"Ordinary Time"

These are my comments to students today during assembly.

So the mid-quarter report cards were last week, and the quarter ends on October 12, with 3 weeks of school between now and then. The “newness” of the year has probably rubbed off, and maybe you’re feeling the grind.  We’re in mid-season form now for football, volleyball, cheerleading and cross country—and practices, I am sure, are beginning to feel on occasion, like drudgery. We are in what our Church calendar calls “Ordinary time,” the time in between major celebrations such as Christmas and Easter. 

One of our tendencies in our culture is to focus our attention on the big events—the extraordinary moments in our lives—In a school culture, perhaps, Homecoming, Prom, Graduation. We look forward to these things, we long for them, and there’s nothing wrong with that, except if in our longing, we forget the here and now. 

When I was a junior at McGill, there was an English teacher who would call on us randomly at the beginning of class to lead the class in prayer. Because we weren’t very good at it, we’d often revert to praying for the same thing over and over, and I remember one of those prayers was “Lord, help the weekend get here quickly.” After about the 15th time in a row we prayed for the weekend, our teacher said, “You know, you’re praying your life away. What about now?” 

That was 40 years ago, but I still think about that comment. There’s truth in it. Our culture lives for the weekends. There was even a bad song that came out in the 80’s, called “Everybody’s working for the weekend.” But if our focus is only on the weekend, then what about Mondays and Tuesdays? If it’s only about the big events in our future and not about the now, we can miss the extraordinary things within the ordinary—the chance to reach out to a friend and be a good listener, the chance to make someone’s life better, the chance to improve ourselves precisely because we’re willing to do our homework well or practice hard. 

My mother used to have a plaque above the kitchen sink with a saying from St. Therese: “God moves among the pots and pans.” I think St. Therese was making this exact point—we may look for God in the big things, the miraculous, but miss him in the ordinary day to day, like doing the dishes, interacting with our family, in preparing for our classes, in being kind to someone during lunch. It's in these ordinary occurrences that God is present. 

So let’s keep that in mind this week. Happy Monday! May you work hard today, and may you sense God’s presence in all that you do, all the people that you meet, and all the chances you have to become better students, better teammates, better persons today.  

Skin in the Game

This is my talk with the student body on September 17, 2018

If you were listening to the gospel carefully on Sunday, Jesus does something very strange.  We talked about this last year in sophomore theology. 

Mark’s gospel tells the story of Jesus asking the apostles, “Who do you say that I am?” The apostles report what others have been saying, “Some say you’re John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” “But who do YOU say that I am?” Jesus inquires. The apostles go silent, and only Peter speaks up—“You re the Messiah.” Only Peter, of all the apostles, truly understands who Jesus is. In Matthew’s version of the same event, Jesus responds back to Peter, “Blessed are you, Peter, for no man has revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” 

That’s a pretty high compliment.  Peter must have been feeling pretty good about himself. 

Then Jesus begins to preach that he must suffer, be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and be killed. Peter pulls him aside and says “No, Lord, you cannot let that happen.” And Jesus gets very angry at Peter, and rebukes Peter before all the apostles, saying “Get behind me Satan! You are thinking not as God does, but as humans do.”  

Did you notice? In just four verses in the gospel, Jesus goes from saying  “Blessed are you, Peter…” to “Get from behind me Satan!” 

What’s going on? The clue is in what Jesus says next:  “He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them: Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will gain it.” 

Do you see? Peter knows the truth. He knows who Jesus is. He has faith in him. But he doesn’t want Jesus to suffer any hardships. He doesn’t understand that suffering is part of the deal.  And furthermore, when Peter later denies Jesus, he shows he doesn’t really want faith in Jesus to call HIM to suffer, either. 

We’re tempted to think like this, too, right? We live in such wealth that we get used to things being easy, and even worse, we start to believe that things SHOULD to be easy, and that when anyone calls us to do something hard, or challenges us, well, much like Peter, we’re tempted to believe that person isn’t thinking correctly, or that such a person is doing something wrong to us. 

In my school up in Montgomery a mother of a junior girl once came to see me about our Algebra II teacher. Her daughter wasn’t doing well in the class, and this caused her some tears and stress, which made the mother angry. So the Mom came into my office like a bear protecting her cubs, demanding what I intended to do to this teacher. “For what?” I asked. “For making my daughter miserable every night. She cries all the time. ” “I’m sorry about that,” I said, “Has she gone after school to get extra help from this teacher? “No,” the mother said. “She says it won’t do any good—she can’t understand him.” “Has she asked other teachers in the Math department for some extra help? I’m sure they’d be happy to help.” “No,” said the mother, getting angrier. “My daughter should not have to seek extra help from other teachers—it's her Algebra II teacher’s responsibility. It's flat-out unchristian what he's doing to her. Now what are you going to do about him?” 

