Glad Tidings!

And the angel said to them: Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people: For, this day, is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God, and saying: Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will." (Luke 2: 10-14)

As I complete my first semester as headmaster of JPII, I extend my wishes and prayers to all my friends and members of the JPII family. May Christ be reborn in all our hearts this Christmas season.

For those of you who missed the glorious Christmas concert by our choral program:

Ding Dong Merrily on High
I'll Be Home for Christmas
Do You Hear What I Hear?

Bravo, JPII Choir! Bravo, JJ! Merry Christmas to all.

Veritas

This is the headmaster's address to JPII students on Monday, December 8, 2008.

You are liars, cheats and thieves! Despite this fact, you believe you're persons of good character, which means you’re also hypocrits!

So says a recent national survey of teenagers, the results of which were made public last week.

The Josephson Institute, a Los Angeles-based ethics institute, surveyed 29,760 students at 100 randomly selected high schools nationwide, both public and private. All students in the selected schools were given the survey in class; their anonymity was assured.

The key findings from the survey:

30% of teens acknowledged stealing from a store.

64% admitted cheating on a test in the last year.

36% said they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment in the last year.

42% admitted to lying to save money.

These numbers are probably on the low side: Over 25% of those taking the test admitted to lying about at one or more of the questions on the survey (which creates a kind of conundrum—are they lying about their lying or being truthful about their lying? I once saw a T-shirt on the front which said: The statement on the back of this shirt is true. On the back it said, “The statement on the front of this shirt is false”.)

Despite such responses, 93 percent of the students said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character, and 77 percent said, "When it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know."

These results have been the subject of heated discussions on talk shows and on Internet bulletin boards over the last several weeks. The general theme of these discussions has been “What does this say about America’s youth? What does this say about our future leaders?”

I suspect what this says about our future leaders is they’re going to look a lot like our current leaders. If we did the same survey on adults, and instead of the question on plagiarizing, asked adults how many had not declared 100% of their income on tax, I don’t think the results would be appreciably different. In Christian terms, we all sin—whether you’re 17 or 42 or 75. We are all tempted, and too often, give in to that temptation. We are all in need of forgiveness. We all are in need of a savior.

The far more disturbing statistic in this study is that despite the results, 93% are satisfied with their personal ethics and character. Again, I doubt that number is unique to teenagers, but reflects wider societal views. It is one thing stumble and fall. It’s another thing, having fallen, to imagine one is still walking upright.

If you’re a sports fan like I am, you’ve been bombarded with stories of athletes who’ve gotten themselves into ethical trouble: Plexico Burress of the NY Giants is the latest example—carrying around an illegal weapon that he shot himself with. OJ Simpson, former Heisman trophy-winning RB for USC and NFL Hall of Famer, was just sentenced to 9 years for armed robbery. Roger Clemens may have cheated by using illegal steroids throughout his career? Michael Vick was involved in an illegal gambling operation that involved fighting dogs. When you hear the pundits talk about these top line athletes, they’ll typically say things along the lines of “I can’t believe they are so stupid to jeopardize their careers with so much going for them.” So the analysis is it’s a failure of intelligence—they’re acting stupidly— rather than a moral failure—they’re acting sinfully.

Christianity’s wisdom is to remind us that we’re not just stupid—something that could be remedied with better schooling or more refinement —but that we’re flawed. As St. Paul says:

“The law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold into slavery of sin. What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I hate. Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?” (Romans 7: 16, 23)

Advent is a time to grow closer to the Lord. The first step toward that is admitting our own sinfulness and not shying away from calling our sins for what they are. If we lie, cheat or steal, God will forgive us if we ask him to do so. Both Peter and Judas betrayed Jesus. The biggest difference is that Peter begged Jesus for forgiveness, whereas Judas was too proud to ask.

It's About Time

This is Mr. Weber's address to the JPII student body on Monday, December 1, 2008

In the early 1980’s, Domino’s Pizza was the first American corporation to deliver food directly to your house. They marketed themselves with the promise, “If we don’t deliver your pizza within 30 minutes of your order, you get the whole pizza free”. I had a good friend at Notre Dame who lived in the most remote dorm on campus, a good mile away from my dorm, and being poor college students, we would often synchronize our watches and order pizza at the exact same time from the local Domino’s pizza store. Since they did not allow cars on campus, it was physically impossible for the pizza delivery boy to get both pizzas to us within 30 minutes, and depending on which dorm he chose to deliver to first, one of us always got a free pizza—every time.

