This past weekend I had the pleasure of traveling to West Hartford, CT, with senior Maeve Hurley, where we attended a Xaverian Brothers Sponsored School (XBSS) Planning Retreat to prepare for the five-day national retreat our Xaverian Sponsorship Office hosts annually in March. Together with a team from Lowell Catholic, we hitched a ride with the representatives from St. John’s Prep, led by MC alum Mike Driscoll ’06, now a campus minister at the Prep. At the Passionist Retreat Center in West Hartford, we joined adult leaders and seniors from our other ten Xaverian Brothers Sponsored Schools – 2 from Massachusetts (St. John’s, Shrewsbury; Xaverian Brother High School, Westwood), 2 from Connecticut, 2 from New York, 3 from Maryland, and 1 from Kentucky.  Maeve and her fellow seniors had attended the March retreat last year and were specially selected to lead this year’s retreat, when 6 juniors from each school will gather. The purpose of the national retreat is to develop a sense of shared mission among students of our sponsored schools and to inspire them toward leadership in support of Campus Ministry activities at their respective schools. Most find the retreat a life-changing experience.

 

A central message of the national retreat, formulated from The Fundamental Principles of the Xaverian Brothers, is that

That’s a powerful message when properly understood and taken to heart. In fact, it’s a message implicit in the mission of Malden Catholic as well as at all other Catholic schools across our nation. Together with whatever knowledge and skills students at Catholic schools develop, the hope is that seeds are planted for an ever-deepening relationship with God and for a willingness to be of service to others, our brothers and sisters as sons and daughters of God. How different our nation and our world would be were we to live out more authentically that Gospel message.

 

This week, thankful to be part of a Xaverian Brothers network of sponsored schools, we join other Catholic schools around the nation in celebrating Catholic Schools Week. Our wide range of special activities at MC, we hope, will help us to celebrate as a community, reminding us who we are called to be as children of God, how different we are, and how blessed we are to be a Catholic school in the Xaverian tradition. 

 

Read more about MC’s celebration of Catholic Schools Week and a brief snapshot of National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) statistics on Catholic education in the U.S.