November 30, 2015

Advent 2015

As we do each Advent, we will have daily opportunities for our school community to enter more deeply into the season as they prepare for Christmas.  Below is a schedule of the daily events and all are welcome to take part:

First Week of Advent
Monday, Nov. 30: Lighting of first Advent candle: 7:45, front of school
Tuesday, Dec. 1: Confession: 11am-12pm, chapel
Wednesday, Dec. 2: Dinner and a Movie - 6pm, Campus Ministry
Thursday, Dec. 3: Morning Prayer and Donuts: 7:30, chapel
Friday, Dec. 4: Mass: 11am, chapel


Second Week of Advent
Monday, December 7: Lighting of second Advent candle: 7:45, front of school
Tuesday, December 8: Mass for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, 9:15am, gym
Wednesday, December 9: Christmas Concert: 7:00pm, gym
Thursday, December 10: Morning Prayer and Donuts: 7:30, chapel
Friday, December 11: Confession: 11am-12pm, chapel
Saturday, December 12: Trip to New York City: all day


Third Week of Advent
Monday, December 14: Lighting of third Advent candle: 7:45, front of school
Tuesday, December 15: Confession: 11am-12pm, chapel
Wednesday, December 16: Christmas music over the intercom in between classes
Thursday, December 17: Morning Prayer and Donuts, 7:30, chapel
Friday, December 18: Advent/Christmas Mass: 10am, St. Anthony’s Church

First Week of Advent

A few years back, Michael Toomey '14 and his dad Bill constructed a giant outdoor Advent wreath for us.  The candles are PVC pipes and they found a way to run electricity through them for the light bulbs.  We place the wreath outside each Advent and our school community gathers outside each Monday for a brief prayer and to "light" the candles.  Today we gathered for the first week of Advent and our prayer was:
Lord our God,
we praise you for your Son, Jesus Christ:
he is Emmanuel, the hope of the peoples,
he is the wisdom that teaches and guides us,
he is the Savior of every nation.
Lord God,
let your blessing come upon us
as we light the candles of this wreath.
May the wreath and its light
be a sign of Christ’s promise to bring us salvation.
May he come quickly and not delay.

Thanksgiving Mass

Fr. Richard preaching
Last Wednesday, our school community went into the Thanksgiving break with our annual Thanksgiving Mass.  For the past few years, the students from St. Joseph Regional Junior High School have been joining us for the Mass as well and it's always nice to have them with us (we also celebrate our Advent/Christmas Mass and our Holy Thursday prayer service together) Our celebrant was our chaplain Fr. Richard Dion and the con-celebrant was Msgr. Anthony Fronterio, the rector of St. Joseph Cathedral and the chaplain at the junior high.

In his homily, Fr. Richard started off by reminding the students that they are all good people and that they're not told that enough times.  He also relayed a story of how he backpacked through Europe when he was in college and towards the end, began to run out of money.  One night he had just enough for a room in a hostel but not enough for dinner.  The woman who owned the hostel, however, took mercy on him and let him eat all he wanted for free.  He later sent her a thank you note but never heard back from her but she's always in his mind as an example of someone to whom he was so thankful.
"Deep down I know..."

At the end of Mass, we all sang happy birthday to Fr. Richard as his birthday is today.  We thanked him for all he does for us, on top of his busy job as pastor at St. Anthony's Parish and vicar forane.  The final hymn was the perennial favorite "Deep Down I Know" which is one of the few songs our students will actually sing along to!  As always, it was a wonderful way to wrap up the week and enter into the greatest holiday on the calendar.

November 24, 2015

Power Breakfast

Each year on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, New Horizons for New Hampshire has a fundraising breakfast at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Manchester.  The event features a who's-who of New Hampshire political, business, and religious leaders and there are over 700 people in attendance.  Gov. Maggie Hassan, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, and Mayor Ted Gatsas were at the head table and Bishop Libasci attends each year as well.  We are invited to attend every year to assist with the sales of raffle tickets and collecting pledge cards.  Two of our students also helped out last night for two hours helping to set the room up.

The breakfast features a variety of speakers, including the governor, senator, and mayor, a person who has benefited from New Horizons, a business leader, and a clergy member.  Charlie Sherman, the executive director, MC's the breakfast and leads the pledge drive and raffle.  Charlie publicly acknowledged the Trinity students and also talked about our Cardboard City event which of course benefits New Horizons.  He told the crowd that Trinity holds a special place in his heart!  Our kids were full of smiles!