Since the early 1970’s, the food delivery service, and in fact, fast food service in general, has exploded in growth, from a 6 billion/year enterprise in 1970 to 110 billion by 2000. Whereas before, families (typically, the mother) would go to the grocery store to purchase the raw ingredients, then prepare the meal, then cook the meal in the oven, then serve, then sit down together as a family, today that is most uncommon—the typical American family eats out 4-5 times week, and on the other days, we nuke a ready made dinner in the microwave and serve it on the go. We even expect our fast food stores to be faster, adding drive-through windows, so we don’t have to get out of the car and stand in line, and yet, if you’re like me, if the drive through line isn’t moving fast enough after I order, I become impatient and leave before I get to the window.

We are, in fact, an impatient society. Instead of saving money for a big purchase, we buy on credit with money that we don’t have. The average family will add $1,000 to their credit card balances this Christmas, despite the fact that 12 million card-holders haven’t paid off their balances from last Christmas. The economic crisis we’re experiencing now is fueled largely by the fact that we have purchased houses that are more than we can afford, enticed by once ridiculously low variable interest rates which have now varied upward, making it impossible for many to make their monthly payments, causing them to forfeit their houses, leaving banks with many properties they cannot unload.

A society that seeks instant gratification is a society that has a problem with waiting. And yet, as we begin this first week of Advent, a time when we prepare for the coming of Christ, we are reminded that waiting is a good thing, a necessary thing.

We read an interesting reading this Sunday in church, from the prophet Isaiah. At the time Isaiah wrote, near the end of the Babylonian exile, the ancient faith of Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon was perilously close to being extinguished. In 586 B.C., the Babylonian king marched into Jerusalem, easily defeating the Israelite armies, and destroyed the Temple built by Solomon almost 400 years earlier—a terrible sacrilege. He then added to their horror by selling Jewish families into slavery, deliberately splitting families by sending mothers and fathers to different regions than their daughters and sons. They were now far away from the land 'flowing with milk and honey' promised to them during the exodus from Egypt, some 700 years earlier with Moses. The power of the Lord, revealed during the crossing of the Red Sea, the miracles in the desert, the battle of Jericho and all the great works of the Lord from the past seemed like children's fables. They were losing faith and losing hope. Into this desperate situation, Isaiah cries to God:

You, LORD, are our father, our redeemer you are named forever.

Why then, do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?

Return for the sake of your servants! Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you, while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for, such as they had not heard of from of old. (Isaiah 63:16b-17)

In other words, come down, Lord and work your miracles of old, so that our enemies will be vanquished, our spirits will be rejuvenated and Israel can be restored. We are your people, doesn’t that matter to you? We’re tired of being trampled upon and we’re losing faith in you. Send us a savior. We cannot wait any longer.

This is the ancient cry of the Israelite people, and it is the cry of all Christians as we enter into this Advent season. Like the Israelites during the exile, our world is out of wack. Many of you heard about the Wal-mart employee who was trampled to death by 2000 shoppers who busted down the doors on the Friday after this Thanksgiving at 5 a.m. When the shoppers were told the store was closing because of the death, they were angry, claiming they had been there since late Thursday night in line, and when forced to leave, they lined up around the crime tape, impatiently waiting for the store to re-open. Our world is sick with greed, with self-centeredness, with excess. We are in need of someone to save us--mostly from ourselves.

And yet, like the Israelites, we must wait. From the time of Isaiah’s prophecies, the Jewish people had to wait over 500 years for their long hoped for Messiah, and he came in such an unexpected, unrecognizable form, that many of them did not realize their savior was among them.

During this Advent season, in which we symbolically re-enact this waiting of the Jewish people for the messiah to be born, may we use this time to prepare our hearts for the coming of the Messiah, so that we can better recognize his presence in all those we meet. May we use this time to seek forgiveness for those whom we’ve hurt and forgive those who have hurt us. Let us use this time to become a little less cynical, a little less judgmental, a little more patient, so that we can welcome Christ more fully together at Christmas.

This Advent, it’s about time.