Junior retreat

Overlooking Manchester from Mt. Uncanoonuc

Today we concluded our this portion of the class retreats with the junior class (the senior retreat is the morning of prom in late May).  Once again Ms. Foley and Ms. Zolkos did a great job organizing and executing part of the morning with activities and prayer in the gym from 8am-9:30am.  At 10:00am we jumped on buses and headed to the south mountain of Mt. Uncanoonuc in Goffstown.  When we arrived, our chaplain Father Richard Dion celebrated an outdoors Mass for us at Uncanoonuc Lake.  We used a canoe as the altar, inspired by Pope John Paul II who would do the same when he took students hiking and canoeing in the 1950's and 1960's.  Following Mass the students ate their lunches and we then began hiking the mountain.  We hike a mountain as it is a parallel to our faith lives.  At times it can be hard, we want to quit and turn back.  But, if we persevere, once we hit the summit we get our reward.  It's a very easy hike but there are steep parts and many of us (including yours truly!) had to stop to rest.  At some point about 12 of us got separated from the vast majority of the group and we ended up at different parts of the mountain.  But we all ended up back at the bottom together and everyone got a nice view from the top...wherever we were.

Mass celebrated by Father Richard (in the middle)

 We got everyone back to school by 1:30pm and the juniors got the rest of the day off.  It was a nice way to cap retreat season.