Brotherly visit

Last week you may recall we had two religious sisters visit Trinity High School.  Well this past Wednesday we had two religious brothers join us, Bros. John McMahon and Edward Shields.  They are both Lasallian Christian Brothers and are good friends of Trinity.  Bro. John taught at Bishop Bradley/Trinity from 1967-1972 and has visited Trinity many times in the past few years.  This was Bro. Edward's second visit to Trinity and I have come to know him over the past year or so.  He lives in New York City at LaSalle Academy and is a wonderful, engaging man.

National Honor Society was having its induction ceremony on Wednesday night and thought it would be nice for a Christian Brother to give the keynote address.  Bro. John graciously accepted their invitation and decided to make a day of it.  Bros. John and Edward arrived around 10:30am and after chatting with Mr. Mailloux '72 they met with the nine students who went with me and Ms. Foley to Montana.  This was actually the first time we have all been together since our trip and the kids were bursting at the seams to talk about the trip.  Many mentioned that there have been times since we returned home that they have been sad and wistful about not being in Montana.  The trip and the kids had made such an impact on them that they desperately want to be back there.  They also said that they have found themselves trying to complain less and want less after experiencing what they did.  We all chatted for over an hour and the brothers were very impressed with the student's observations and reflections.

Following this we grabbed some lunch and I then invited Bro. John to talk to my AP Comparative Government and Politics class about his 2011 visit to Kenya.  He had tons of pictures to show and shared a wealth of information.  After this class the brothers met with some students who had gone to Guatemala over April vacation to hear about their experiences.  Ms. Foley's sophomore theology class joined us as well which was a good opportunity for them to hear about the many mission trips that will open to them when they are juniors.  Bro. John shared some of his thoughts on Kenya with this group as well.

That afternoon we treated the brothers to dinner and then returned for the NHS induction ceremony.  I had the honor of opening the ceremony with a prayer and introducing Bro. John.  He gave a brilliant talk focusing on a dream he had one night.  In his dream, he and a group of people are in a farmhouse and they look out and see another group of people coming towards the farmhouse.  They know that they are going to be killed by this group so in their final moments they try to comfort each other by feeding one another.  He used this image of feeding one another to explain the spirituality of Lasallian education and to remind the students of their obligation to also feed one another (not literally but you get the point!).  It was a wonderful primer on the Lasallian charism of touching hearts of students and living a life of faith and zeal like the founder St. John Baptist de la Salle.  It was a homerun for sure.

Bros. John and Edward had to drive back to Rhode Island that evening so they left right after the ceremony.  It was great to have them back again and to continue to introduce our students to the wider Lasallian world.  Amazing, transformative things are happening.  Stick with this folks.