What’s In A Name

Jul 15, 2009 | Latest

The story told in “A True Father” has been updated with additions and corrections — Father Rytel-Andrianik sent me his sermon, so everything is accurate now.

                                                                     WHAT’S IN A NAME

Tim Flagg.  What is it about this name that every Seton student, parent and teacher should know?  I could tell you in one sentence, but that would hardly be interesting.  So we will make this into a whole story — a true story about the indelible mark that Tim gave to Seton.  Now, Tim did have some help, but just as we say that Cortez conquered the Aztecs when we know he had a handful of men helping him, so we attribute this mark to Tim.

In the fall of 1975, the year of Mother Seton’s canonization, the first American-born saint, Seton School opened its doors to 16 students.  By my reckoning there were 12 girls and 4 boys.  Tim was one of the four.  His family lived at the base of Bull Run Mountain across Highway 15 from Dr. and Mrs. Carroll.  Tim was part of the daily bus route that Mrs. Carroll drove over the back country roads from Bull Run Mountain Estates to Trinity Episcopal Church in Manassas.  Her bus was a burnt orange Rambler, (a much better color that school bus yellow), and her patrons were four students:  Tim, Michelle and Roberta Desrochers and Teresa Eichler.  These three other bus patrons are also important to the story.

I road the Rambler Bus a couple times a week when I would help out at Seton.  I am important to the story too.  The bus driver is important as well.  This merry band of six held Seton’s future in its hands.

There was some talk among the students in that first year that the school should be Seton Academy rather than Seton School.  Mrs. Carroll, however, said that she liked simple things and Seton School sounded much simpler to her than Seton Academy.  The name of the school was not negotiable.  I think we are all glad that Seton is a school and not an academy.

Since the school was just beginning, we had no mascot.  There was talk among the students about picking a mascot.  Mrs. Carroll said that the students should decide on one.  I thought this was a little risky.  What sort of a name would we end up with?  Mrs. Carroll, however, put her trust in the students to come up with the mascot.

The Desrochers raised white German Shepherds.  So Michelle instantly had the idea that the mascot should be the White Wolves and their dogs could be our living mascots.  [Aren’t wolves associated with the enemies of the Church as in the Apostles being sent out as sheep among wolves?  or as Pope Benedict petitioned, “Pray for me that I may not flee for fear of wolves”? Maybe those enemies were regular colored wolves and not white ones.]

Here’s where the memory gets a little shaky.  I think there was someone else, not a Rambler bus patron, who also had an idea for a mascot.  I just can’t remember for sure, and I definitely don’t remember what it was if there was one.

The day before the names were to be placed on the ballot and the election of Seton’s mascot made, the six of us were riding toward our homes in the Rambler bus  [There must have been some other name bandied about, otherwise there would have been no need for an election.]  Teresa and the Desrochers were dropped off, so now in the burnt orange mobile there was only Mrs. Carroll, Tim and I.  The topic of a mascot was brought up.  I had been thinking about a name, and so I said, “I think “Conquistadors” would be good.”  Tim instantly said that he liked that name and was going to nominate it.  Could it stand up to the White Wolves?  Did Tim have a suit of armor somewhere that he could wear as a living Conquistador to compete with the Desrochers’ German Shepherds?  At best it seemed like a long-shot, but I was glad there was going to be some name on the ballot that had an important Catholic element to it. 

True to his word, the next day when nominations were due, Tim put in “Conquistadors”, Michelle put in “White Wolves” and maybe someone else put in something else.  The ballots were made and passed out to the 16.  Teresa Eichler declared that she didn’t like the names on the ballot, and that she was going to write in “Dragons”.  [Aren’t Dragons associated with enemies of the Church as in the Book of Revelation?  Maybe Teresa meant White Dragons.] Write-in ballots were not prohibited, so Teresa did vote for Dragons in something less than a secret ballot.  We can be sure that both Desrochers voted for White Wolves.  Tim we can assume voted for his nomination.  That meant that the balance of the election was in the hands of the remaining 12 students.

After the votes were tallied, the ballots were burnt and the white smoke let the citizens of Manassas know that Seton had a mascot.  (Not really, but that would have been a good idea.)

Again, I cannot say this for sure, but my recollection is that “Conquistador” won by one vote.

So we see that very important events, like the conquest of the Aztecs and the choice of Seton’s mascot can be the result of a few people.  Cortez led a handful of dyed-in-the-wool Conquistadors; Tim Flagg led a handful of soon-to-be Conquistadors.

Thank you, Tim, for leading the Conquistadors to their first victory:  a conquering of Wolves and Dragons and maybe something else.

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The New World Conquistadors led by Cortez faced a culture of death.  We modern day Conquistadors need to burn our ships and take up the battle daily.  The dragon of the new culture of death carries out its carnage as a law-abiding citizen, while the tyranical wolves propogate in the environment established under the dictatorship of relativism.  The very image of Blessed Mother was given to the Church so that Her “other sheep” would be converted.  She brought about the miracle of conversion after the Conquistadors had faced the culture of death squarely.  What is it that Blessed Mother wants us to do now so that she can once again bring about the conversion of the hearts of so many lost sheep?

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On the 25th we will reveal how Seton’s colors came to be Royal Blue and Gold.  That will be about a one sentence story but still of great interest.   There will also be a guest writer on that day that you are sure to enjoy. 

