with an African American pastor who pulled himself up out of hard times. The stories were compelling and revealed a talented man on a search for God.

He also spoke in the afternoon at Gesu School. The teachers there prepared the students and they had some good questions for him.

The relationships had their own richness but were poorly connected to the faith issues through thousands of years of Judaism and in the American experience of the black church. These connections, I take it, will need to wait for another book.

2009-10-13T16:34:00.006-05:00

Alejandro and Jorge present the Chilean National Anthem complete with verbal percussion!

On the very weekend when the Maryland Province of Jesuits celebrated fifty years of connection with the Chilean Jesuits, Bruce Maivelett, Michael Magree and I invited two

Chilean guests to our home. The two guests, Alejandro and Jorge, are rising seniors at San Ignacio en Bosque, a Jesuit high school in Santiago, Chile. They are spending five months studying at our Prep school in Philadelphia, each of them living with a host family with a son at the Prep.

Jorge stays with Andrew Dierkes, a family with eight children, two of whom are off to college. Their happy faces are in the middle photo above. Alejandro stays with Kevin McCusker, his brother, Pat, and their parents. Both sets of parents have been generous and open to their guests.

We sang together "Si Vas Para Chile," the second Chilean national anthem sung by the exiles during the days of dictatorship. "If you travel to Chile, greet the one that I love." We sang with passion but neither of our Chilenos shed a tear, proof that they are enjoying their visit.

2009-10-01T15:42:00.004-05:00

Michael Gomez, Melissa McGrath, Eileen Kennedy, son Brendan Kennedy with speaker and guest at Saint Joseph's Prep: Rich Guidotti.

September 28, 2009

"An argument arose among the disciples about which of them was the greatest. Jesus realized the intention of their hearts and took a child and placed it by his side and said to them,“Whoever receives this child in my name receives me,and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. For the one who is least among all of you is the one who is the greatest.”

Jesus’ disciples are ambitious for themselves. They imagine that Jesus will inaugurate at some point a kingdom where they will have the principal positions of leadership. So little is their understanding of his mission.

The language that Jesus uses to indicate how to be the greatest is quite paradoxical. “The one who is least among you is the one who is the greatest.” This can be a suitable guide for someone who is ambitious. Every politician knows that the route to office is through the service of constituents. Let me be your servant so that I can get your vote.

But the action that Jesus takes to illustrate the paradox tells the truth in a way that we can understand it. “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me.” The constituency of discipleship consists of those who are unable to cast a vote for the disciple: the children. Here, of course, Jesus emphasizes the role of the mentor and the adult in passing on the love of God to the next generation. But we can with confidence include the weak, the elderly, the sick, the poor and the powerless among those to whom Jesus refers when he chooses the child as the prime example.

Yesterday at the Mother-Son Communion Luncheon our guest was Richard Guidotti from the class of 1975. In his first life as a photographer, he worked for the most elegant fashion designers, models and magazines. He got tired listening to others telling him about the nature of human physical beauty. He reinvented himself with a counter-cultural definition of such beauty. His work now is with children, young adults and others whose outward physical conditions do not conform to the beauty of fashion magazines. His photographs of children and young people with physical disorders like albinism redefine visions of beauty. His work is now not in service of what the world might call the greatest beauties but in service of those the world calls least in this regard. (Look up his web page at Positive Exposure!)

A great lesson for our young men to hear from an extraordinary graduate. And a humbling one for all of us who engage in this work of education with the hope that God will continue to call forth men like Rich Guidotti. All of his photographs announce: “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me.”

2009-09-24T13:17:00.002-05:00

William E. Schaffner, S.J.

(1918-2009)

Father Schaffner felt a strong attraction to beauty. He loved listening to classical music and loved the luminous quality of mosaics. Without Willie’s interest, most of his friends would know nothing about the Mausoleum in Ravenna, Italy, named for an Empress-Mother of the Western Roman Empire, Galla Placidia. This small mausoleum was decorated in the early fifth century with extraordinary mosaics. Because of the interest that Father Schaffner later showed in these mosaics, his visit there to view, admire and photograph them was certainly one of the high points of his life.

There was a way in which the desire perfectly to hear and to see beauty overwhelmed him. To reproduce its features engaged him. He struggled to get just the best reproduction of sound and sight. This struggle was without doubt part of a spiritual search for God; he struggled to find God in this beauty. It was a part of his prayer.

And now the struggle for this perfection of sound and sight has come to an end. Jesus now opens Willie’s eyes just as he opened the eyes of the blind. Jesus now opens Willie’s ears just as he opened the ears of the deaf. Willie sees and hears a reality in the kingdom of God which the old earthly sounds and scenes could only suggest.

R.I.P.

2009-09-12T14:28:00.004-05:00

These two guys have the duty of setting the spirits of the student body at Saint Joseph's Prep on fire, win or lose. On the left is the student body president, Frank Rizzo. And on the right is Andreas Keeler. In a lively competition, Andreas won the coveted role of representing the school as its mascot, a Hawk. The football team won its first two games with persevering come-from-behind efforts. In the third game of the season, such an effort failed against highly-ranked North Penn, a large eastern Pennsylvania high school with a football powerhouse.

2009-09-12T14:27:00.003-05:00

Pictured here is Jesuit Father Neil Ver'Schneider with some of his fans from Gesu School. The school celebrated with him on the feast of Saint Peter Claver in early September because this is the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of his work with the children of Gesu and the people of our neighborhood of North Philadelphia.

Father Neil supervises the time-out room at Gesu and is a trusted advisor to Sister Ellen Convey, the principal, and Christine Beck, the president.

