To the Band of Brothers- September 14, 2021

Good morning!

What a weekend! I couldn’t have been happier. On Friday night, the Belen varsity football team beat St. Brendan. Then the Hurricanes beat Appalachian State, and then, on the Lord’s Day, the mighty Dolphins beat the stinky New England Patriots, and currently sit perched on top of the AFC East. The only thing that would have made the weekend better is having made a hole-in-one on the golf course Sunday morning. That did not happen.
 
Now, back to the grind of the school week. There’s a lot to look forward to. One thing is today’s feast day: the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. To think we have in the Church a feast celebrating the significance of what has throughout history been understood as the most appalling instrument of torture and death. No culture, no empire, no era has produced a more ghastly form of punishment and yet we, the Church, have a specific day to sing its praises. How is that possible?

 

Well, it’s possible because of Jesus. It’s possible because once, upon that wooden structure conjured up by devious Romans over 2000 years ago, was nailed the body of Jesus. His presence on the cross transformed what was for hundreds of years a symbol of despair and death into a symbol of extraordinary hope. It was his passion, death, and resurrection that turned those two planks of wood into the means of our salvation. Just think about the transformative power the love of Jesus has. What potential, what greatness. 

And then, as I stand at the entrance of our school every morning and fist pump students as they walk in, I can’t help but think of the potential and greatness they have. These young men with their bright eyes and bushy tails also have the power to transform the world with their love, with their lives, with what they learn here at Belen. 

 

In a world that for hundreds of years has been so scarred with despair and death in all its shapes and sizes, it’s the young men of Belen who have the potential to transform it into a world of extraordinary hope.

 

God bless.