To My Boys: August 31, 2020
Good morning!
Nothing like a Monday to get the scholastic juices flowing. I hope you guys had a great weekend and were able to get the necessary rest and had sufficient distraction to now hunker down and focus on the week of virtual learning ahead. Hopefully, the distractions of the weekend also included Sunday mass. Churches are now open (at least partially) and provide a great opportunity to get out of the house. If not, the virtual masses at your local parish are still going on. Tune in.
Yesterday’s gospel reading was one of my favorites of all time (Matthew 16:21-27). It is the famous dialogue that ensues between Jesus and Peter after Jesus reveals to his disciples that he has to suffer much and will be put to death. Peter will have none of that and tells Jesus that God forbid anything like that should happen to him. Of course, Peter was coming from a good place, but Jesus’s rebuke of the Rock was pretty harsh. He even calls him “Satan”!
The problem was that Peter was not thinking with the mind of God, but with the mind of mankind. Oftentimes, mankind cannot see the big picture and focuses on the here and now, the immediate sentiments of pleasure and survival. God thinks always with the big picture, the long term impact of our actions and lives; ultimately, our salvation.
Here it is that Jesus says that famous line that has echoed throughout the centuries and has triggered the conversion of thousands of people, including the likes of St. Francis Xavier. “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life” (Matthew 16:26). In other words, what is the hardship and struggle to always do the right thing during our relatively short lifetime on this earth in comparison with the salvation and eternal happiness to come in heaven.
It’s all about thinking long term and not being caught up with the narrow-minded, immediate short term.
I keep going back to one of my favorite movies. The Oscar-winning film A Man for All Seasons (1966) is based on a play by Robert Bolt and tells the story of the 16th-century lawyer and martyr St. Thomas More. The two main characters in the story are More, Lord Chancellor of England, and Richard Rich, a poor college student.
More, as a faithful son of the Church, refuses to betray his conscience and sign King Henry VIII’s demand for a divorce. Rich, on the other hand, sees this as an opportunity to climb the political ladder and betrays More by testifying against him at his trial. Eventually, More is beheaded and Rich is made Chancellor of England. With the mind of mankind, it can be seen as the descent of More and the ascent of Rich. With the mind of God, it is the opposite. Almost 500 years later, the Church continues to celebrate the heroic life of More, while Rich... well, no one remembers him.
It’s all about the big picture, the long term. Think about our situation today. We would love nothing more than to have you guys back on campus immediately. But thinking long term, we need to make sure that things are as right as possible in order to make that happen. What profit would there be to bring you back immediately only to have to close the school again shortly afterward (Fr. Willie 8:31).
Don’t worry. We will get there shortly. For now, we remain faithful to our course and make the most of it working diligently to open the doors to our beautiful campus and set things as they should be. We will focus on the big picture together.
Auspice Maria
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.