During this year’s 2019 Jesuit Gala, the USA Northeast Province of the Society of Jesus will honor its 10 Jesuit high schools with the Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam Award. The award recognizes those who give selflessly of themselves for the greater glory of God. While it has traditionally been given to individuals in the past, this year it will signify the outstanding work of Boston College High School, Canisius High School, Cheverus High School, Fairfield Prep, Fordham Prep, Loyola School, McQuaid Jesuit, Regis High School, St. Peter’s Prep and Xavier High School.
Despite being spread across five states in the northeast, these 10 schools all have a shared Ignatian heritage and mission that can be seen in the competence, compassion and courage of their students.
During the lead up to the Gala, the province will highlight just some of the wonderful work being done by the students at these 10 schools. We encourage you to visit this page as more stories of competence, compassion and courage are added below.
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Learning and Teaching in the Caribbean Three Canisius students had the opportunity to go on a service trip to Trinidad and Tobago over the February school break. These students – Damere Hardy ’19, Noah Williams ’19 and Dondrell Vance, Jr. ’20 – studied abroad for ten days with the UB MedStep Program, teaching children about dental hygiene and the importance of oral health. The students taught and interacted with the children for the entire week, assisting as they learned to brush and floss and helping with teeth cleanings and some academic work. Read more. |
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Fordham Prep Participates in Global Christmas Prayer Last December, six students from Fordham Prep’s Ministry Leadership Team participated in a virtual, Global Christmas Prayer with Jesuit schools around the world. Students from each school shared experiences of generosity they have witnessed in during this school year as well as a Christmas prayer for the entire global network. Read more. |
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Cheverus High School Retreat Focuses On Immigration Catholic Charities Maine recently visited Cheverus High School for a school-wide retreat focused on immigration. Each grade listened to a different speaker share personal stories about immigration. After hearing these personal stories, the students from different grades gathered for small group sessions. Student leaders led each small group in an examen, a discussion, and a closing gratitude exercise. Read more. |
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BC High Attends Model UN Conference at Georgetown University Last month BC High’s Model UN returned from a successful trip to Washington, D.C., for the North American Invitational Model UN Conference at Georgetown University. The Georgetown University Model UN Opening Ceremonies took place in the same ballroom where the White House Correspondents’ Dinner happens. The keynote speaker was the current Director of the Peace Corps, Dr. Josephine Olsen, PhD, MSW. A former peace corps volunteer, Dr. Olsen urged the 3,100 high school Model UN delegates to consider the Peace Corps. Read more. |
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Prayer Service and Revival 2019 The Xavier High School community gathered in the Student Chapel for a revival service, which offered faculty, staff, alumni and students a chance to prayer together through song. The events organizer, Zane Massey ’96 P’22, Xavier’s director of alumni relations, took inspiration from services held at his own local church. “At my former church we would have revivals of this kind. Every few years to commemorate a special events,” Massey said. With the Xavier community becoming increasingly diverse, Massey felt the need to allow different expressions of faith to be prevalent in the community. Read more. |
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Stained Glass Project at Canisius High School Canisius High School art teacher Cathy Pitek has arranged for students to work with local stained-glass artist Megan McElfresh on designing and constructing a stained glass window for the main staircase of the school’s Center for the Arts. Through the spring, students will work on the construction of the new window inside the arts center building itself. They will help pattern the glass, lead the glass, cut it into shapes, build, and finally frame the window, all the while learning skills not normally offered to other high school students. Read more. |
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Arrupe Week 2019 at Saint Peter’s Prep From March 11-15, Saint Peter’s Prep will host the 22nd annual Arrupe Week, a week-long summit on faith and justice. The summit includes a community mass, a keynote address, a day of breakout presenters, curricular activities, and other opportunities to engage more deeply with the theme. This year’s topic will be Homelessness. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual point-in-time study, on a single night in 2018 there were roughly 553,000 people experiencing homelessness in our country. Additionally, the prep will hold a special Parent Event beginning at 6:30 p.m. on Wed., March 13, featuring Robert Johnson, formerly homeless and now an educator with the Uniondale Public School system on Long Island. Read more. |
