Principal’s Newsletter
July, 2017 Jesuit High School www.jesuitportland.org
THE MIGHTY, MAGNIFICENT CLASS OF 2017 I am writing this reflection on the 2016-17 school year while sitting by the McKenzie River at St. Benedict’s Lodge on our end-of-year faculty staff retreat. The deck at “St. Benny’s” is a sacred space indeed, as 30+ years of Jesuit students can attest. So, as the river flows high and strong after a snowpacked winter, I am thinking of our students, and especially of those many members of the Classes of 2017 and 2018 who have so recently encountered the love of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit on this very spot. At Jesuit High, we place a lot of trust in our seniors. The senior class sets the tone for each school year, even more so than the faculty, staff, and administration. For it is in the countless interactions between and among seniors that the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors come to understand the culture of their high school. When the seniors wrap their arms around each other and sing full-throated at Friday Mass, the freshmen notice, and wonder, and anticipate a day when they too will have tasted whatever secret sauce it is that can so transform a class.
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When the seniors smile and say hello to sophomores in the hallways—but also in locker rooms and online and in all of the shadowy spaces of high school, the youngsters notice and respond. And when the seniors share their hearts and souls with the juniors
as Encounter leaders, team captains, club leaders, Sacristans, and Eucharistic Ministers, they pass on a legacy of love that makes Jesuit, Jesuit. And what a legacy the Class of 2017 left us. This group, as individuals and as a class, came through both terrific triumphs and real tragedy, with a symbol tattooed on their collective heart: a cross, with a heart and the letters “RG” and “AMDG” intertwined in an eternal blazon. If you want a taste of our most recent alums’ experience, I would humbly point you to my latest blog on the JHS website, where you will find the soaring speeches given at Commencement by Bailey Cook, Sage Taylor, and Ellie Grimes, all ’17. Now we invite our newest seniors to take up the mantle of leadership bequeathed to them by the mighty, magnificent Class of 2017. With tremendous faith in their ability and willingness to lead our school, we turn to our seniors to kick off the 2017-18 school year with style and grace—and more importantly, with a deep understanding of their unique power to shape our school. Sincerely,
Paul J. Hogan, Principal
Educating Men & Women for Others in the Catholic, Jesuit Tradition Since 1956