To the Band of Brothers: April 12, 2022

Fr. Willie ‘87
Hello from our nation’s capital where the eighth graders and I are spending a few days on the Founding of a Nation program. More specifically, as I write this email, we are on a bus heading to Yorktown, Virginia to visit the site where General Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington and the French Fleet during the American Revolutionary War.
 
What a great opportunity to expose your Belen brothers to the places where some of the most important moments in our history took place. The fact is, the more you know about our past, the more you appreciate, love, and serve. Those three things are necessarily tied together.
 
Speaking of great moments in history, on Sunday we celebrated Passion (or Palm) Sunday and officially launched Holy Week. We are in the final stretch of Lent that will culminate with the Easter Triduum starting with Holy Thursday, then Good Friday, the Easter vigil on Holy Saturday, and, of course, Easter Sunday. 
 
The excitement should not only be the end of sacrifice and no-meat Fridays. The excitement is celebrating the most important day of the year. No event in cosmic history has had a greater impact on existence than the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 
 
Trust me, the previous statement is not simply a thoughtless exaggeration. It is fact. While the surrender at Yorktown or the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the writing of the American Constitution are important, they don’t have as powerful an existential impact on cosmic history as does Jesus.
 
While Washington’s victory is important, Jesus’s is greater. While Washington freed a nation, Jesus freed all mankind… past, present, and future. I wouldn’t for a second doubt our great President and Founding Father would agree to celebrate the triumph of Christ takes the utmost precedence (and Washington wouldn’t tell a lie).
 
I know tomorrow you will finally be on a well-deserved break, but please, please, please do not take a break from Jesus. He is the reason for the season. He is our light and salvation. He is the lamb led to the slaughter whose death brought life to the world. Please, please, please take your parents and families to Mass. Not just Easter Sunday, but Holy Thursday, the service on Good Friday, or the vigil on Saturday.
 
As some of us delve into the great history of the United States, we all need to delve into the great history of our faith. Let this Easter be the greatest in history because you and your family celebrated it with sincere hearts and souls.
 
Auspice Maria
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BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
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.