For twenty years, too, he has celebrated Mass and preached in our North Philadelphia parishes. He also invites groups of men and women together for prayer and scripture study. Usually gatherings take place about twice a week. In addition he has made himself available to counsel especially neighborhood men of all ages.

When he first arrived at Gesu School in the summer of 1989, he realized at once one of my frustrations as the pastor of the parish of the Church of the Gesu. Fortunately by this time, Saint Joseph's Prep had assumed the maintenance of the grand Church. But there was still the school building that required daily attention and eventually millions of dollars in renovations. Attention to building maintenance and improvements is not my strength. But Neil graciously stepped forward, took on this duty and to this day remains intimate with all the needs of the Gesu School building.

In addition to this he is the first in the Jesuit house to make the coffee in the morning, to take out the trash on trash day and to empty the dish washer and put everything in its place. He brought a lot of gifts for us when he arrived in 1989 and he is still giving.

2009-09-12T14:21:00.001-05:00

Pictured are the members of the Jesuit Volunteer Community in Philadelphia for the year 2009-2010. One is missing: Theresa who grew up in Media, Pa.

Clockwise from the left: Andrea from near Seattle and attended Gonzaga University; Sarah from the Scranton area and attended Holy Cross College; Christian from Minnesota and attended Notre Dame University; Eimi (sp?) from Singapore and attended Gettysburg College; Katie; Rachel from near Los Angeles and attended Loyola Marymount University.

2009-09-04T15:49:00.003-05:00

These new freshmen at Saint Joseph's Prep arrived for orientation on September 2. Greeting them with high fives were upperclassmen who showed them around the "campus." One thing we all noticed this year: most of the freshmen look well-fed!

A word for their parents (from the Mass that opened the parent orientation, Sept 1, 2009)

Patience, humility. This is what we parents and educators need. Some days it takes every ounce of patience for parents to keep from overreacting to the behavior of their sons and daughters. For parents to consider, when a child fails to meet their expectations, that God is somehow taking care of their child is so difficult. When the child, for example, is a late bloomer or a silent non-performer or appears inconsiderate, it is tough to believe that God is leading the child along some positive path. Even worse when a child seems to defy the best judgments of a parent or teacher!

Many, many times Prep boys make mistakes or fail to measure up to their best. Sometimes the jug room fills. Sometimes it turns out even that the Prep is not the school for a certain boy.

Always in these situations it is well for us to pray for a measure of patience and humility in the face of the mystery of the human person. All of us, even our sons, even during their uncertain years, (I might say especially during their uncertain years), have the same kind of mysterious human nature that Jesus has, a nature with the potential of coming into close friendship with God and the divine purposes. Indeed we must often call our sons to task but this call comes out of our conviction that God has a path for them. This call must continue to challenge them to discover this path and to find the words to describe it.

I spent some time yesterday with a South American couple who have raised five children, four sons and a daughter. I asked them what advice they have for the parents of the freshmen boys at the Prep. They quoted a Spanish proverb (and I regret that I did not catch the Spanish) to wit:
“Spend more time talking with God about your children than talking with your children about God.” Perhaps this is overstated but it illustrates a principle. God is taking care of our boys. We can tell our boys about God. But let us spend more time praying for them and for an understanding of God’s plan for them.

Jesuit education as promoted by one of our first teachers: "institutio puerorum, reformatio mundi." Loosely translated: "Get the kids into a Jesuit school and change the world!"

2009-08-25T16:22:00.002-05:00

The new teachers at Saint Joseph's Prep gathered in the chapel for Mass today, the first of their three workshop days. Back row: the three alumni service corps teachers and graduates from the class of 2005, Colin McKenna, Mark Cice and Matthew Rafferty and to their left Courtney Pinto, a new college counselor. Front row: Mrs Yuan (Joann) Chen (Mandarin Chinese), Amy Romm (college counselor), Abbey Miles (athletic trainer) and Brian Reinhart (campus ministry/Religion).

Homily at Mass for our New Teachers

Today is the 21st Tuesday in Ordinary Time and there is no reason to expect that the readings assigned for this particular day have anything to do with teaching. But there is an element of serendipity in the daily readings for the Mass. Often some phrase or story calls out to the reader as exactly what we need to hear. So I focus on today’s text from the First Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians. Paul, the consummate Christian teacher, taught in the Greek town of Thessalonia, now the beautiful port city known as Salonika, for at least many months and made converts there. Not long after he leaves he sends his converts a memorial letter. He writes this to his former students: “We were as gentle with you as a nurse caring fondly for her children….we chose to impart to you not only the gospel of God but our very selves, so dear had you become to us.”

Paul concerns himself first with content, the gospel of God, second with his own relationship to the content (he means that as he preaches the gospel, he tells something about his very self) and third with his attitude toward the student, “so dear had you become to us.” Content, his own self and his attitude toward his audience.

These three aspects, at least, in Paul’s teaching accounted for its success. The Spirit of Jesus convinced Paul of the truth in the gift to humanity in the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. Paul came to a crucial realization that his own life depended on faith in what this Jesus had accomplished for him. In his ambition and his love for his students he wants them to know this Jesus and to know that this Jesus, as it says elsewhere in Thessalonians, will “deliver us from the wrath to come.”

We all wish to be great teachers. As teachers the content of our message is some essential truth about the world. But there must also be a sense in which that truth is very important to us. It is objective truth, to be sure, but we must make it subjective as well. It may give us joy. It may integrate our lives. It may help us to understand ourselves. It is an essential truth that we wish to impart to our students because we believe that it will prepare them for their futures.

