Our dearest families and friends,
It brings me immense pleasure to write our first annual appeal letter for our End-of-Year Campaign. I begin with a brief reflection. The Christmas season always fills me with immense hope because, despite the darkening days and the continuing winter cold, the joy of men’s hearts is enkindled by an encounter with Christ’s birth. This sense of overwhelming mirth derives from the fulfilment of God’s promises: the coming of our Savior, there in the little manger.
So, too, another promise is being fulfilled in the building of Northern Colorado’s first Catholic high school, the Chesterton Academy of St. John Paul II. For many years, we have watched as our students, our beloved children, have been sent into a world that has so little love for them. For decades, we have been resigned to the inevitability that our students will be formed by secular secondary education, and, despite many good and loving individuals who have devoted themselves to that task, the institution of public education necessarily denies our students an understanding of the fullness of Truth, whose name is Jesus Christ. Our students have tried to tend to the lights of their lamps, but the encroaching darkness of a secular society has threatened and, too often, entirely overwhelmed them. Our students’ flourishing is imperiled in a world where the light of their lives—Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life— is unwelcome and assailed. Fueling the hearts of young men and women requires more than the world can offer. For our students to thrive and become holy, they must be tempered in the fire of the Holy Spirit. That is our mission.
The earliest teaching of the Church offered a clear choice for us: “There are two ways, one of life, and one of death; but a great difference between the two ways.” Too long our students have been left to wander the woods and without Catholic educators being free to aid them in the navigation of the dark and twisting way. Now, more than ever, is the time to help our students forge a direct path to goodness. St. John Paul II High School has begun that work.
In a world beleaguered by the darkness, we are Building a Beacon of Light. Will you help lay the foundation?
Godspeed, and ferociter bis amate,
Blaise A. Hockel, Headmaster