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Fordham Prep Holds Inaugural Faith Doing Justice Summit Last November Fordham Prep held its inaugural Faith Doing Justice Summit, which focused on the theme of “Criminal Justice: Reconciliation and Redemption.” The summit encouraged the community to assess critical issues of justice through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching and Ignatian spirituality. During the week and continuing throughout the school year, the prep community will look at various justice issues connected to the criminal justice system. The week also included a school-wide assembly featuring Sr. Helen Prejean, CSJ, author of Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty. Read more. |
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Summer CFX Trips Send Students to Serve Every summer, Xavier High School’s Companions of Francis Xavier (CFX) program sends students on trips of service and reflection. Last June and July, CFX went to Ecuador, Mexico, and Tennessee, where students had the opportunity to construct homes, visit orphanages, spend time in a community, and reflect on the realities of social injustice. They finished the summer with two trips to Maryland and Tennessee, which offered more students the chance to contribute their gifts to the world. Read more. |
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Fairfield Prep National Merit Semifinalist and Commended Scholars Last fall, Fairfield Prep announced the four seniors who were honored in the National Merit Scholarship Program, including Semifinalist Alex Nordlinger and three Commended honorees. The seniors are recognized based on the PSAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test taken in their junior year. Over 1.6 million students from across the nation entered the competition by taking the test, and the Prep winners were selected based on placement in the top five percent in the highly competitive state of Connecticut. Read more. |
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McQuaid Students Learn About Jesuit Vocations On Mon., Nov. 5, in honor of International Jesuit Vocation Day, more than 35 McQuaid Jesuit students gathered to “Meet the Jesuits” in the Campus Ministry lounge. Fr. Ed Salmon, SJ, school chancellor, and Fr. Al Hicks, SJ, tutor, shared stories from their own journeys of faith that led them to joining the Society of Jesus. Read more. |
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Honoring a Fordham Prep Teacher To honor their recently deceased teacher, Mrs. Rosanna Estrella, Fordham Prep’s UNICEF club raised money and purchased a motor boat through the Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation to help students in water villages in the Philippines get to school. The boat will help transport 30 kids a day and will be donated to families in June. The students added a special Fordham Prep touch to remember their beloved teacher. Read more. |
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Holy Land Blog From Two Jesuit High School Educators Saint Peter’s Prep religion teacher Russ Fiorella is currently traveling in the Holy Land this with Adam Baber, principal of McQuaid Jesuit. They have a blog detailing their experiences. Read more. |
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BC High Students Helps Build Home in Belize Last year, 12 students from Boston College High School and three BC High staff members including BC High President Grace Cotter Regan, constructed a new home for a 72- year-old woman in Belize. The BC High volunteers went to Belize to assist an organization called ‘Hand in Hand Ministries’, to build a home for a family in need, reflect on their place in the world, and pray together. Hand in Hand provides simple yet stable housing for people in Appalachia and Central America. Read more. |
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Xavier High School’s Class of 2019 Celebrates Annual Junior Year Liturgy Last fall, approximately 400 members of Xavier High School’s Class of 2019 and their families gathered in the Church of St. Francis Xavier to celebrate the Junior Year Liturgy. Each year, Xavier celebrates and comes together in worship with juniors and their families to express gratitude to God for the accomplishments of the class as well as to look forward to their final year at Xavier. A group of 15 juniors served as the planning committee for the Mass and chose the theme of the liturgy, which was “It is Love That Unites Us to Endure.” The committee helped select music and prayers, and served as lectors, altar servers, ministers of hospitality, and music ministers. Fr. Jim Hederman, SJ, was the main celebrant.Read more. Read more. |
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Saint Peter’s Prep Welcomes Guests From Peru The partnership between Colegio de la Inmaculada in Lima, Peru, and Saint Peter’s Prep entered its third year in January 2019, as ten students and two teachers from the Jesuit school in Peru’s capital arrived at the prep. Highlights included a welcoming reception, a walking tour of Lower Manhattan, and presentations by the Peruvian students during an assembly for the sophomore class. Presentation topics ranged from Peruvian history and culture, to daily life at La Inmaculada. Read more |
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Cheverus High School Senior Rachael Haskell Named Winner of 2018 Amirault Scholarship Cheverus High School senior Rachael Haskell, has been named the recipient of the 2018 Lila Grace Sullivan Amirault Scholarship. The scholarship fund helps Maine Catholic high school students with college tuition costs. Still considering several outstanding colleges, she plans to study psychology with aspirations to become a child therapist. Read more. |