My best teachers were the ones who were in some ways moved by the subject matter. I remember a Greek teacher with tears in his eyes as he read from Homer’s Iliad about Priam pleading with Achilles for the body of his son Hector so that he can give his son a proper burial. (This story came back to me recently when our graduate, Josias, drowned in Ocean City and his parents in their anguish asked the police to keep looking for his body until finally it washed ashore.) And a math teacher who wrote out the fundamental theorem of calculus and then pounded the blackboard excited to tell us that all of calculus was represented right there. These teachers grasped the integrity of what they were teaching, something about truth and beauty in itself. They opened one to a whole new world. Their enthusiasm was infectious and for us students it spilled over into other areas of life.

Paul had his faults; his ambition for the gospel and his love of his converts often led him to jealousy and suspicion. But he longed for his students to grasp his crucial message as key to their futures and he tried as best he could to love them into understanding and possessing that message.

So consider these things as teachers: you have a truth that is crucial to you. Your teaching demeanor must show this. You must find a way to care for your students, as Paul says, like a nurse…tough love when they can take it but tender love when necessary.

2009-08-20T07:25:00.003-05:00

Prep Headcoach Gil Brooks instructs his defensive squad during football camp. The signs of the end of summer are evident. It's a hot afternoon in August but the camp experience is preparing the team for victories of all kinds.

2009-08-18T09:27:00.001-05:00

Site under construction: small stones from our beach in Maine

2009-07-30T12:37:00.003-05:00

My nearly daily walks in the Prep neighborhood sometimes include passing 864 North 25th Street, less than a mile away, where my mother grew up with her brother and sister and where her father died in the 1940's. Many a time in my first years of life, I visited my grandparents there. On our visits we would take walks to nearby Fairmount Park and around the Art Museum grounds. And I remember being in the second floor back room of the house with its bay window. There it was that I recall my last meeting with my grandfather who was sick and close to death. I can still picture him sitting in that room with the afternoon sun coming in the bay window.

I did not return to that room until one Sunday about fifty years later. My sister and I happened to be driving on the block and noticed a real estate sign on the house: Open House, Sunday 1 to 4 PM. We took advantage of the real estate agent who was kind enough to let us walk through the house. And what did we find in the back bedroom under the bay window in place of the bed and chair where my grandfather had died? A Jacuzzi! What would my Irish grandfather born in 1859 think of that?

Fast forward to just a month ago: I walked by the house and saw the owner tending to her flower box. I told her how I knew the house and asked about the Jacuzzi. “I knew about that but it didn’t belong there,” she said. And when she bought the house, it was already gone.

There is something fundamentally lovely about those rows of houses and the closeness of one’s neighbors. Parking a car is a headache but then the bus ride to City Hall is only ten minutes. And kids can walk to good schools. Even the young professionals realize that there is no need for a Jacuzzi..

2009-07-20T20:07:00.002-05:00

Steve Oldham, Prep teacher, and I accompanied seven rising seniors from Saint Joseph's Prep on a service trip to Camden. The students were willing and generous and spent the week visiting with the homeless, the disabled, the elderly and people with HIV. They learned a lot about the poverty and lack of opportunity that are a plague in Camden.

Below is my recent reflection on discipleship when preaching on the sixth chapter of Mark where Jesus encourages his disciples to take some time in prayer and reflection away from the crowds of people that seem always to impose themselves:

"My last year of work with a variety of young men of high school age, many of them talented and privileged, underlined what has been my general experience in the past. Young people want to show off their goodness. But many have been sheltered and need to be shepherded in other directions, especially into relationships with those in need. They will respond to these relationships with more compassion than cynicism. They will respond to these relationships with more love than indifference.

In the last century we did much that calls for repentance. But we had celebrated leaders that told us the truth in their preaching and in their lives. The list of great saints, in civil and in church society, often in both, is a litany that leads me to look on the last century as a time of great prophetic work. But we need to ask the question about their heritage in the present century and about their disciples: where are the disciples of Dr. King and Dorothy Day today? Where are the disciples of Mother Theresa and John the XXIII today? Where are the disciples of Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi today?

I think that they are everywhere; whether their work is ecumenical or environmental, whether their work is peacemaking or social economics, we pray that they will hear an invitation from the Lord to take a break and to learn from him about compassion for people and trust in the Father."

2009-07-04T14:07:00.003-05:00

Here I am with my Prep classmate, Ed Trainer, and his wife, Marilyn. Ed went on to Saint Joseph's University and, after graduation, took part in the leadership of alumni organizations for many years. He received the Hogan Award from the Alumni Association at SJU in the presence of many admirers including his four children and his grandchildren. Ed spoke about Father Hogan, the orator, who used to preach the Seven Last Words of Good Friday at the Church of the Gesu. It was SRO with speakers in the street.

Ed also said that he learned from his parents to always say "Yes, Father" whenever a Jesuit asks for help. I told him that the present generation of Prep boys has a variation on this: "No problem, Father."

2009-07-04T13:55:00.002-05:00

Day by day in downtown Philadelphia it is difficult to pay any attention to the sky. But while on retreat in Wernersville I do not tire of the sunrises and sunsets, some of them spectacular. This month of June,2009, Venus was the brilliant morning star with Mars as a steady sidekick.

While going through the retreat I read some of Karl Rahner's anthropology. He speaks of human nature as essentially open to the mystery of God. This openness allows God to assume human nature and perfect it in the life of the Lord Jesus. We humans all have such natures and the possibility of allowing something similar to happen to us, of giving ourselves in love; the beatific vision is our final state.

Our mission at the Prep is surely not chiefly academic and social. We must first find the strategies to help our young men understand the meaning and the end of their human natures.

2009-07-04T13:51:00.003-05:00

Jeanne and Ed Watko celebrated their 60th anniversary this June. Their daughter Jeanne Marie (Patrick) arranged for me to have Mass in her home for the whole family, five children with their spouses and the grandchildren. The family filled the occasion with joy.

