Student Applications Now Open!
A reminder that we have opened up our new student applications for the 2021-2022 academic year! If you know of any students or families that might be interested, please direct them to our website www.chestertonjpii.org/admissions to apply.
The early application deadline is April 23rd, and the late application deadline is May 28th. All applications after that date will be moved to our waitlist for first-come, first-serve opportunities.
If you have any questions, or would like to shadow a day, please contact our headmaster, Mr. Hockel, at BHockel@chestertonjpii.org
Pop Cans in Art Class
Pop is not allowed in class. Mostly because it tends to stain, not only your teeth, but the carpet. However, this semester there were lots of pop cans in Art Class, but not for drinking.
Students were divided into groups of four or five and assigned a pop can. Their task: construct a pop can that is double the size of a normal can. Their tools: drawing pencils, paper, tape, a ruler, and their compass they’ve been using in Geometry.
This helps with a few key skills they’ve been practicing in Art this year. First, drawing in proportion/learning to scale an object up or down while keeping its shape. Second, keeping their values/shading consistent. Finally, that a piece of art consists of parts that need to flow together to make a cohesive whole.
Groups learned, some faster than others, that a little bit of planning in the beginning goes a long way! I think all of them have a new appreciation for pop cans now.
– Ms. Yeh, Art Instructor
Student Life
Yearbook Club and Student Government Elections
Our students have been putting together a yearbook for our first year of school! Keep your eyes out for later updates about how to order our first-ever yearbook! Additionally, we’d like to welcome our first elected student-government president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary. Representatives for our four Student Houses will be elected later this month!
St. John Bosco Camps
Every year, the Seminarians of Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary for the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter put on two outdoor camps for young men ages 13-15: Camp St. Isaac Jogues (June 21st to July 2nd.) located in Western Pennsylvania, and Camp St. Peter (August 5th to August 17th) located in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Camp activities include: Daily Mass in the Extraordinary Form, Confessions, a Daily Rosary, hiking, fishing, sports, swimming, visits to local historical sites, and spiritual talks by Seminarians and the Chaplain. Cost: $450 Learn more at stjohnboscocamps.org
Personal Testimony:
Hi! I am Patrick Ohotnicky. I went to Camp St. Peter (CSP) two years ago, when I was 15. It was hands down the best summer camp that I have ever been to. I know what you are thinking, “Wow, that’s cliche.” It may be cliche, but it is true. The FSSP seminarians are all amazing guys, and the ones who run the camp are hand-picked from all of the FSSP seminarians. The prayer aspect of the camp is really touching. The seminarians and the priest lead all of the prayers, and you can see how the seminarians pray, and you can just walk up to them and talk about literally anything, from Aristotle to music to airsoft to Josephite Theology. All the activities that they plan are a lot of fun, and they are all things guys like to do. Trust me, the seminarians want to have as much fun as you do, so they will plan the games and activities so that everyone can have a great time. It really is a wonderful experience, and is certainly time well spent.
Patrick Ohotnicky is the brother of our Latin and science instructor, Mrs. Colette Gass.
Holy Week
As we enter Holy week at the end of the month, here is the update to our timeline: Good Friday is a day off from school that you might spend the holiest of days together as a family. Holy Thursday will have a full day of school time, but will be on a half-day schedule. Classes will conclude at 12.30, and we will begin a Stations of the Cross and holy hour. Families are welcome to join us for the afternoon.
AmazonSmile
Shop AmazonSmile: Do you shop on Amazon? Shop AmazonSmile instead! Just log onto AmazonSmile, and choose “Chesterton Academy of St. John Paul II Corp” (Windsor) as your designated charity and 0.5% of every purchase will be donated to our school!
Step by step instructions: log into your Amazon Prime account. Select the “Accounts & Lists” option on the top right-hand sign of the screen and select the “Your Amazon Smile” option in the drop-down banner. Once there, select the “Change your charity” button on the right-hand side. Then, you may type in our name—Chesterton Academy of St. John Paul II Corp—in the bar at the bottom of the screen.
Remember! We only benefit from your Amazon gifts if you log in to Amazon through smile.amazon.com!
King Soopers
As a reminder, follow the instructions in our October Newsletter to make your grocery shopping a charitable contribution to our school as well!
Interested in Becoming a JPIIHS Volunteer?
We had great success with our End of Year Campaign, but we’re still trying to raise money through the spring to support our students and keep our school affordable as we prepare for next year!
If you or another community member would be interested in helping a committee with the effort, please email Executive Director Liz Yeh at LYeh@chestertonjpii.org. Thank you!
