Dear Graduates of Chaminade and Kellenberg Memorial,
Welcome to Firebirds and Flyers from the Class of 2025! This is the first time you are receiving your Magnificat in the mail – the first of many monthly Magnificats making their way to your home addresses in the summer and to your college addresses during the fall and spring semesters. (By the way, once you know your mailing address at college, please be sure to send it to us, so that we can mail your monthly Magnificat and Marianist reflection to you at school.)
Welcome indeed!
I’d like to spend a little bit of time reflecting on the word welcome. Miriam Webster’s dictionary defines welcome as 1) to greet in a warm and friendly manner, 2) to receive or accept with pleasure, 3) received gladly, and 4) a friendly greeting or reception.
I have had the good fortune to visit Louisiana on several occasions, and each time, the welcome that my fellow travelers and I received was overwhelming. In February of 2002, a Catholic lay organization known as the Soldiers of Christ invited a group of Chaminade students down to Lafayette, Louisiana; the Soldiers wanted to connect with young people who had lost loved ones in 9/11. These wonderful human beings wanted to give our young men a sense of comfort and companionship in the wake of the four boys’ loss of a parent and, in one case, an uncle. I was one of the chaperones on the trip.
I have never felt more welcome in my life, and I am quite sure that our students felt the same way. Imagine our surprise as we walked off the plane and into the Lafayette airport, there to be greeted at the gate by about a dozen teens, their parents, and their group leaders. They carried helium balloons and brightly colored welcome signs with our names on them. And they hugged us, smothering us with affection, as if they had known us and loved us all their lives. By the way, they gave us the same kind of send-off a week later, when we returned to New York. As we said our good-byes, one of our four boys – a senior who, up to this point, had tried to handle the loss of his dad rather stoically – broke down in tears. But these were not tears of sadness only; they were tears of joy as well, tears of being known and loved.
Four years later, a new group of students – sixteen boys from Chaminade and Kellenberg – traveled during our February vacation to Louisiana again – and to Mississippi – to help rebuild schools and homes destroyed or severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina. We did this for six years, each year growing closer to several families living along the Gulf Coast. Two families in particular – Paul and Rhonda Perez and Hector and Karen Perez (and all their children) – found a special place in our hearts, and we in theirs. They welcomed us into their homes (some of the first to be rebuilt) and fed sixteen hungry teenage boys and four equally hungry Marianists with some of the best food I have ever tasted, and plenty of it. Our plates were laden with jambalaya, pulled pork, shrimp etouffee, baked beans, and, for dessert, pecan pie and what would soon become a favorite of ours – king cake, a staple of Mardis Gras celebrations. The Perez families (close friends, but not related, even though they had the same last name) epitomized Southern hospitality and made us feel welcome, profoundly welcome, in their homes and in their hearts.
Throughout his pontificate, Pope Francis repeatedly called the Catholic Church to be a welcoming Church, a Church that embraces everyone. Of course, we’re all pretty good at welcoming loved ones and friends, and folks with whom we feel comfortable, but Francis called us to something more. He called us to welcome everyone. And he meant it. “Todos, todos, todos” – everyone, everyone, everyone – he proclaimed at World Youth Day in Lisbon in the summer of 2023, emphasizing that the Church, and indeed humanity, should be a place of welcoming and belonging for all, regardless of background or circumstances.
Each year, when summer rolls around, I am blessed with the opportunity to do quite a bit more personal reading than I can manage during the school year. As I write this reflection in mid-July, I am about two thirds of the way through Hope: The Autobiography, by Pope Francis. In this marvelous book, Pope Francis writes:
The Church is called upon always to be the open house of the Father – not a customs post but a father’s house, where there is room for everyone with their life of toil, a house that strives to welcome and liberate that toil. If the whole Church assumes this missionary zeal, it must reach everyone, without exception.
The holy people of God are this: It is not a supposed gathering of those who are pure. The Lord blesses everyone, and His Church must not, cannot do otherwise. . . . It is our task as pastors to take others by the hand, to accompany them, to help them to discern, and not to exclude them. And to pardon: to treat others with the same mercy that the Lord reserves for us.
Regrettably, such an expansive, all-inclusive welcome sometimes comes under fire. As we read in the Gospel of Luke, “The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Him, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them’ ” (Luke 15: 1 – 2). And, to be honest, welcoming those who are strikingly different from us is no easy task. I am reminded of the difficulty of welcoming everyone, without exception, whenever I catch myself judging others because of their appearance, their ethnicity, their accent, their lifestyle, their faults – real or perceived. Yet, over and against my tendency to judge – and to judge all too quickly – Jesus extends an impassioned welcome to all: to the blind and the lame; to tax collectors and sinners; to prostitutes and adulterers; to “all those on the margins,” as Pope Francis was fond of saying. In fact, when you think about it, the first declared saint was a convicted criminal. To the repentant thief, Jesus promised, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23: 42).
Even when we are quite disinclined to welcome everyone, there is still cause for hope. With his trademark good humor, Pope Francis writes: “And there are no doubt good tidings even for those who want to turn the Lord’s house into a club with a strict door policy. Because everyone is a sinner: At the hour of truth, put your own truth on the table and you’ll see that you too are a sinner.”
A warm welcome to all. Todos! Todos! Todos!
On behalf of all my Marianist Brothers,
Bro. Stephen