2009-07-04T13:46:00.003-05:00

Michael Gomez, Stubbs and I enjoy a Citizens' Bank gift, a private suite to watch the Phillies play the Toronto Jays. We had the pleasant duty of being there with some of the Prep baseball players. Unfortunately neither of our star pitchers was eligible to help out on the field and the Phils lost.

I saw a blunder that I never saw before. Toronto player gets a walk and realizes that noone is paying attention to him...he steals second without any difficulty!

2009-06-15T15:38:00.003-05:00

More later about Dr. Byron McCook and the party on the main deck of the Moshulu to celebrate his doctorate in educational leadership.

2009-06-15T15:29:00.003-05:00

Sister Francis Joseph, R.A. (Religious of Assumption) celebrates her 90th birthday with a party in the garden of Saint Francis of de Sales Church. Sr. Francis has had her picture taken with Popes while she worked with groups of religious in Rome. She tells tales of dinners with Pope John Paul and Father Pedro Arrupe. Here she enjoys a photo with students from West Philadelphia Catholic High School including Jose Babba and two of his friends.

2009-06-15T14:56:00.004-05:00

Jack Martinez, S.J. entertains Eileen, Mary, Jeanne and Frank at breakfast in Jeanne and Frank's garden. He told us the story of publishing his book "Not Counting the Cost" and the story of constructing a $600,000 building at his parish in Virginia. Jack's ministry now is with the sick in Saint Joseph's Hospital in Reading , Pa.

2009-06-15T14:44:00.002-05:00

SIX GRADUATES OF 8TH GRADE AT GESU SCHOOL, CLASS OF 2009

LEFT TO RIGHT: DaMontre Coleman, Maureese Gory, Johnathan Hines, Sahron Barkley-Samuels, Taj Adin and Devon Guyer

These handsome young men graduating on June 9, 2009 will be attending Saint Joseph's Prep. They are members with 265 other boys of the SJP class of 2013 from Philadelphia and the nearby counties of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

2009-05-11T06:25:00.004-05:00

Mother's Day after days of rain at the Azalea Garden ...more later

2009-05-11T06:24:00.000-05:00

SJP RUGBY TEAM....more later

2009-05-10T09:46:00.010-05:00

ABOVE ARE VARIOUS WORKS OF IMAGINATION FROM PREP SENIOR ARTISTS. THESE WORKS ARE NOW ON DISPLAY IN THE PREP FOYER.

LAST EVENING I HAD THE PLEASURE OF ATTENDING THE PREP'S "CAPE AND SWORD" PRODUCTION OF "URINETOWN." IT WAS A SPECTACULAR PRODUCTION, A SATIRICAL COMMENTARY ON THE CHALLENGES WE FACE WITH OUR NATURAL RESOURCES. LIKE SOME STYLES OF COMEDY, IT PAINTS A BLACK PICTURE OF HUMAN NATURE. THE MEDIUM, HOWEVER, IS ALWAYS THE MESSAGE AND THE CREATIVITY OF THE ACTORS PUTS THE LIE TO THE PAINTED PICTURE.

OUR PLAYERS FILLED THE STAGE WITH TALENT, ENGAGING THE AUDIENCE IN A FAST PACE FROM BEGINNING TO END.

I ALSO CELEBRATED MASS FOR THE PLAYERS BEFORE THE PERFORMANCE. I HOPE MY WORDS ENCOURAGED THEM IN THEIR SUCCESSFUL EFFORTS.

CAPE AND SWORD MAY 2009 "How fortunate for the Prep community that Cape and Sword blesses us with its masterpieces of imagination. The greatest imagination, Imagination with a capital I, the Imagination of God, creates the world. The imagination of Jesus Christ sustains him in his mission and in his suffering. The imagination of Saint Ignatius of Loyola led him to his friendship in the Lord with thousands of companions in the Jesuits.
First of all: Some of you know from your English classes that the first English poet, the ancestor of all English verse was the poet Caedmon some fourteen hundred years ago. He had a dream in which a man appears to him and says, “Caedmon, sing me something.” And the dream yielded a hymn that is recognized as the first surviving English poem:
“Now we must praise heaven-kingdom’s Guardian, the Measurer’s might and his mind-plans, the work of the Glory Father, when he of wonders of everyone, eternal Lord, the beginning established.”
Caedmon sings of mind-plans. God has mind-plans, images of us, images that create us and everything we see and touch in this extraordinary world.
Secondly: the writers of the New Testament record the imaginative language of Jesus Christ that sustains him on his mission. He hears the voice of his Father proclaiming that he is a beloved son in whom the Father is well pleased. He has an image of himself as one with his Father. This imaginative unity sustains his compassionate heart.
Thirdly: The proud and vain Ignatius, on his sick bed at a time when his manner of life is changing imagines that he can be as great and even greater than the saints about whom he is reading: Francis of Assisi, Benedict or Dominic. It is that imagination and the thrill he experiences from imagining himself in competition for sanctity, in competition for the companionship of Jesus, which changes his life.
These imaginations, these mind-plans, these creative and sustaining pictures are the true forces that shape and change life. That you here in Cape and Sword, by the work of stage crew and house managment, by the work of voice and gesture, by the work of costume and makeup, commit yourselves to the creative and sustaining works of imagination reveals to you an understanding of its power. Yours is an imitation of God’s creativity. To have a creative experience is to gain the ability to appreciate God’s creative desires for us, desires that conquer even death itself.
In the spirit of Saint Ignatius, the works of the imagination are present in our Jesuit schools everywhere. I pass over the children of lepers that danced for us when I was among visitors to their school in Dhanbad in India. I pass over the circle of guitarists who played and sang for us when I was among visitors under the propane lanterns in a remote community in southern Bolivia. Right here in Philadelphia the works of Cape and Sword’s imagination have counterparts at Saint Joseph’s University and at Gesu School. I was sorry to miss the plays this year at the University. But I did see the 24 eighth graders of Gesu School present themselves on stage in formal ball room dancing just this past week.
My Prep brothers, your work of creativity is a divine work. God loves to be imitated and praises you for your commitment. May your work in Cape and Sword continue to give you joy and may it help us all appreciate how God loves and sustains us, even redeems and saves us, with the images held in the divine heart."