Charlie also announced that New Horizons will be partnering with Families in Transition and will staff their brand new kitchen and meal center when it opens next year.  Our National Honor Society has a nice relationship with Families in Transition and we look forward to seeing if we can assist with them with the meal center.

The breakfast concludes with an award ceremony and we usually sneak out at the very end of that part so as to beat the crowd and traffic.  We are always so honored to play a very small tole in this event and I personally look forward to attending each year, it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it for me.

November 23, 2015

Best day of the year

The line-up of Thanksgiving Baskets
The Monday before Thanksgiving has always been a special day at Trinity High School.  It is on this day each year that our school community donates hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Thanksgiving baskets to the good people of Blessed Sacrament Parish and the Parish of the Transfiguration, both in Manchester.  A few weeks back, we distributed laundry baskets to the entire school community and asked them to bring them back today filled with items for a Thanksgiving dinner.

Bishop Libasci blessing the baskets



Our goal this year was 500 baskets - 120 for Transfiguration and the rest for Blessed Sacrament.  Transfiguration requests a set amount each year and we like to give about 350 to Blessed Sacrament.  Unfortunately, we didn't meet our goal but our students and the students of St. Joseph Regional Junior High School did bring in over 400.  The baskets were dropped off in the morning and lined our front lawn throughout the day.  At 9:30am, we all went outside and Mr. Mailloux '72 offered a few words of thanks and said that moments like this are reminders of our Catholic mission.  He then introduced Bishop Libasci who was kind enough to join us.  He too extended his thanks and then blessed the baskets and all those present.  His blessing was a variation of the traditional Prayer before Meals but changed it a bit at the end saying, "...from the bounty of the Pioneers..."
At Blessed Sacrament Parish 

After school, tons of teachers, students, parents, former parents, and one alum helped load the baskets into cars, minivans, and trucks and we brought the baskets to the two parishes.  I joined in on the caravan to Blessed Sacrament where we were greeted by the pastor, Fr. John Bucchino, OFM and many volunteers.  After we brought all the baskets in, we took a group picture and Fr. John offered his thanks and a blessing to everyone.  Fr. John said how impressed he was with the energy everyone had bringing in the baskets but said what matters the most is the energy of their work to feed the hungry.

The Thanksgiving traditions continue tomorrow and Wednesday as a number of students will help out at the New Horizons Thanksgiving Breakfast tomorrow morning with we will celebrate our annual Thanksgiving Mass on Wednesday.  This is truly the best week of the year!


 

November 20, 2015

Makes this old government teacher cry (well, not literally)

In addition to my work in Campus Ministry, I have the pleasure of also teaching in our social studies department teaching AP Government and Politics and AP US History.  This has been a very satisfying week for this old government teacher:

1. We had our kick-off meeting for our Youth and Government program on Tuesday and had 30 students show-up

2. One of my students turned 18 this week and went straight to Manchester City Hall that morning to register to vote.

3. Two of our students were at Dunkin Donuts yesterday in Manchester during their senior privilege and ran into someone you might know (who then put the picture on his Twitter feed!):




Campus Minister Gathering

Three times a year, the campus ministers at the four Catholic high schools in the Diocese of Manchester get together at our various schools.  We began these gatherings last year at Bishop Brady High School in Concord and last Friday we got together at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Dover.  Unfortunately, Linda Fairbanks from Bishop Brady could not be with us this time so it was a meeting with me, Mollie Kerrigan from Bishop Guertin High School and Shawn Gregory from St. Thomas.

It was only my second time at St. Thomas, the first time being a few years back when our entire faculty went there for a guest speaker.  The school is located just off of Rt. 16 and is a sprawling campus.  They have their old sports fields and the school building is very big (I am a tad jealous!).   They also have another building that used to be the residence for the sisters that worked there that is now administrative offices and classroom space.

We began our morning together with prayer in the school chapel followed by coffee and fellowship.  We then just really sat around and shared ideas, talked about what our schools are doing, bounced ideas off each other, etc.  It was very informal but a nice opportunity to just be together, share our successes and struggles, and get new ideas.  I always look forward to these opportunities.

November 19, 2015

Where there are religious there is joy

As you may know, Pope Francis declared a Year of Consecrated Life from November 2014-February 2016.  This year was set apart to celebrate the work of women and men religious and to thank them for their vocations.  Last spring, as part of this Year, we sent notes to every woman religious in the Diocese of Manchester.  The students thanked them for saying yes to God's call and for serving our local Church.  This week we sent out similar notes to all of the men religious in the diocese.  Sadly, there are less than 60 of them and many of them are the monks from Saint Anselm Abbey.  But, it was a chance for us to let them all know how grateful we are to them and for their many years of service.  

