January 15, 2012

College Financial Aid Workshop
Sunday, Jan 15th; 7:00 p.m.

Parent Meeting: Sunday, Jan. 22nd; 7:30 p.m.

Financial Aid Applications Due: Please begin submitting your financial aid renewals for the 2012-2013 school year. Applications must be received by PSAS prior to February 1, 2012. The application may be found on our school webpage in the Admissions section or by opening the following link: http://stmichaelsprep.org/images/stories/Admissions/psas_financial_aid_application.pdf

Entrance Exam/Open House
St. Michael’s will offer its Entrance Exam for the 2012-2013 academic year, on Saturday, January 28th. Check-in time is 8:00 a.m.
Pre-registration is required through our school office at 949-858-0222 ext 237.

Parent/Student Handbook: Chapter 4, Section 4

SECTION 4: SICKNESS AND EXCUSED ABSENCES
It is the parents’ duty to report a sickness which developed over a weekend or vacation. Such a report should be made personally by telephone to either the deans or the school secretary. In case of an accident or sickness occurring during the school week, the parents will be phoned and asked to take their son home. Parents should bring their son back to school as soon as possible upon his recovery. Absence is very disruptive to his academic progress. A doctor’s certificate is required when returning to school after more than three days’ absence or if not returning on time after long weekends or holiday breaks. The only excused absences are: bona fide illness, college visit, court appearance, funeral, and quarantine.
For each day a student is away from school with an unexcused absence, he works a weekend. Regular weekend fees are charged. This regulation applies even when the parents notify the school in advance of the absence itself.

Catholics Get Higher Returns on Human Capital
In Australia, Roman Catholic men earn 6.7% more than men of other religions, according to a study of household data by Michael A. Kortt of Southern Cross University and Brian Dollery of the University of New England, both in Australia. Their findings are consistent with research showing that in the U.S., Catholic men ages 26 to 34 benefit from an estimated wage premium of 7.1%. The researchers speculate that a Catholic upbringing instills attitudes and work habits that employers value.
Source: Applied Economics Letters. Volume 19, Number 10, 1 July 2012 , pp. 943-946(4)

This Week’s Photos: Rome

Sports This Week:
Congratulations to our basketball team on their recent victory over Fairmont!

Tuesday: Soccer vs. Fairmont Prep @ The Trident Center; 3:15 p.m.
Friday: Basketball @ Capo Valley Christian; 4:30 p.m.

Birthdays: None this week

Homily of the Week by Fr. Chrysostom Baer, O. Praem.
Among other things, Fr. Chrysostom is the abbey’s Cantor and teaches Latin in the abbey seminary.

The trouncing of the Israelites which we heard of in the first reading must have been earth-shattering. In the face of an unpleasant rout they apparently redoubled their faith…whereupon they suffered a total catastrophe. The capture of the ark and the death of the priests Hophni and Phineas marked the defeat of almighty God. But we read in the text following today’s passage that the Philistines were only too glad to return the ark, once they experienced plagues reminiscent of what they heard the Egyptians had gone through. Even some of those Israelites to whom the ark was returned failed to rejoice, and they were struck down by God. And so, it took the better part of twenty years before the ark returned to its proper place. But when it finally was, Samuel, now a grown man, compelled the Israelites to renounce their idols and forged with them a renewal of the covenant.

We find something not unlike this whole episode in our own moral lives. It can happen that we think we’re struggling valiantly to conquer a vice, and then we fall anyway. We break out all sorts of spiritual weapons, and we fall even farther. Why? Because we have Hophni and Phineas in our army. For those who perhaps don’t remember, these two priests were the wicked sons of Eli, who cheated on their wives with the women who attended the tent of the Lord, who appropriated to their own stomachs the portions of the sacrifices reserved to the Lord, and who refused to be corrected for their wrongdoing. In other words, they abused their status as priests for self-aggrandizement. They flouted the law of the Most High, and set up their own desires as law. They were proud in their sacrilegious gluttony and adultery, and so God slated them for destruction.

So let us take the clear example of pride and lust. A man may wish to overcome his sins of lust, and he may even resort to surges of spiritual warfare, yet he seems so constantly to fail as to be discouraging, if not downright depressing. He says to Jesus, “If You wish, You can make me clean,” yet nothing happens.

But in the providence of God, just as the armies of Israel were laid low so as to smite the agents of pride, so too our very losses in the moral realm are permitted so as to make a more crucial, more fundamental, more necessary gain. God teaches humility through humiliation, whether this comes from dramatic failures or from quietly persevering in prayer and penance even when no progress can be seen by the human eye. The beautiful tower of purity must be built on the rock of humility. If a man has pride and chastity, he will not long have chastity. If he has humility and lust, he has the wherewithal to repent, and so he will not forever have sins of lust.

Lust is a clear example, but the principle applies to all sins. We might well imagine also a man who, despite acknowledging his lack of discretion in speech, does not gain the restraint he knows he ought to have. He prays in the morning, “Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips!” but in his evening examination of conscience he marvels with shame at what escaped his teeth’s barrier—day after day after day. And so he humbly repents and confesses this sin again and again and again, always resolving to do better, regardless of actual results.

God is no fool. If we would share in the redemption offered by Jesus Christ, we must not only become like Him in that humility by which He was obedient unto death, death on a cross, but we must also do so by subjecting ourselves to material elements, things lower than us by nature, for they have the power of God. This intrinsic and necessary link between sacraments and holiness is brought out in the prayers of today’s Mass. In the prayer over the offerings we will say, “May Your people’s oblation, O Lord, find favor with You, we pray, that it may restore them to holiness and obtain what they devoutly entreat,” and again after communion, “Be graciously pleased to grant that those You renew with Your Sacraments may also serve with lives pleasing to You.”

Then, when we have humbly and perseveringly submitted to the means of grace offered by the Church will Jesus be pleased to touch our moral leprosy and say, “I do will it. Be made clean.”

In publishing this homily, we hope to share a portion of the spiritual treasure by which the students are enriched every day. However, this homily may not be reproduced by the parents or friends of St. Michael’s without written permission of the author.

Prayer Requests
● Jodie Meschuk, wife of Coach Aaron Meschuk, who is expecting.
● The paternal grandfather of sophomore Andrew Bonello who is hospitalized with a broken hip.
● Mrs. Marge DeClue, past parent-league president, who has declining health.
● Mr. Glenn Emanuel, a member of the Norbertine Lay Order, who has a serious heart condition.
● Those who are in the armed forces.
● St. Michael’s older priests and those who care for them.