2009-04-25T10:22:00.003-05:00

Prep parents and volunteers have transformed the Kelly Fieldhouse for our "Hawktion" fundraiser tonight. The photo is just a small corner of the gym illustrating some of the creative art works. The theme is GREEN.

I look forward to dining tonight at these tables with five hundred guests.

2009-04-19T12:01:00.003-05:00

The new Episcopal Academy in Newtown Square

I enjoyed a visit to the new site of Episcopal Academy, now coming to the end of their first academic year in Newtown Square. We Preppers may be envious of all the green grass, the beautiful view from the center-piece chapel (the view extends over a valley and woods behind my right shoulder), the several academic and recreational buildings and the five or six playing fields, all of which were in use on Saturday afternoon.

The occasion for my visit: watching our lacrosse team beat them!

The differences between the mission of the Prep and the mission of Episcopal seem evident in the setting and architecture. But I do believe that it is possible for the Episcopal campus, too, to nurture men and women with and for others

2009-04-19T11:59:00.001-05:00

Early spring at the Willows in Radnor Township

2009-04-19T11:50:00.004-05:00

I always like to think of the plaza in front of the Church of the Gesu as a gathering place and not, as we usually use it, a parking lot. Yesterday this basketball team gathered there on the church steps. They had just come from the Kelly Fieldhouse to the right of the church and I caught them as I walked by. Their heads are hanging and it appears that they lost their game. But they will recover and be as strong as the columns under which they review their play.

2009-04-14T09:21:00.002-05:00

Holy Thursday-Good Friday April 2009

We have very limited knowledge of the kingdom of God to come. We have an image of that kingdom taken perhaps from imaginative pictures of Eden before the fall of Adam and Eve. Or we craft an image taken from our favorite experiences. But Jesus provides us his leading image, with frequent mention in the gospels, the image of wedding feasts and other meals of celebration. And this evening we commemorate how Jesus put his own stamp on the meal above all others, the Passover meal that celebrates freedom, a memorial of the Exodus of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt. For us who have not known slavery in any civil or political sense, the meal celebrates the power of God through Jesus’ death and resurrection to forgive our sins and free us for the works of love.

Adopting Jesus’ image of the meal as the experience of heaven might lead us to imagine ourselves sitting in luxury at an elaborately set table surrounded by our favorite foods and our best friends and family. And a gospel story or two confirm that God reserves some such places but for the poor Lazarus and for other poor and hungry. In our own images of God’s kingdom, however, it is useful for us to consider the whole picture. Maybe God would rather we wait on table or prepare the meal in the kitchen or be the rancher presenting the choicest meat or the farmer the choicest fruits or vegetables. Images of waiting on table or cooking can take the place of the usual ones we make up for ourselves: heaven’s champion tennis player or lead singer in the heavenly choir. What a pleasure to take some of these banquet positions without the danger of running out of joy and energy and with perfection of service and product always within reach.

In this evening’s ideal setting for a heavenly banquet, Jesus, as he celebrates Passover, provides us with the image of how he himself will always behave. It is so humbling to watch him. He takes the role of a trusted household servant and bathes the feet of his friends. This action appears at a moment in time but it is a gesture that informs all of human existence. It is the gesture that defines for Jesus his love for us and his deepest desire to be of service to us. It is the gesture that defines how we ourselves are to live.

2009-04-06T19:27:00.003-05:00

My friends Maryann and Joe Farrell invited me to be part of the wedding party for their son Peter who married Stephanie Wong on April 4 in Newton, MA. Stephanie is pictured also here with her brother Michael after she had changed into her "goodluck red" dress, her one concession to Chinese wedding customs!

I enjoyed seeing the three other Farrell kids and their families, seven children in all. And I was able to tell Maryann that I meet graduates here at Saint Jospeh's Prep that fondly remember her brother, Bill Moody, SJ.

2009-03-23T06:59:00.001-05:00

ANOTHER REASON TO ENJOY MY WORK AT SJP!

"At an orientation meeting for the parents and students of the class of 2013, I took some time before the presentations to greet personally some of those attending among the 240 eighth graders and their parents. I introduced myself to one boy who gave me his name. And I thought to myself that the name is familiar, the name of a famous writer or actor. So I asked the boy, "That's a famous name, isn't it?" And he said without skipping a beat, "It will be."

What can I say? Sometimes all the work is worth it!"

2009-02-04T09:26:00.004-05:00

Picture in front of Prep on Snow Day, Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Homily for a gathering of Prep parents, February 1, 2009

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“He taught them as one having authority and not like the scribes…. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” Mark 1: 21-28

All of us who are parents, or teachers or speakers here at the Prep imagine how wonderful it would be if our sons and the students who heard our words could say the same thing about us that the crowds said about Jesus Christ: “he or she speaks with authority.”

Our students indeed might use the phrase “speak with authority” about those of us who speak backed by the power of jugs and suspensions.