We are going to conclude the Year of Consecrated Life by inviting the local religious communities, especially the ones from orders who taught in our Catholic schools, to our Catholic Schools Week Mass in February.  

We of course also formally launched our 3-year discernment period with the Christian Brothers this fall, a very fortuitous time.  Speaking of which, the order is holding its annual Huether Conference in Chicago this weekend.  The conference is an opportunity for educators from Lasallian schools from around the country to come together to discuss and learn about innovations in education.  Mr. Maurier '72 of our science department and Mr. Nunnally of our theology department are attending the conference on behalf of Trinity. Ironically, Mr. Maurier is the most senior teacher on our staff and Mr. Nunnally is the most junior.  We look forward to hearing about the conference at our next faculty meeting in December.

November 18, 2015

One of ours

This past Sunday, Nicholas Capobianco '15 organized a prayer vigil at the University of Scranton for the victims of all the recent terror attacks.  Nick was one of the finest people to come through Trinity High School in recent years so this was certainly no surprise.  The local news in Scranton covered the vigil and interviewed Nick.  You can watch it below:


Thanksgiving Baskets 2015

I was just speaking with Mr. Sheehan '79 of our math department who said that the proudest moment of the year for him is on the Monday before Thanksgiving.  That is the day that our school community brings in laundry baskets filled with food for Thanksgiving dinner.  For over 10 years now we have collected the baskets for the good people of Blessed Sacrament Parish and the Parish of the Transfiguration, both in Manchester.  After school is over, we have a caravan of students, parents, and alumni who help bring the baskets to the parishes.  It is indeed one of my favorite days of the year.

If anyone is interested in helping out with the Thanksgiving Basket Drive, here is what we are collecting:


November 10, 2015

Veterans Day Assembly 2015

For the past month or so, we have been doing research on the alumni of St. Joseph's High School for Boys (the first Catholic high school in Manchester and the predecessor school of Bishop Bradley High School) who died serving our nation in World War II.  The high school opened in 1886 at 50 Lowell Street, directly across the street from the Red Arrow.  The building is still there and is presently owned by a group called Christian AfterCare Ministries, a ministry for former prisoners/criminals.

We didn't have a list of alumni who died in World War II so I went to the Diocesan Archives and met with Barbara Miles, the archivist for the diocese.  There we found copies of a publication called the "Red and Blue", quarterly publications by St. Joseph's High School for Boys published from the 1920's-1950's.  It was in an issue from 1944 that we found a list of all the alumni who died and those who served in the war.  Jackpot!  It turned out that our Development Office had these publications as well (unbeknownst to me) and in our files I found a 1946 edition of the "Red and Blue" with a revised list of those who died in World War II.  We then cross-referenced that list with the transcripts in our files and came up with 15 names.  There were others in the 1946 list that I could not find any information on and some didn't graduate from the school (they dropped out to serve in the military).  We stuck with the 15 men who we had records for and could find additional information on via the internet or looking through Union Leader articles on Microfilm at the Manchester Public Library.  I came across a Union Leader article from April of 1945 that spoke of an Honor Roll dedication for those who students and alumni of St. Joseph's High School for Boys who served and/or died in World War II.  The article said there were over 400 alums who served in the war, about 170 who dropped out to serve in the war, 16 who died, and 4 who were MIA.  

We presented all of this information at a special assembly this morning to mark Veterans Day.  We began the assembly with a reading from Luke 18:18-30 and the singing of the National Anthem by our choir.  I then gave a brief history of St. Joseph's High School for Boys and World War II and read an excerpt from Tom Brokaw's amazing book "The Greatest Generation" and then introduced the students to the 15 men who died.

One by one, students, faculty, and staff came up and introduced each man.  We showed their senior portrait on a screen and after reading their name, toned a bell three times.  We then read a brief biography of each man, including their senior paragraph from the "Red and Blue."  As you can imagine, we had more information on some than others as there was more information available online for some than others..  We could not find the 1938 and 1941 "Red and Blue" commencement issues so we didn't have paragraphs for those guys to share.  

Following the reading of the names and biographies, Elliott Lawrence '18 played "Taps" on his trumpet while Paul Boyd '17 and Michael Ducharme '17 unfurled an American flag and then folded it back.  The choir then sang "God Bless America."  To conclude, we invited up five veterans to thank them for their service and to tell us about their experience.  Three of the veterans work here - Mr. Clement '63, Mr. Hobart, and Mr. O'Leary, one was a parent, and other was John Jordan '54, a Manchester historian who was a big help to me in my research and who joined us.  They all told us their names, their branch, years of service, etc. to big applause from our student body.  

