On August 19, 2022, the entire school gathered in the Terry Center for a prayer service. However, this first day of school prayer service is different from those of other years. This year’s prayer service signaled the first time an entire student body convened in the Terry Center in three years. This year’s Profile of the Graduate theme is Intellectually Competent. The prayer service is about enriching and challenging one’s intellect this year.
Following the prayer service, two students shared their thoughts on the prayer service and Principal Garrison’s message.
Witnessing the gathering of all students, William Spicer ‘24 commented that he was “definitely invigorated by the unity of the four classes because this was our first school-wide prayer service since a while.”
Henry Casey ’24 said: “I definitely felt inspired by Principal Garrison’s message. I felt that this prayer service challenged me to be a better student and Man for Others.”
Principal Garrison’s Reflection
Principal Garrison emphasized that it is symbolic of the bond that we all share here and symbolic of the fact that none of us are an island. Then, Principal Garrison utilized Pope Francis as an example of intellectual intelligence.
In October of 2020, Pope Francis spoke to the Global Compact on Education event and stated that “education is above all a matter of love and responsibility handed down from one generation to another.”
Principal Garrison reinforces the fact that a teacher or coach that you will encounter this year is acting out of love for you and for your classmates. Faculty members are here to help students refine their God-Given Intelligence and become Intellectually Competent. This will happen through service, retreats, clubs, athletics, etc.
STORY OF LAMPEDUSA
After being elected to the Papacy in 2013, Pope Francis’ first official trip out of Rome occurred in Lampedusa. This is Italy’s southernmost island.
There are about 6,000 inhabitants in Lampedusa, and in the first six months of this year, over 30,000 refugees had made landfall here. Most of them are from Africa and the Middle East and they depart from Libya in overcrowded boats.
Pope Francis has identified this, and other areas around the world where similar narratives are playing out to be a humanitarian crisis. Therefore, the Pope decided to visit the miniscule island. Upon arrival, Pope Francis celebrated Mass near a graveyard of abandoned boats used by the migrants.
Pope Francis chose this tiny little island, and used a humble altar, to give an important message. This message is that we must go and to the margins to be with the marginalized.
Principal Garrison shared this moving story and the images of Pope Francis’ first mass abroad to illustrate three types of intelligence that the Pope personifies.
In his first mass, Pope Francis embodied three types of intelligence: RATIONAL, EMOTIONAL & SYMBOLIC
RATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
The Rational Intelligence is the book learning or worldly knowledge that you could get here or at any other good school.
For Pope Francis, it was manifest in his understanding of the complex world situations that have created humanitarian crises such as this story of the migrants at Lampedusa.
For us, it is probably slightly more mundane; it is learning how to write well, how to solve complex mathematical problems, balance equations, create mental models and identify patterns in the world around us.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
So by Pope Francis’ example, we must also have Emotional Intelligence:
Emotional intelligence is that ability to see people as individuals to have empathy. Also, this form of intelligence calls on our hearts to seek out the experience of the other and to measure it against what we know in our hearts God desires for us.
In my example of Pope Francis, it was him feeling the pain of migrants who had lost family members along the way, and who had fled suffering to find more pain along their way.
For us, it manifests our in day-to-day interactions with one another. Emotional Intelligence is that feeling you have when you see a classmate being picked on by others and it doesn’t feel right – when someone is ridiculed or objectified on social media.
SYMBOLIC INTELLIGENCE
Symbolic intelligence is a motivating and unifying force for people. The Pope went to the margins and held a simple mass, outdoors on an improvised altar. By doing so he sought to bring those people on the margins in closer to the rest of us.
Principal Garrison reinforces that teachers work hard to create symbolic moments for their students. These moments occur through building schedules to make time for prayer services, having seniors sit in the front of the Terry Center and freshmen in the back, etc.
The crosses all over the campus are symbols of our commitment to living a life that is Christ-like.
Everything that one takes is a step outside of the easy path. When one goes out into the world with Jesuit emblazoned across your chest, his actions are symbolic of what this place and the people here can and should be for the world.
PRINCIPAL’S CHALLENGE FOR STUDENTS
In the end, Principal Garrison asked students to remember Pope Francis’ quote that “above all a matter of love and responsibility, handed down from one generation to another.”
Finally, he challenged the student body, just Pope Francis, to seek ways to refine all three forms of their intellect – rational, emotional, and symbolic.
