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!"