But those who referred to Jesus “speaking with authority” did not mean that he was some kind of policeman or judge. Rather they meant that the power of his teachings did not depend on some oft-repeated traditional rabbinic thinking. True His teaching was rooted solidly in the scriptures and was faithful to the tradition; but his teaching was also new and it addressed the situation in which people found themselves. Jesus spoke to a people burdened by the minutiae of religious practice and suffering the indignity of a foreign occupation. To them Jesus spoke the good news about God’s love for them and about the response that this love should nourish in them.

He also taught them out of the nature of his personality and the passion that he himself possessed. His first followers listened to his words, yes, but more importantly they listened to him and found themselves moved to change the way they lived their lives. Yes, they heard the verbal message but they changed out of amazement at him and the love that he brought into the world.

For us to teach with authority, our teachings must be at the same time rooted in a tradition but also addressing the new situation in which our young people find themselves. In addition if God gives us any other personal gifts, we need to put them in the service of the message. But clearly the message is about the Lord and not about us.

Here at the Prep and in our households, we want to teach with authority, we long to enkindle in the hearts of our young men some great desire that will focus the immense potential they have for true charity, for faith, for the building of a more just society. I imagine most often that my best efforts at this are not equal to the task at hand.

I do have stories about Prep boys who hear the word and then go out and practice it in a selfless way. But let me tell about a more remote teenager who turns into a leader: John Lewis, the present Georgia congressman who was one of the early champions with Doctor King in the civil rights movement. He grew up in rural segregated Alabama. He worked as a sharecropper with his parents. They made a happy home for him and, as long of they worked hard, they had no needs surviving without indoor plumbing and electricity. He realized when he was 8 years old in 1948 that there was something wrong with the fact that he could not go into the town library like the white kids because of his race. He realized when he started in high school that the segregated school system was clearly unequal, the black school physically inferior, the books hand-me downs from the white school, etc.

On Sundays it was the family custom to listen to the sermon on the radio preached by some Alabama preacher. One Sunday in 1955, Lewis reports in his autobiography, they heard for the first time Doctor Martin Luther King, a new pastor in Montgomery. This was the first time that the young Lewis had ever heard about the gospel having an important relationship to the social conditions in which people lived. Doctor King’s sermon was rooted solidly in the Bible but it also said something new to this son of a sharecropper who had experienced the indignities of his racial status. Dr. King spoke with authority. His words changed John Lewis’s life. Not many years later John as a college student became one of Dr. King’s young protégées. Now 55 years after he heard that sermon, he still serves in the Congress of the United States.

Perhaps some parent among us with some word or action will powerfully influence a son or a teacher our students with a message like that of Jesus or that of Dr. King, a message that has the power to inflame the imagination and create lasting contributions to the common good. More likely the environments that we have created at home and at school will be the deciding influence. Rare it is that a single sermon or a single experience has such power to change people’s lives.

We would like to have this power to encourage a sullen teenager, to heal a lovelorn kid, to free kids from whatever bondage holds them back from using their talents. And we know that the gospel offers a hope that we can do such things. Jesus tells us that we heal the toughest situations only with prayer and fasting.

But whatever we say or do here at the Prep to be a positive influence on our students, we need to remind ourselves of a wonderful line spoken in a Flannery O’Connor short story. The story is about a young preacher in rural Georgia who has miraculous powers and speaks with authority. People flock to the river where he preaches on Sundays. They have hopes of being healed of all their troubles. But the young preacher admonishes them with this line: “If you ain’t come for Jesus, you ain’t come for me.” (repeat) It will be well if we remind ourselves and in some way our students that there is little point in choosing the Prep over any other school if they ain’t coming to learn more about Jesus and to hear an invitation to follow him in the healing of this troubled world.

2009-01-10T09:18:00.003-05:00

The house on Jericho Road, Abington

(My parents owned this, our family house, for about sixty years. Then the house lacked the extension on the rear and, when I was young, the other houses in the picture had not yet been built.)

Visiting my grand-nephew’s bedroom at Christmastime reminded me of the room that I shared with my brother while growing up in the house on Jericho Road in Abington. Over the years the house and neighborhood appear in my dreams as the most desirable geography in this world. But, of course, the dreams also identify it as a place to which it is not possible to return, a place that has long ago disappeared. How can I describe entering the house on a cold winter’s evening when the sun light is setting over the snow and dinner beckons? We stomp our way into the basement through the side door and plaster a snow ball against the iron-walled coal furnace just for the pleasure of hearing the hissing and watching the steam.

Those who now live in the house purchased it from my father’s estate in 1993. The new owners transformed the house and even put a large addition at the back, an extension easy to see in the photograph. What my father and mother purchased as a simple house for $6,500 in the middle of the depression is now transformed into a home worth several hundred thousand dollars.

My Prep-student grand-nephew has a small study desk in his room where he tackles his algebra and Latin homework. His desk reminded me of my dad’s renovations in the bedroom that my brother and I shared, the room on the third-floor front. (Our window can be seen in the picture and a story can be told about the window, too!) When we were small the room had no electrical outlets, no desks and no closet. But my dad remedied all of these things with his own hands. He built two small desks in along the north wall opposite our twin beds. As my brother and I sat at the desks, we could turn on lamps plugged into convenient outlets installed at eye level. My brother and I often studied side by side, he working on college math that I found mysterious and I handwriting some clumsy essay that we Prep students were required to grind out every weekend.

My father loved the house and spent many a weekend on maintenance, repairs and renovations. What would he think of seeing it now, the silver maple he planted on the front lawn towering above the house, the brick and stone patio we built together at the back of the house destroyed with the extension? Whatever he thinks of Jericho Road, I know he prays for his thirteen great grandchildren with the hope that they all continue to grow in nurturing households like the one he and my mother created for their five children.

2008-12-25T22:07:00.002-05:00

Saint Malachy Church decorated for the season.