Jezu ufam Tobie

=========TALENTED @ GIFTING

Jul 5, 2009 | Latest

                                                       TALENTED @ GIFTING

  One Christmas when my nephew Brent was a little boy, he took off the gift wrap of a present.  The gift was inside a box, but he didn’t get as far as opening the box.  He laid the wrapping aside and began proclaiming with total delight, “I got a box!  Look, I got a box!”  Brent didn’t need a talented gift giver to make him happy.  The pure joy of Christmas, the simple pleasure of opening a present, that was enough for him.

   Brent’s happiness at receiving a box was real.  We, however, often times have to pretend that a present is just what we wanted.  We are appreciative of being thought of, but our first thought sometimes is, “Whom can I give this to that might really want it.”  There is an art to gift giving. 

   Over the years at Seton, I was the beneficiary of a wide-variety of gifts from students  There are many that come immediately to mind, but at the risk of offending some very good gift-givers, I am going to mention just a few.

   There were homemade presents:  the giant pencil from Tim Shaughnessy; the doll (or as Mr. Smith calls it, the puppet) that Stacey Jackson created in my likeness; the drawing of Blessed Mother from Rebecca Elam.  There were presents that came from something we had covered in class:  the jipijapa (Panama hats which are actually a product of Ecuador) from the Mary Spicer led Spanish class; the Wyo-Tech sweatshirt from Kathryn McKelvey of newspaper days; the Ain Karim wall hanging of the Visitation that Nicole Smith and Meghan Bartnick brought back from their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. And I have to mention here one parent present:  the hard-bound Father Ciszek autographed copy of With God in Russia.

   Then there was the gift of honesty.  One Christmas I got a gift with “Chris Marshall” on the tag.  After we returned from Christmas vacation, I said to Chris, “I really like that CD of “A Classical Christmas”.  Chris nonchalantly said, “I had a lot to do with that.”  The laugh I got was as good as the gift.

    I was thinking of going through some food items, but once I start talking about food all I want to do is eat.  Suffice it to say that my palate fondly remembers many.  And we cannot forget the Christmas baskets that became a Yuletide tradition.

    Now, perhaps a notch below the above, is the gift that I was given after I was voted out of office of the Delaney Athletic Conference which I had started and been the president of for a number of years.  To show gratitude for all the heartburn I had suffered, I was given a wooden stand that held two long, pointed pens, one at either end, and my name was engraved on a metal placard that was on the front of the stand.  I think I was supposed to place this proudly on my desk at school or something.  It was a kind idea, but the gift could have been improved by spelling my name correctly and having at least one pen that actually worked.  As the old adage goes, “It’s the thought, not the spelling or the functioning of the gift, that counts.”  Thank you DAC.

    At the Gala there was a table that included four students from the first two years of Seton when the school was in the rented classrooms of the Trinity Episcopal Church complex.  Laura Hibl Clark and Holly Flagg McShurley came to Seton in its second year, while Tim Flagg and Mary Van Scott were pioneers of the first year — two of the sixteen.  Tim should be better known by all of Seton than he is because he has affected every student that has come through Seton.  We’ll tell his story on the 15th.  Don’t miss it!  Today, we will talk about Mary Van Scott.

   Mary is with Miles Jesu — see their website at milesjesu.com.  I don’t know much of what she has done, but she was once editing a youth magazine in Poland.  Two semesters ago she was studying Canon Law at the Lateran  in Rome where she took classes in Ancient Roman Law; Philosophy of Law; Theology of Canon Law; Latin; The Hierarchical Structure of the Church in Canon Law; The Teaching Office of the Church in Canon Law; Comparative Law; and The Origins of Canon Law.  I guess one has to study law to be a lawyer.  The classes were all in Italian.  Mary did ok on her exams:  six perfect scores out of the eight, and she was pretty close to perfect on the other two.  The strange, early days of Seton obviously didn’t stultify her mind. 

    [Just for Mary’s humility, I want to add on a couple things.  As a member of Seton’s first girls basketball team, she did shoot at the wrong basket in a game.  I can’t remember if she made the shot.  Topping this, at the first practice ever, I told her to take the ball out-of-bounds.  She asked, “What is out-of-bounds?”  I should have foreseen that she’d be a Canon Lawyer with this great interest in the complicated laws that govern basketball.]

   Besides being brilliant — she’s one of those geniuses with a high IQ — Mary is also a talented gift-giver.  She brought to the Gala and presented to Mrs. Carroll a beautiful woodcarving of the Divine Mercy with the words “Jesus, I trust in You” engraved in Polish on the bottom.  Mrs. Carroll did not have to pretend appreciation.  What a great gift to give for the Seton Chapel that the SSSO is out to build.  In the spirit of this new gift for the chapel, perhaps we could each offer some part — a bead or a decade, perhaps — of our Divine Mercy Chaplet each day for the SSSO and the new chapel.  Maybe we could learn to say, “Jesus, I trust in You” in Polish and conclude the Chaplet with that for the SSSO.  At the very least, let us never lose sight of our goal:  The House of God and Gate of Heaven.

   Thank you Mary.  You have the art of gifting and the new Seton Chapel will have your gift of art.

   And please say hello for all of us to Mr. and Mrs. Schuller (the former Mrs. Haggerty) when you see them on their honeymoon in Czestochowa!