This project was indeed a labor of love and I hope it gave our students an appreciation for the sacrifices made by these men, men were really just boys and were just like the students sitting in the bleachers today, full of life, energy, and hope.  They gave their lives, I said, so that we could live our lives freely.

Here are the names of the men who died:

Cornelius Cronin ’26 
Robert Shine ’34 
Kevin Ahern ’35 
Andrew Leclerc ’35 
William White ’35 
Francis Barrett ’37 
Leonard Rattigan ’37 
William Cullity ’38
Edward Reed ’38 
Bertrand Smith ’38 
James Basquil ’39 
Donald McEvoy ’39 
Thomas Dwyer ’41 
Thomas Richards ’41 
Lawrence White ’42 

November 7, 2015

Honoring the Greatest Generation

We typically host a Veterans Day Assembly at our school on or around the holiday and we try to tie the assembly into honoring our alumni who have served our nation.  Back in 2010, during our 40th anniversary celebration, we honored all of our alumni while last year we honored the graduates of Bishop Bradley High School, one of our predecessor schools, who died serving in the Vietnam War.   This year, we are focusing on our alumni from St. Joseph's High School for Boys who died serving in World War II.  The assembly will be this Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 9:15am in our gym and all are welcome.  We would also like to recognize and thank members of our extended school community who are veterans and invite them to join us for this celebration.


Political day

Judge Laplante (right) with students
This past Wednesday was certainly a memorable day.  In addition to working in Campus Ministry, I teach two social studies classes - AP Government and Politics and AP US History.  I had recently heard about Judge Joseph Laplante, one of the three judges at the United States District Court in Concord.  Judge Laplante is a very active parishioner at St. Christopher's Parish in Nashua and when I was there last month for Vocation Day I met the judge's wife who works at St. Christopher's School.  I asked Mrs. Laplante if the judge spoke to classes, she said yes, gave me his email address and within days we had a visit scheduled!

We had a special schedule on Wednesday so we were able to have Judge Laplante speak to my Government class for over an hour.  He spoke about his very impressive career in public service - New Hampshire Attorney General's office, U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston and Concord, and a stint with the U.S. Justice Department.  President Bush nominated him to be a judge in 2007 and in 2011, he became the chief judge.

Judge Laplante then spoke about the role of the judicial branch and the day to day operations of the district court in Concord.  The students had tons of questions, mainly hypotheticals and he answered them beautifully.  As the father of two high school students, a college student, and an active leader in youth sports, he knows kids well.  His only blemish really is that two of his children attend Bishop Guertin High School!  His father Normand is a 1955 graduate of Bishop Bradley High School.  He offered to come back anytime and told the students they can contact him anytime with any questions about the law, career advice, etc.

Later that morning I attended a meeting of the diocesan Public Policy Commission, chaired by Meredith Cook '89, of which I am a member.  This was a special meeting to hear from State Sen. Jeb Bradley, the Senate Majority Leader.  As part of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), the federal government gave states the option of expanding Medicaid for those at 138% of the poverty level and thus too poor to afford health insurance from the Healthcare Exchange.  The federal government paid for the first couple of years of expansion but states had to begin assuming more of the cost as time went on.  New Hampshire elected to expand Medicare (which we on the Public Policy Commission urged) but the issue now is how does the state pay for it.  New Hampshire, of course, doesn't have an income tax so the state budget is pretty tight.  Sen. Bradley, who is a Republican, thanked the Church for their past support on this and asked us to continue to lobby for it.  The number of uninsured in the state, he said, has dropped as has the cost of health insurance so this is working.

In all, this was quite the day.  One doesn't often spend time with a federal judge and the Senate Majority Leader in the same morning!  It makes me realize how incredibly fortunate I am to have the job I have!

November 2, 2015

May their souls...

Today the Church marks All Souls Day, a day to remember our beloved dead.  All of November, really, is set apart to remember and pray for the dead.  November was chosen because reminders of death are really all around us - barren trees, dead grass, long nights, shorter days, cold air, etc.

We are having brief prayer services in our chapel today and tomorrow and are inviting students to write the names of their beloved dead in our Book of the Names of the Dead.  The book will be in our chapel throughout the month and each morning we will name a few of the deceased for our morning prayer.

You are invited to send in names to us to be inscribed in our book at this link.

May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.