Hail Mary...

Today our school celebrated the feast of the Immaculate Conception.  Father Mark Cooper, OSB, the Vice President of Finance at Saint Anselm College was our presider.  Father Mark gave a brilliant homily which will be posted later on our website.

A Lasallian Christian Brother, Bro. James Dries, FSC, is visiting us and told Father Mark that he's been working in high schools for a long time and his homily was one of the best he's ever heard at a high school Mass.  Father Mark spoke to the students and really talked about what's going on in their lives, it was fantastic.

This was the first time Father Mark had ever been at Trinity High School, the first time he had celebrated Mass under the new edition, and the first time he had said Mass for high school students!

After Communion, I offered the following reflection:

In 1886, Bishop Denis Bradley, the first Bishop of Manchester, invited a group of men - the Lasallian Christian Brothers - to come to Manchester and teach at Saint Joseph’s High School for Boys, the school that would become Bishop Bradley High School and later Trinity High School.  Three years later, in 1889, that same bishop invited the Benedictine monks to come to New Hampshire to start a college on a hilltop overlooking the city of Manchester.    

It is quite fitting then, that on this day in which the ninth successor to Bishop Bradley is being installed as our new bishop, that we have among us a Lasallian Christian Brother and a Benedictine monk, the “descendants” of those first men who help pioneer Catholic education in the city of Manchester over 125 years ago.

Catholic schools like Trinity High School and Saint Anselm College exist solely to preach the gospel and to make God known, loved, and served to all people.  For us teachers and staff, this school and you students are our vocation.  We don’t teach and work here because of the money, we do so because God has called us build up his kingdom in this tiny corner of His vineyard.  And it all started with one man, Bishop Denis Mary Bradley, who had the courage and foresight to bring two dynamic religious orders to Manchester.  You are I are the legacy of that man.

And so on this day when we welcome Bishop Peter Libasci as our new shepherd, on the great feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we are reminded once again of our call to be holy and perfect like Jesus Christ and His mother Mary.  We hope and pray that by being here at Trinity High School, we will be formed to do the will of God the Father.  That is, to be more like God the Son, all with the help and guidance of God the Holy Spirit.

Amen.