A year ago on Saturday, May 28th 2016 we, the Class of 1966, celebrated our 50th Anniversary of graduation from Saint Pius X High School. We continue to remember and to celebrate with gratitude all that we received during our years at "Pius", those who poured themselves out in loving service to us, and all that - by the grace of God - we have been able to experience and live, to endure and to overcome, and to accomplish and love in the course of all these years. We continue on our useful and meaningful course and renew our wills to build the future and to be of service today, carried as we are by the power of love which has its origin in the living God and which continues to find its home in "women and men of good will".
The Christian Brothers of Ireland and the Sisters of Saint Anne brought to St Piux X High School a spirit that was proactive, hopeful, eager to teach and learn, kind and understanding, and enthusiastic for life, and most of all, loving. They inspired the lay teachers and staff to join in that spirit, and all together, they not only equipped us for life, but they also propelled us on the positive course that helped us bridge the many chasms / challenges of life to the regions into which we ventured to make the lives that have been and continue to be ours.
Each of our four years the Falcon Yearbook Staffs sensed that spirit and dedicated their year's Falcon to bearers of that spirit.
1963 - to the Christian Brothers of Ireland, founders of St Pius X High School. "founded in Ireland in 1802 by Venerable Brother Edmund Ignatius Rice. Today, almost 4,000 Brothers conduct schools in fourteen countries on four continents. The Brothers came to North America eighty years ago. They now administer almost forty schools in the United States and Canada, and new ones are being established each year."
Perhaps in a previous year or a subsequent year there was a dedication to the Sisters of Saint Anne, partners with the Brothers in establishing and developing St Pius X High School.
1964 - to Father John Brayley, Chaplain and leader in the Christopher Movement - "Ever encouraging individuality as well as scholarship, he has shown us the right path to the discovery of our place in Christian society and has aided us in gaining a proper knowledge and realization of ourselves."
1965 - to Brother William E. Drayton, Principal - "When Brother Drayton arrived in the summer of 1959 to take charge of his new school, there was neither building for his pupils nor residence for the members of his Community. It was in March, 1960 that Brother Drayton saw his four hundred and seventy-one pupils settled in the present building. It was not until June of the same year that the Brothers were able to move into their monastery."
1966 - to Sister Mary Bernita, S.S.A., Principal - "Sister Bernita watched Saint Pius X High School grow from its very foundations to its present state. In September, 1959, her pupils were housed in five different buildings. In spirit of this disadvantage, her genial administration fostered a unifying spirit, an IGNIS ARDENS, which is still a characteristic of the school. Now, after seven years, more than nine hundred girl-graduates, imbued with the ardour of their school principal, have taken their place in the world as homemakers, nurses, educators, and business women."
Those Falcon staffs, like all of us at the time, were perhaps overly optimistic about the future, but so were those entire generations of the 1960's before the full brunt of secularization, globalization, and relativism subjected humanity to the manipulation of "vested interests" and deprived people of known and reliable anchors.
We have not been without faults or failures, but we were also equipped not to accept defeat, but to get up again and keep faith in the One from whom we come and to Whom we are returning. We may not all have been daily communicants, nor even Sunday practitioners; however, we have remained - I believe - children of God who believe in God and, to the extent of our ability or degree of our will to date, who have come to love God or at the very least hold God in deep respect and high regard, as well as his Church on Earth, of which we acknowledge ourselves to be its imperfect members.
Today Pope Francis exemplifies the best of the human spirit that, augmented by the power of love and hopefulness that come from God, realizes that we don't need to be perfect before we reach out in loving care to others, especially to those who have been pushed "to the peripheries of life and society". We who were launched into life by the Brothers of Ireland and Sisters of Saint Anne have grown in our ability and desire to love one another and care for others. We have not surrendered to the "prophets of doom" as Pope John XXIII called those who take a defeatist view of the world, but have remained hopeful and proactive in our outlook and in our personal and professional lives.
To catch a glimpse of the fire that enflamed St Pius X High School, which now motivates Pope Francis, and which he proposes to all of humanity, watch the first ever TED TALK given by a pope.
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