From the Principal's Desk 3.6

Dear Parents,

Dystopia…Utopia, are things slated to get worse (dystopia) or fated to get better and better (utopia) If you pay attention to the media, books, movies, television shows etc., you may be surprised to find that almost every vision of the future is dystopian.   Just try to remember the last time you watched a movie or read a book that described a future utopian world. I suspect you may not be able to come up with one. 

Why is this?  By many accounts the world is a wonderful place; we are healthier, live in greater comfort, have a higher standard of living and yet, with all of that, so many feel something is very wrong, an air of pessimism permeates the country.

Perhaps the real problem lies not so far afield.  Perhaps the real source of our discomfort…is us.  Christ reminds us that He will take care of us, give us the peace that passes understanding, the joy that none can take from you… yet we worry.

But should we? Faith is what allows us to face the fear of dystopia with courage.  Faith in a loving God is why our children can rise each morning and greet the dawn with a smile.  Consider the words of Christ:

 ²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[a]?
 ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matt: 6:25-34
Timothy Gallic

From the Principal's Desk 3.5

Dear Parents and Friends,

To have a child is perhaps the most momentous action of one’s life,  second only to our own salvation and intimately tied to it.  From the moment of that child’s conception all we do prepares them to face the world that awaits them.  At times this task resembles pleasure more than labor, at other times quite the opposite.  Our goal, simply stated, is for our children to be successes; to have a family or a vocation, to find rewarding work, to be a positive addition to society, perhaps to have children of their  own someday, and most of all for them to be saints and to someday embrace God.

Nothing serves this goal more effectively than the way we act.  When we are patient, when we are kind, when we apologize for mistakes and make amends, when we go to Church and give God His due, we are great examples, just as much as when we do the opposite.  If we want them to be great, we had better be great ourselves.  So for the love of our children, and I speak as a father, let us resolve to aid them and ourselves by continuing to live  our faith, love our spouses and children and act like the children of God we are. 

Fortunately we don’t have to do this on our own strength.  God is always there.   

Thank you for your support and may God bless you all.

 Duc in Altum!

Timothy Gallic
Principal, Holy Family High School

From the Principal's Desk 3.4

Dear Parents,

If God has designed the great system that is our world  then it follows He must have a plan for you and your children.  Following God’s plan is possible only because we have free will, the capacity to consciously choose our actions.  We are not animals that act on instinct, or robots, but rather we are free individuals that can follow God’s plan for our lives,  a divine plan, or we can choose another way and in each case deal with the consequences.

What  is God’s plan for you?  God’s will is summed up in one of the most elegant and terse statement of human duty ever expressed. 
He (Christ) answered:

"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind';
and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"          

-Luke 10:27

On a practical level how are we to do this?   Do we have to be Mother Theresa to love God like this?  Or do we have to be monks and priests and  nuns?  Well we might, but probably not and certainly not right now.  We can follow God’s command most effectively by doing what we are supposed to do.  To be a good student, a loving spouse, a kind neighbor.  In fact the key to being a saint is found doing your laundry  or studying as much as it is found in church.   So tonight, as  your student is working on their studies remind them to do it well,  it’s all part of God’s plan.

Timothy Gallic
Principal, Holy Family High School

From the Principal's Desk 3.3

Dear Parents,

From the time we are very young we are encouraged to pray.  We pray for sunny days, and game winning plays, we pray for healing and jobs, we pray for good grades and for our wishes to come true.  If you are like the vast majority of the world, most of these prayers do not come true, or they come true as often as they don’t.  We are left wondering what prayer is good for.  

It works like this,  God made the world to run on certain rules He ordained.  The mechanism He used to do this remains uncertain, that He did it is clear.   These rules or laws of nature run everything in the universe, they govern the movements of planets, the beat of a butterfly’s wings and the growth of plants.   For us humans, there exists an additional gift, the gift of free will.   We freely choose our actions and the consequences that flow from them, and we are affected by the actions of others.  In all of this God, having established the rules, allows us to interact and to reap the reward of such things.  Ordinarily, God allows us to do the work we can do and reserves for Himself the work we cannot do.  To illustrate, God can forgive sins, we cannot, no matter how hard we try.  On the other hand, I can feed my family dinner tonight, and I will.  It will be myself, (and my wife), who will prepare and serve the food and my children who will clean up the kitchen afterward.  No angels will do it for us, the dishes miraculously prepared and then cleaned.  We have to do it ourselves or it doesn’t get done.  No amount of prayer is likely to change that.   

This does not mean God is silent.  Actually God routinely inspires us; he does not force our hand, instead He gives us a nudge in the right direction.  If we listen to that prompting, we and others are blessed.  If we do not listen, we and others miss the blessing.  In this way we see God’s hand at work and the answer to prayer.  When we look at the hungry and wonder why God does not feed them, it is really ourselves ( corporately) who do not feed them.  God has left it to us to manage the world to feed the hungry, to care for the sick, to educate the ignorant and it is up to us to do it, but not alone.
When we pray for our team to win, or to pick the winning lottery numbers, God seldom intervenes; allowing natural rules to reign.  Yet God will grant us peace, patience and wisdom, kindness, generosity and love.   These will help and if I have practiced and am genuinely skilled, I may win.  The same thing happens with school work.  As a student I often prayed for good grades and found out if I listened to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and studied, I would do well.  If I didn’t and relied on my native wit and intellect, the results were often less than hoped for.  So when your students are doing your schoolwork,  encourage them to pray,  to ask God for wisdom and diligence, and to thank Him for the gift of intellect and life itself, and then suggest they work really hard to use their gifts well.  Jesus will not take the test for them, or write their  paper;  He will inspire and strengthen  all of us to do well…if we ask.         

Timothy Gallic
Principal, Holy Family High School