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No Man Left Behind: The Good News from Gregory the Great Academy

I am honored to call all four of the headmasters in the history of Gregory the Great Academy close friends. I include, of course, the founding headmaster, Alan Hicks, even though 30 years ago when I was a young Marine officer looking to become a teacher, he turned me down for a position. I never miss a chance to rib Alan about his decision, or more importantly, to thank him for during the interview recommending to me (or was it assigning?) four books. Three I knew but had never cracked: Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, Pieper’s Leisure the Basis of Culture, and Belloc’s Servile State. The fourth was the work of a man I did not know at the time: The Restoration of Christian Culture by John Senior.

I never had the good fortune to meet John Senior, but I have come to love him in his legacy. Clear Creek Abbey, St. Martin’s Academy in Fort Scott, Kansas and Gregory the Great Academy in Elmhurst, Pennsylvania are not merely the handiwork of Senior disciples but are manifestations of his understanding and imagination. Senior’s was a vision for the formation of human persons rooted in a reawakening of man’s capacity for wonder. This capacity found expression in mirth and friendship, beauty and reverence, daring and joy, all located in arts long discarded and even disdained by our tech-burdened age: poetry and calligraphy, Latin and stargazing, reading heroic epics, singing folks songs, and observing the rhythms and harmonies of the natural world.

My first visit to Saint Greg’s was an immersion in Senior. I was invited to tell the Lepanto story to the boys as part of their annual Immaculate Conception celebration. No one celebrates this holy day like Saint Greg’s: Imagine a procession in the snow with a statue of Our Lady, a massive bonfire, male voices chanting prayers from the Divine Office, and then—an intramural rugby tournament, each team name chosen from the Litany of Loreto: Star of the Sea, Seat of Wisdom, Tower of Ivory, Gate of Heaven….  The crown of the day is a great feast in the dining hall—poems declaimed, torches juggled, war songs sung. And all the boys knew all the verses.

Praise the Lord

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