1. What Seton tradition was eventually replaced by the Spring Musical? A. 50s Night; B. The Spring Hullabaloo; C. the Fish Fry
2. Where were the Mr. Violett led camping trips held? A. Hawk, WVA; B. St. Johnsbury, VT; C. Nokesville, VA
3. What was unusual about a boys basketball game played against Emmanuel Christian? A. played outdoors at the Nissan Pavilion; B. Played at 7 a.m. because of scheduling problems; C. played without referees
4. What was kept in a cage in the carpeted gym? A. A captured squirrel; B. An old organ; C. A giant sword
5. What led to Seton seniors Billy Powell and Jason Torres and four other seniors being given a free trip to Rome? A. Started a counter petition in support of Church doctrine; B. Wrote the winning song in a contest to welcome the Pope; C. won an Italian cooking contest
Extra Credit: ABC *00
ABB 00 A. CAB; B. BAC; C. BCA
Part V of The Last Journey
After a moment I noticed that He had turned, and then He began walking down the gravel path that led out of the garden and around the novitiate buildings. I followed, and in a few minutes we were walking down the steep road that led to the long narrow woodshed now in a somewhat tottering condition. There in the moonlight I could see the logs, stacked one on top of the other and further on the smaller piles of wood that had already been chopped and were ready to be taken up in the laundry and secular kitchens. He stood by the large wooden box that contained the axes, wedges, and heavy mallets used for splitting bigger logs.
This is another place where you did much to help all the men of the world. I want yu to see where you worked.
I guess another miracle happened then, for suddenly I could see not only this dreary woodshed, but also the other places on the farm where I had done manual labor.
I saw a small carrot patch where I knelt on sultry, damp days, wearing the heavy blue work habit, and had slowly weeded in between the small plants, thinning how endless these tiny rows of carrots seemed.
I saw the splendid flowing fields of corn, and down each row my brothers were wielding the long, slender corn knife that made the tall stocks ready for stacking. Father Thomas and Father Gregory were following u with a rope to tie the stalks together. How many times I had dreaded the long afternoons of swinging that corn knife and how many times I had offered it up for the workers of the world.
These are some of the places where you labored for so many hours. In heaven—and on earth now—there is a whole legion of souls waiting to thank you for the graces you earned for them by your patient perseverance as a Trappist. In Pittsburg there are three workers in the steel mills who have often come home at night feeling crushed by the humiliation of the hard, fruitless work which earns them a very poor living. They would long ago have left the Church and joined the Communist Party had it not been for you.
In Idaho there is a young man who owns a farm. He wanted to leave the drudgery of farming to go to the swift, racy life of the city. There he would have eventually lost his soul. Because of you I gave him the grace to see the fruitfulness of hard, honest work. He will eventually bring many souls to heaven with him. There are many, many others who have been able to see the errors of these times, and though they have never heard of my Mothers words at Fatima, they have deliberately avoided luxurious living as she warned they must do. You are responsible for these men and the heaven they have earned.
Oh, how all the years of toil came rushing back into my mind then, and how little the effort seemed to be! I wished that I might stay here at this monastery for a century of lifetimes and work as Id never worked before! I could gain Him a million souls.
1. C. The Fish Fry was begun by the Burkes and ran for a number of years. It was eventually decided that two major spring events that involved so many and so much time was too much, so the Fish Fry was dropped and the Musical survived. The Fish Fries were a lot of fun, but they were much work for many especially the fish fryers. The 50s Night was a Torres led production Each year Mr. P was Elvis and did a good imitation. I am not sure why it ended, but it too was a lot of fun. The Spring Hullabaloo was a one time event. It was an invention of some of us sitting around thinking we needed something to do, so we organized it. Jake Cooley suggested that it be held in a park near where the Cooleys live. Is that Burke? I think near St. Andrews. I would say it was not a lot of fun, but some fun.
2. A. Mr. Violett led a group for a number of years to the campground known as Hawk in WVA. I am not sure what town it is near. We did such things as play Frisbee golf with trees as targets; tipped trees and raced sticks in a stream in addition to the regular camping things like making smores and singing around the campfire. The year I remember best was the one when Dan Bliss and Nick Talbot, both Boy Scouts, were on the trip and did most of the camping work. St. Johnsbury was the destination of a trip Mr. Scheetz and I took with Mark Brock and Guy Smith it must have been during Easter vacation. Mark and Guy were boarding then. Nokesville at the VWs had a camping atmosphere for a # of years after we Christmas caroled around Manassas. We had a bonfire, sat on hay bales, and drank hot chocolate.
3. None of the above. The game was played before a Washington Bullets game in Landover, MD. Emmanuel invited us to do this. The only thing I ever attended at the Nissan Pavilion was Easter Sunday Mass when All Saints had it there. I mostly remember being cold. I think swimmers are the only ones who do things like practice in early morning hours. Some games might be better without referees. One game at Emmanuel the referee called a three-second violation on the defense.