Thank You from St. Joe’s!
We were happy that we were able to attend the St. Joe’s Gala this last month! Here is a link is the Thank You video that they sent along to all those families that donated to help our parochial schools to thrive.
From the Headmaster’s Desk
My dearest friends and families,
It seems that, in the last month since I wrote you last, I have the ability to ‘double-down’ in my commentary. In February we saw the removal of classic works from schools of a supposed high repute in the name of advancement in modernity. I can see that there is more to say on that matter as we look at the self-censorship of Dr. Seuss at the whim of woke culture. I believe I similarly have said in a previous missive what it means to be part of woke culture and what I wish it meant– rather than being bent on bending others to one’s own whims and fancies, rather that we might find the time to be truly restful and reflective on those matters that are most important in the world. Both of these commentaries– that is, the desire to cancel classics and my weariness at ‘wokefulness’– come to a head very much in the Gospel reading today.
Dr. Seuss, undoubtedly, had depictions in his texts that were racially insensitive. Whether the pictures and fancies of a man who died three decades ago were crafted to indoctrinate generations of young readers into thinking poorly about persons of other races, however, is not the essential nature of my quandary, though I find it unlikely that this is genuine in the case of the man whose name is Sweet. It is entirely probable that Chaucer thought less of the Irish on account of his being English, just as it is entirely probable that the author of Beowulf thought little of Frenchmen on account of his being a Vik. What we should take into account in this conversation, however, is that Dr. Seuss taught us things–true things– about the nature of man, the world, and our desire to fit in it well.
And, such is the point of literature: that it should give us ideas that challenge our way of thinking by presenting to us a line of argument previously unconsidered. It is not, I should suggest, an aim of indoctrination, but rather an airing. Aptly, then, we might compare the airing of ideas to the airing of laundry– there’s always bound to be some delicates or dirties that get aired, which could lead to embarrassment, but it would be better to pin it up and examine it to catch its faults rather than to leave it to mold in a corner, as that kind of festering stink can only lead to rot.
For a group of individuals to read and dictate to others what is or is not fit for society is an interesting principal– I, for one, would prefer to read and determine for myself. But I suppose that I am afforded that view and position by virtue of the fact that I am Christian and so am corrupted by a love of literature by my God.
It was perhaps two years ago now that I was speaking with a dear friend, Monsieur Tyler, who had made the emphatic observation that literature is necessary to study because it is the way that Christ determined to teach us– ‘He spoke to us in parables’ Tyler proclaimed, and so the conclusion was that it is deeply important to know how to read and understand literature– to better understand scripture. I, being a molassen-minded man, am slow to consider things, and as such have been pondering this notion for months. Is it not true, that we should give more particular dedication to a study of the things that would lead us to understand the man proclaimed to be God by so many? How could we hope to determine any validity of that claim if we were not practiced in the method preferred to him?
Allow me to practice, if only for a moment, here: today’s Gospel reading (the fourth of March, 2021 in the year of Our Lord) had Christ tell us a parable of a man confined to Hell. Fr. Gregg Pedersen described this as a quasi-parable, and accurately so, because this particular parable is not merely a story, but describes Sheol or Hades from the mind of God, and thus is both a parable and expository in nature. The wealthy man so placed in the unpleasant surroundings of fire and torture asks first for assistance to himself, and then to his surviving family. On a first glance, it appears that these things are denied to him, but in actuality that already were or will be provided very shortly. The man asks that messengers be sent to forewarn, and, behold! they were sent through the prophets, through angels, and through Moses who gave us the explicit word of God. The wealthy man closes by asking that a messenger should be sent from the land of the dead, and Abraham concludes that if you fail to hear messages from the living, so, too, will you ignore the dead. This does not, however, stop Christ from giving two examples from the dead to help persuade the people of truth: first in the raising of Lazarus, and then in the raising of himself.
What this particular parable proves to us, then, is simple: we need to study literature that we might learn to hear. It appears that it is preferable to be presented with unpleasant, even contrary ideas to our own so that we might recognize when we have not recognized and to hear the Truth when we would have otherwise crammed our ears with beeswax. Literature becomes simultaneous a siren’s call and a warm swaddling cloth; it harkens us on further to pursue true things, and wraps us tenderly in a warm and soothing protection of right knowledge. A person might keep you warm by burning books, but that fire will ultimately go out. I should sleep more comfortably if I were dressed in right understanding.
Godspeed,
Blaise A. Hockel, Headmaster