This Christmas story begins with the vanity of my mother. She was born on July 4, 1909. When she was about thirty-five she met the mother of a classmate to my sister and discovered that this woman, too, was a Yankee Doodle Dandy. The woman, Margaret DeMacedo, asked my mother the simple question, “What year were you born?” and my mother, thinking that this woman was surely younger than she, trimmed a few years off her age and said, “1912.” And Margaret said, “Oh, I’m older, I was born in 1909.” Several days later my mother called Margaret and owned up to the lie. The two women not only shared a birthday but became fast friends.

Later in life, after Margaret’s husband and one daughter had died, Margaret used to come to my parents’ home for Christmas dinner with our family. I remember the dignified way in which she lived through her widowhood and the loss of her one child. One Christmas at dinner she told us that the sermon at the early Christmas Mass had given her some comfort. The priest told the congregation that, if indeed they had a sadness on Christmas Day, they ought not feel guilty about their failure to share in the joy of the Lord’s birthday. Like so many widows and widowers who attended the early Christmas Mass, Margaret would always miss her spouse and child at that celebration. That sermon convinced her that her faithfulness was true even if she could not feel the joy of Christmas.

2008-12-21T12:40:00.004-05:00

Advent altar at Church of the Gesu; site of student Christmas Mass December 19, 2008

The Catholic Youth Organization in Philadelphia collects and wraps thousands of presents for underserved families in a program called Operation Santa Claus. On Christmas Eve the presents are distributed by teams of Santas with their elves. These young men are Prep students about to go out to distribute presents.

Dec 19 Student Mass before the dismissal for Christmas Break

First I wish you a Merry Christmas and all the blessings that go with celebrating the birthday of our God in Christ Jesus. Our God loves us entirely and becomes one like us, a child who is completely dependent on us.

A priest or teacher greeting is always a prelude to assignments. I give you three assignments for the Christmas break. I relate the first one with a story:

Some years back I went to the grocery store a few days before Christmas. I don’t do the shopping any more; Father Maivelett takes care of it. I used to go to a store over on Aramingo Ave. and I was always eager to finish. The shopping went quickly and I got the grocery cart out to the parking lot. I was focusing on getting home as soon as I could get the bags of groceries into the trunk and go on my way. A boy of 12 or 13 years old approached me and offered to help me. Preoccupied with my own thoughts I waved him off indicating that I could take care of it. He looked at me as if I had lost my mind and he said, “Mister, it’s Christmas.” I thought to myself “what is the matter with me?’ He was right to call me into reality. Sure, it’s a great line and he probably had been using it all day. But, after all, It is Christmas. I had no reason to put the kid off. I asked him to do the job and gave him an extra tip.

So the first assignment, brothers, is this. Do not get so lost in your own self that you ignore the season. Don’t get so self-absorbed or pre-occupied that you ignore the people that are around you. Jesus comes to us so that he can be around us and have our company. So in imitation of him we ought to welcome even the stranger.

The second assignment is based on another story. Mr. Magree tells this one and he can tell it better with all its detail. But I will give the main outline. One Christmas Eve Mr Magree and his brother were driving across New York State on their way home to Ohio where their family was gathering at home for Christmas. They had some trouble with their car, got off the interstate and sought help at a rural gas station. But the mechanic needed a part and could do nothing to get the car back on the road until after Christmas. They were stuck on Christmas Eve far from home and far from a car rental agent or an airport.

Somebody at the gas station saw their plight and took pity on them. He had an extra pickup truck and lent it to them so that they could drive an hour to the Buffalo airport and there rent a car for the trip to Ohio. The man asked only that they bring the truck back on their return trip. We know Mr. Magree and we would trust him with our lives but this man only saw these two strangers, strangers who could have wrecked, stripped, stolen his truck. But he takes a risk and lends his truck for a few days to two college boys. Perhaps he knew the story about the travelers Mary and Joseph, far from home, who had a hard time finding a place to give birth to their child. In any case he took pity on these two brothers and made it possible for them to celebrate Christmas at home with their family.

Your assignment is to do something generous like this for your family or friends. This might mean taking time with your family, taking time to help an older relative or a young cousin. Whatever you do for them, you do for Christ.

Finally I have an assignment without much of a story. This is the season when we men ought to take a particular interest in babies and toddlers. This is the best way for us to get an understanding of the extraordinary event of God becoming a baby. Last Sunday Prep staff and faculty brought their little children to the Prep, to the Sauter Dining Hall, to meet Santa. Among the children were several babies. I took the opportunity to hold Mr. Daniels’s baby in my arms. Now Mr. Daniels, knowing I am childless, kept a very close eye on me making sure I knew how to hold his little child. She was completely dependent on me. My instruction for you is this: if you are lucky enough over the holiday to be with a relative or friend who is a baby, take the opportunity to hold him or her in your arms and realize that this child depends completely on you and trusts you. This is what God does in the Christ Child. God entrusts himself to us.

And if you have no baby around, find a toddler and play a game with him or her. Toddlers thrive on attention from teenagers. It is easy to imagine Jesus the toddler seeking the attention of teenagers. It is easy to imagine Jesus the toddler idolizing his young relatives and other teenagers who perhaps could recite sections of the Torah or run like the wind along the streets of their hometown of Nazareth.

So three instructions:
1) Put aside any preoccupation with yourself. God is not preoccupied with anything but you and me and did not shut himself off from us but out of love came to us as a child.
2) There will be needs during the Christmas season that you can meet with a generous spirit. Be generous like the man who risked losing his truck.
3) Finally enjoy the experience of holding a baby in your arms so that you can understand better that God placed himself at our disposal. Realize, too, that Jesus was once a toddler who looked in amazement at the talents that teenagers displayed. Amaze him now even more by making good use of your talents.