4. B. An organ was used to weigh down Masada the portable basketball goal that Mr. Vander Woude Sr. built. The organ was not used often, but it was safely protected from basketballs in its cage. The new gym had the squirrel, but at first it was not in a cage. It was eating the insulation from the ceiling. Mr. Scheetz got a trap from Animal Control, but before I knew that, I bought a cage from J.E. Rice. We had a contest to see who would catch the squirrel. Mr. Scheetz won. He drove the squirrel off somewhere and dumped it. The only giant sword story I know did take place in the Carpeted Gym. We had one for the Spanish foreign language play because we were doing the Sword in the Stone. This was during the time that the plays were performed at night. Ours was a real show. We had dramatic music and the sword was to lower slowly from above onto the stage behind a big rock. It got snagged and the backstage people in trying to release it nearly impaled Martin Pearson. It fell quickly and stuck into the floor. Martin couldnt get it out of the floor, but Wart, played by Dawn Zacheral, was able to pull it out just like the legend. Meg Solley said that it was that play that convinced her Mom to send her to Seton. Which reminds me, she was another border from Maryland. So that makes 7 Maryland borders.
5. A. I asked Mrs. Carroll to write up an account of their winning the trip. Here is the very interesting story: In the fall of 1996 the dissident organization “We Are Church” sent out a mailing to (apparently) every Catholic school in the country asking the religion teachers to involve their classes in WAC’s petition campaign. They hoped to gain millions of signatures and take the petitions to Rome to demand changes in the Church. The petition involved all the usual demands–women priests, married priests, contraception and abortion and divorce OK, the Church to become a democracy….
I showed the petition to the seniors Class of ’97. The chairperson or whatever title she used of the petition drive was Sister Maureen Fiedler, a Sister of Loretto. The class took this petition drive as a challenge and wanted to prove to Sister Fiedler that she had sent the petition to one too many schools. Billy Powell and Jason Torres wrote a counter petition proclaiming their loyalty to the Church and all its teachings, entitled “We Are Catholics.” Joe Benin president of the SSC called Sr. F to invite her to speak to our class about the petition, without telling her anything about where Seton really stood. She agreed to come but must have gotten an inkling of us because she later called the office and started asking probing questions. I can’t remember whether she asked to speak to me or I called her but I decided it was time to tell what Seton stands for. The upshot was she decided not to come. I told her the students wanted to dialogue. She said that she thought dialogue was a good idea but that she didn’t have time to dialogue with people who disagreed with her.
The seniors started thinking of ways to spread our petition. Some of them spoke at meetings in their parishes. We also sent copies to the other Catholic high schools. most didn’t respond, but one said something about our needing to be open to all points of view. Billy wrote back saying that being Catholic involved one point of view and writing a little satire about an organization of Muslims called We Are Mosque which decided to believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ while still claiming to be faithful Muslims.
Then Father Marx at Human Life International found out about our petition through Bobby DeLong’s step mother and Teresa Garrity’s mother who worked there. (Teresa wasn’t in the class; she was class of 2000.) Father Marx began publicizing our petition through his network and also sent it out through HLI Canada. This brought us even more publicity and the signatures started to pour in. We ended up with 10’s of thousands of signatures, but I don’t know the final total.
Then at commencement, Fr. Marx was our speaker and announced the surprise: 6 students from the class would go on a pilgrimage to Rome to present the petitions. 3 boys and 3 girls. Billy and Jason and Paul Haggerty (salutatorian) were the boys. For girls we selected Leah Acosta (valedictorian), Brenda Gabriel (top religion 12 student not already chosen), and Anna Kim (pro life speech contest winner), but she was going into the Carmelites that summer and declined. So then Chrissy Quinn who was the next highest religion student available was chosen. Two faculty members also got free trips as chaperones, Pete Scheetz and Maryan Lee. I also got to go. Other people could buy seats on the pilgrimage, so Bobby DeLong went, and Mrs. Supples, Mrs. Schiavone, Anna and Jenn, Charles Smith, 7 Canadians, 2 HLI employees. We left Monday Nov. 17 and returned Monday Nov. 24. We attended the weekly papal audience on the 26th and were hoping that Billy and Jason at least could meet the Pope, but that proved impossible. However, our petitions were given to somebody and they ended up on a table on the stage during the papal audience
Sr. Fiedler’s petition was a big flop. She may have gotten a few thousand signatures at best.
There were 5 Seton students who won a video contest to welcome Pope Benedict XVI, and the video included an original song, but they only got to go as far as Washington to the then brand new Nationals baseball stadium. But they also got to appear on National television. The 5 were Olivia Aveni, Mimi Myers, Brian Nagurny and Libby Wittman from the Class of 09 and Kristie Ostrich from the Class of 11. Their video and television interview can be viewed on this site it is the first thing (or last thing, depending on how you figure things) on the News and Events domain. We had an Italian dinner at Seton once, but it was Dr. Divietri who organized that, and I dont think he got to go anywhere except to the Knights of Columbus Hall to prepare the meal.
Extra Credit: B. This is an example a logic game we played a number of years. It is like Mastermind. An * represents a letter from the solution and indicates that it is in the right place. A 0 represents a letter from the solution that is in the wrong place. Never mind. Trust me, the answer is B.
Jezu, ufam Tobie.