Winter 2011 - Mount Michael Benedictine School

FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S DESK
…a simple
meal is
central to
our faith…
The holidays are a great time for people to
celebrate. Starting with Thanksgiving and going
through the New Year we are generally invited
by others, or we invite them, to get together.
Christmas is a big time for family, work and
neighborhood celebrations. Food is usually
involved somehow with these parties and
gatherings. Food plays an important role.
Meals are, in and of themselves, social events.
Planning major meals, like at Thanksgiving
and Christmas, takes effort and time. Family
traditions with the menu constitute a form of
practice, custom and ritual. We all want our
aunt’s cookies or grandmother’s special gravy.
Even when people pass on and are gone, the
cherished recipes may continue through the next
generations. We get together and enjoy the food
because it makes us remember them. Meals can
be memorial.
Meals are important at a place like Mount
Michael Benedictine School. We offer three
meals a day to our young men. Besides
personnel costs, the most expensive item in our
budget is food! It costs hundreds of thousands
to feed our young men over the course of a year.
Respect at mealtime is important. Proper
table manners and good conversation are vital.
Our young men eat in a dining room as a
community. They do not go through our kitchen
line and retire to their room in isolation. It is
important for them, and for us, to have this
shared time together. It is community, which is
an important Benedictine value, and it is like
family. Our boys share this time, while eating,
together as brothers in community as if in a
family.
Sometimes hectic and varied schedules keep
families from having meal times together.
A hurried run-through at Burger King,
McDonald’s or Wendy’s, and then eating in
the car, may constitute a family meal. Time
and schedules can conspire against having this
family time together.
How important are family meals In looking
at twenty years of data on National Merit
scholars the National Merit Scholarship
Corporation found that the only thing that all
past National Merit recipients had in common
was this: these students came from families
that ate together three nights a week. Without
exception, National Merit scholarship winners
grew up sharing dinner time with their families.
Another one of our Benedictine Values is
hospitality. When we invite guests into our
homes for meals, parties or get-togethers
hospitality becomes very important.
The Mass is a lot like that. The fact that Jesus
was eating His last supper with His friends, thus
establishing the Mass, the liturgy, as the focal
point to our faith, is monumental. A simple
meal is central to our faith.
Family attendance at midnight Mass or a
specific Mass at Christmas is another example
of a traditional celebration. It takes time to plan;
you need to arrive on time and then share in the
meal together as a community.
Meals lead to memories. They are memorial.
In many respects it is how we can meet and
really get to know people. It is a significant form
of hospitality. Good meals take time to prepare
and plan. It is not ironic that Jesus emphasized
the meal. That is why He said to do this in His
memory when He broke the bread and blessed
the wine. He became the meal. He became
central to all.
As you celebrate the Advent season and make
way for the birth of the Christ child, keep in
mind those family members or friends who are
no longer here. Enjoy those holiday gatherings,
celebrations and meals and remember those who
have gone before us. Remember those who used
to share those meals with us. Toast them and
your memories of them. They are there, still with
us in our hearts and souls, as we celebrate.
Keep them, and our Lord, close.
God bless, Merry Christmas.
~ Dr. David J. Peters, Ed.D.
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