And don’t forget to get your rest, your exercise and your protein.

2008-12-14T20:00:00.007-05:00

Staff and Faculty at the Prep have their kids come to meet Santa at the school. The event begins with Mass and ends with the annual Christmas concert with concert band, jazz band and chorus.

We had a good time and ate lots of potluck dessert treats.

2008-12-13T20:48:00.004-05:00

Twin brothers, Asa and Tucker Collins, freshmen at Saint Joseph's Prep School

The poem below was written by Tucker on the 2-month anniversary of their mom's (Andrea's) death. Andrea told her story of cancer on her blog "punkrockmommy." She was a wise and witty wife and mother. Even those of us who did not know her personally now miss reading about how she loved her family and friends, how she fought for more time with them but eventually came to know that God would take care of their future.

A Man for and With Others

September 5, 2008

I am no longer a student
But a scholar
A follower Of the teachings of Ignatius
My life is changing rapidly
To transform into a new
Being of competence
To show the world my best
What am I to become?
What am I in four short years?
What am I in my prime?
What am I when I move on to the other half of life?
I answer you now
I shall become
A Man for and With Others
I will be
A Man for and With Others
I shall succeed as
A Man for and With Others
When I leave this place
I will be still
A Man for and With Others

2008-12-11T19:28:00.004-05:00

Advent decorations in the Church of the Gesu

When I was a small boy and trying to understand the meaning of Christmas, my mother taught my siblings and me this little “advent” poem:

“Christmas is a comin’ and the geese are gettin’ fat.
Time to put a penny in the old man’s hat.”

Such little couplets carry a world of meaning. Always the future is comin’ at us filled with the same kind of promise as Christmas. Always we have the talents and resources, whatever it takes to fatten the geese. Always there is time and in the time given we are to be generous.

I remember asking my mother about the old man, “who is he?” Was he the Santa standing outside the store and ringing a bell? Later I realized that he stood in for anyone in need.

Postscript: Someone reminded me during the season of the second couplet:

"If you haven't got a penny, then a halfpenny will do.

If you haven't got a halfpenny, then God bless you."

The lack of halfpennies in my world also caused a question! And how to pronounce the word, too!

2008-11-28T11:25:00.002-05:00

I was lucky to have my picture with Leo Carlin, 5th grader, wearing the shirt of the school that he wants to attend. Leo is fighting a serious cancer but he is at Children's Hospital, a great place for that fight. We said a prayer together that God would direct the medicines to do the required work. A cheerful and polite kid. He will, God willing, thrive at Saint Joseph's Prep.

2008-11-17T21:45:00.003-05:00

On Bruce Maivelett's birthday we ate well: clams, mussels and paella. And for dessert two pecan pies...one made with chocolate added! One up on my roast chicken and berry crumble dessert! But it is the 50th after all, a birthday that I celebrated years ago but in the same house.

2008-11-09T17:58:00.006-05:00

Pictures of James with friends and Mary Bur with her brother

Thanks to Mary for a great party on her Jubilee. The family and her friends enjoyed it. And thanks to West Philadelphia Catholic High School for being so good to us visitors.

2008-10-23T16:49:00.000-05:00

IGNATIUS LOYOLA IS A PHILLIES FAN

2008-10-22T19:23:00.003-05:00

Prep's Tolani Ibikunle goes all out in soccer quarterfinal!

The late afternoon sun floods across the soccer field where Saint Joseph's Prep plays LaSalle College High School in a quarter-final match in the Catholic League. In a thrilling shoot-out LaSalle triumphs 4-3 after a scoreless game dominated by Saint Joseph's. Despite all out effort neither team could score.

2008-10-11T09:54:00.004-05:00

Barack Obama speaks at Progress Plaza, Philadelphia, October 11, 2008

In my lifetime I have seen only two presidents: Richard Nixon when he was vice president in 1959 and George Bush when he spoke at Independence Hall on July 4, 2001. There I got to shake his hand and he acknowledged my greeting with that smile-smirk of his and a nod of the head.

This morning, since Barack Obama was only five blocks away, I ran down to see him and arrived in the middle of his stump speach. I did it in memory of my dad who took the trouble to see Kennedy drive through Abington in a motorcade when Kennedy was running in 1960.

2008-10-04T20:15:00.004-05:00

Bruce Maivelett, Mary Cycon, Melissa McGrath, Eileen Kennedy (members of the Mother's Club), and Gerry McHugh (speaker for the breakfast from the class of 1972), myself

Mother-Son Communion Breakfast 26th of the Year September 28 2008
Almost as constant as the truism that we sons all have mothers is another: our mothers will defend us in public no matter what we do, well, almost no matter what.
Once when I was a young priest I said something in a sermon that a stranger in the congregation did not like. My mother was also present at the Mass. After Mass on the church steps she and I overheard the woman criticizing what I had said. Allow me to quote from the criticism we heard on those church steps even in the Irish brogue with which it was delivered: “that priest needs a swift kick in the arse.”
My mother sprang immediately to my defense proclaiming me as her son and undeserving of the criticism. There were other cases, too. I remember when I was fourteen and working for an unscrupulous employer. On that occasion she rightly allowed me to defend myself but coached me on how to do it.

Were my mother still living, she would be 100 years of age next Fourth of July. She was a Yankee Doodle Dandy, as the song goes, a daughter of Irish immigrants who found their way in Philadelphia. There are still occasions when I could use her as my public defender and I rely on her spiritual strength.

So I address all my young Prep brothers. Your mothers may take you to task in private; they may even agree in private conversations with others who criticize you but in public they will defend you. In fact I am fully convinced that, should a court of law demand their testimony, our mothers would not testify against us.