This will be a short entry, not because nothing happened, but because it was a retreat day and the public activities were few and far between. The retreat is meant to prepare the Brothers for tomorrow's big event, the election of the Superior General of the Brothers of the Christian Schools for the next seven years.
The day began in the Aula Magna with a talk by Fr. Jose Cristo Rey, a Spanish Claretian missionary who had taught Br. Julio, the one who introduced him to the assembly. Fr. Jose is very well know in Spain and elsewhere for his books about religious life. He is the chair of theology of religious life at the Theological Institute of Religious Life (Pontifical University of Salamanca) and provided a thoughtful set of insights about the challenges and opportunities for religious life, and our Chapter's work. He gave a 50-minute talk in the morning and a 50-minute talk at 3:00 pm, followed by questions.
It was the answers to questions that I found most compelling and interesting. Two phrases that I particularly liked were "If you see with the eyes of God, it is impossible to be distracted." and "Creative minorities move towards a vision of interconnectedness, of integral ecology. Spirituality connects me with everything else." I won't unpack them here, but each is worth thinking about. While some of the theological input was interesting - I'm afraid that I didn't pay as much attention as I should have - it was the spontaneous responses to well-articulated questions from the Brothers that provided the most engaging insights. It's when we are compelled to speak that we speak most compellingly.
All the guys had been prepped to have questions for me and to have completed an assignment about De La Salle's life. And at 1:30 pm, I was ready with my robe on and notes prepared. Then I received an email from Ilaria in the Communications Office asking if I could put my robe on and meet her and the camera team for some prep shots for tomorrow's events. Good timing. I went up there, did the shots - you'll see them later - and rushed back to my office where Br. Richard was waiting for me.
We got on line with Microsoft Teams and spent twenty minutes getting the technology in line, learning how to share screens, making sure all the kids arrived, and so on. Finally, we're settled in and Br. Rich begins the class standing next to me at my standing desk. For some reason, he seemed to think that since the kids were so far away in New York, he had to speak more loudly than usual. (He has a great high school cafeteria voice - a timbre that's a built in megaphone.) But when we finally got everything squared away, I gave a little ferverino about De La Salle, showed them the dlsfootsteps.com website for their projects, and opened it up to questions which they were to have prepared.
The first question was "What do you do when someone that you really care about dies?" Full stop; a familiar scenario for experienced teachers. Everything changes in an instant. I spoke about De La Salle's experience of losing four siblings when he was young, and suggested that he might want to think about how the person who died would respond to his grief; what he would say to him. (Later, I found out later that a student in the school had died several weeks ago.) The subsequent 30 minutes were a remote but touchingly close conversation about generosity, the capacity for perseverance, and the challenges of relationships - although not always couched in those terms. When Br. Rich ended the class, since we would have to rush to make the afternoon's 3:00 pm session, I felt as if I'd like to visit that class and speak some more with these freshmen. There are few things that compare with inner city freshmen able and willing to have conversations on very serious topics.
The afternoon passed quietly, and the evening Mass in the sanctuary was calm and simple, with a few of us leading the singing as a small choir, and Br. Paco accompanying us on the guitar with his usual skill. I noticed quite a bit of audio and visual equipment in different places around the sanctuary that had been newly installed - taped down wires, tables with computers and chords, tripods with no cameras, etc. - in preparation for tomorrow's events. Communications were well prepped.
I was asked to provide the "Chronicle" for tomorrow, which means writing an overview of the day that is publicly shared on the Institute website. We'll see what the day brings,. The anticipation is definitely building. More tomorrow.