I found myself getting angry, but I had to step back emotionally and look at it analytically. What were this mother’s set of assumptions that caused her to leap to the conclusion that this teacher was acting in an unchristian manner because she was having a hard time in his class? And I realized she was thinking like Peter in this gospel—that life is supposed to be easy—that school is supposed to be easy—and that anyone makes it hard is doing something wrong, or even sinful! 

I think the message of Jesus—the call of discipleship—is that we have to have some “skin in the game.” Do we know what that means? It means we can’t just sit on the sidelines of life and live virtual lives. It means we have to put ourselves in it, take some risks, endure some hardships, in order to experience love, and joy, and grace.  A student who never takes classes that challenges him or her may get mostly A’s, but will also never really experience the pride of achievement.  A person that doesn’t join a team for fear of failure or hard work will also never experience the utter joy of victory, or the “band of brotherhood or sisterhood” that develops among team mates. A person that never asks a girl out will never be rejected, but will also never experience the joy of being close to someone. 

Over the last few days, I’ve had the opportunity to go to the football game on Thursday, and the cross country meet on Saturday. What I took away from both events is how much you guys and girls are truly “putting yourselves out there” for your school. You’re putting your “skin in the game.” Even if we lose, even if we get beat, even if we’re not contenders for top 10 times in a race, it’s all about beating our personal best times, about representing our school, about being proud to be a Cardinal. 

I hope all of you will follow their lead. Join some things that challenge you a little this year. Risk failing some. Dive into the deep end and learn to swim—it’ll make your life much more interesting, much more fun, and yes, sometimes, a little harder. But doing hard things is good for our  souls—and the victories will be so much sweeter. 

The Power to Heal or Destroy

This is my address to students at assembly in our second week of school.

Good morning! 

You each have great power. You each have the power to heal, or destroy.

“Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” I think we’re told that as kids to help us brush off unkind comments, but the fact is, that statement is an absolute lie.  Physical wounds heal quickly. But when someone tears us down with gossip, or unkind comments, it hurts for a long, long time. 

Three stories from my past:

I’m a Notre Dame guy—graduated there twice, had three children go there, both of my in-law children have degrees there, and I have two nephews and one niece there now. For the most part, I am proud of the university and my association with it. But there was one thing about my freshman year which was shameful. 

Each dorm in my day would sponsor “SYR” dances, which stands for “Screw Your Roommate.” The idea was that your roommate set you up for a blind date, and he could either set you up for someone you were excited about, or "screw you" by doing the opposite. This was before Facebook, so we used a student body picture directory for these purposes--we called it a “dog book," which is terrible!  I remember one freshman girl had a very poor picture made, and that poor girl would get 15-20 phone calls whenever a dorm was hosting a dance.  How devastating for her, knowing she was the gag date! How cruel! Can you imagine being that girl, listening to laughter on the other end of the phone, called over and over?  I can’t imagine she’s ever fully recovered from this loutish, misogynist behavior. Unkind acts, unkind words,  destroy people!  

A second example. There were two sophomore girls in my previous school who were in an ugly spat over a boy. One decided to orchestrate a smear campaign about the other, telling false “secrets” about her sexual life, writing “slut” on school desks where she sat, scrawling “for a good time call _____ “ and putting her number on the bathroom walls. People talked about her behind her back, gossiping cruelly. I remember a meeting with her and her mother, with the girl weeping, and the mother sadly withdrawing her child from the school. It was horrible. Gossip destroys. 

A third, more positive example: When I was in high school, there was a senior classmate—let’s call him Bill, but that’s not his real name—who was slightly effeminate, with mannerisms and a gait that reminded people of a woman. He endured countless homosexual slurs and loutish treatment as a result. One day, as he was walking across campus to class, someone pinned a “Kick me” sign on his back, unbeknownst to him, and boys kept coming up to him and kicking him and running away, laughing. Two sophomores kicked him so hard he dropped his books, which scattered across the hallway. But as they tried to run away, a senior member of the football team, having seen what had happened,  grabbed one of the boys, pinned him against the wall, and said simply and sternly: “Bill is a senior. He’s one of us. You do that to him, you do it to us. Do you understand?” “Uh..yes,” the sophomore said meekly. “Pick up his books,” the football player said, and the boy complied, handing Bill’s books back to him. The football player then walked with Bill to class.  

I don’t know what happened to Bill, or where he lives now. But I am quite sure he remembers “He’s one of us” as if it were yesterday. Yes, words can destroy. But they can also heal and build people up.  

Scripture says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." (Ephesians 4:29) 

We are only in our third year as a school, and our first as a complete high school. It’s been a good start, but who we are has not yet been decided. We're still creating ourselves. Our reputation, the kind of school we become, will be up to you. Will we be a school that tears each other down, that wounds our classmates and puts ourselves first, or will we be a school which is kind, where words are used to heal, and to build each other up?

You have the power to choose either path for us.