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Fairfield Prep joins Red Chair Campaign to Spotlight Global Education Injustice The Global Red Chair Project was launched in 2017 to raise awareness about the right to an education and the fact that millions of youth continue to be denied this inalienable right. Jesuit schools are committed to going deeper by exploring the root causes and consequences of this lack of access. Fairfield Prep joined other Jesuit schools in this effort last year to draw attention to the fact that approximately 264 million children around the world do not have the opportunity to attend school primarily due to war, genocide, famine, poverty, climate change, and gender discrimination. Read more. |
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25 Years of Fordham Prep’s Christian Service Immersion Trips In the summer of 1994, eight Fordham Prep students traveled to a small town in the Appalachian Mountain Region of West Virginia to work with an organization called Nazareth Farm, building and repairing homes for families in need. Those students did not know at the time that they would be the pioneers who would launch Fordham Prep’s Appalachia Program, which became the Christian Service Immersion Program, now in its 25th year. Read more. |
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Canisius Science Olympiad Medalists The Canisius High School Science Olympiad team earned eight medals at a regional event at Buffalo State College on Feb. 2. The Crusaders competed against teams from dozens of other schools from around Western New York. Evan Popat ’20 and Owen Huber ’20 built a car powered by a mousetrap mechanism and took the overall first place medal. Read more. |
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Jesuit Schools Compete in Ignatian Social Justice Tournament Read about how Fairfield Prep, Fordham Prep, Loyola High School, Regis High School and Xavier High School took part in the Ignatian Social Justice Tournament, a friendly competition to raise money for charities in need. Each school sent a group of students to conduct a 10-minute presentation before a panel of judges. Judges then had five minutes to ask questions following each presentation. Read more. |
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Xavier Marks St. Peter Claver Day Xavier High School marked its second annual St. Peter Claver Day on Jan. 18, encouraging members of the community to practice empathy and inclusion. The brainchild of the Community Life and Inclusion Council, the day’s events began in homeroom as students, teachers, and administrators worked through activities that challenged them to see the world through the eyes of others. The theme of the day, “Strengthening the Bonds Between Us: Empathy and Inclusion,” was included in the day’s lesson plans. Read more. |
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BC High Students Honor Homeless Man at Funeral NBC 10 Boston aired a video segment about 12 Boston College High School students who served as pallbearers for a homeless man with no family. BC High students regularly volunteer as pallbearers at St. Anthony’s Shrine, which pays for funerals for people who are homeless. Read more. |
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Ignatian Heritage Week 2019 at Fordham Prep Inspired by Fr. General Sosa’s words at the International Congress of education delegates held in Rio de Janeiro in 2017, this year’s Ignatian Heritage Week at Fordham Prep will invite the school community to come to a deeper understanding of the the Jesuit mission to promote reconciliation and justice and how each of us invited share in that mission. Read more. |
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Jesuit Prep School Readies Students to Pursue Global Justice While many schools promote global learning via field trips and social projects, Loyola High School in New York City works to integrate the benefits of these experiences into their curriculum with their Global Initiatives. Read more. |
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Pallbearer Ministry Makes Sure No One Is Buried Alone McQuaid Jesuit’s Pallbearer Ministry responded to its first call of the school year January 2 as six students assisted in the funeral services for Ms. Doris Stoner. The students who volunteered were seniors Gabe Gelke and Devon Goodbody ’19, and juniors Spencer Dovi, Carl Luther, Conor Palmer, and Owen Wickens. Read more. |
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Learning Good “Digital Citizenship” On Jan. 24, Canisius High School held assemblies about “digital citizenship” for members of the class of 2022. They helped students understand the essential connection between the call to virtuous living and their online lives. It is the first step in the four-year digital citizenship curriculum, surveying for freshmen what being a good citizen – and an authentic adult man – means and how one’s online life contributes to, or restricts, good citizenship. Read more. |
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Six Jesuit High Schools Compete in “The Great Ignatian Challenge” Thanksgiving Food Drive Last fall, six Jesuit high schools – Fairfield Prep, Fordham Preparatory School, Loyola School, Regis High School, Saint Peter’s Prep, and Xavier High School – had a competition to help fill local food banks and pantries with provisions for families in need. Read more. |
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Ignatian Family Teach-In Bridges Divides The Ignatian Family Teach-In has grown to become the largest annual Catholic social justice gathering in the U.S., bringing about 2,000 students to the nation’s capital to learn, reflect, pray and advocate. Their ages ranged widely, but the majority were high school and college students ages 16-22. Read more. |