Page 14 - Priorities #36 2007-January Annual Report

14
Campus Ministry Creates
Meaning, Focus and Stability
Listen. It is the sound of the chapel bells
ringing on Tuesday at mid-morning. Watch. The Priory community heads from all corners of the school campus to congregate in the chapel. For Woodside Priory students, this is a weekly routine that establishes the Benedictine way of life at its core—a gift that becomes an important part of each student’s life.
John Erkman, Dean of Students and Assistant Head of the School, describes weekly chapel as the equivalent of gathering for a family dinner. Good news, sad news, upcoming events, conversations with guests, behavioral expectations and limits, joyful things and confusing things all get shared. From the stories of others, students learn important lessons about the lives that make up the pulse of their school. A teacher tells them to find passion in their lives, based on her own love of the triathlon. Father Maurus recounts his personal experiences in
the Hungarian revolution as a young man of eighteen. A brave student talks about losing a father to a horrific disease. A guest speaker—a former Priory student and teacher—describes how his science education led him to satisfying work as a fisherman and leader in marine preservation. Mr. Erkman brings up breaches in acceptable behavior—ahem!
Ask the students and they will say that weekly chapel is occasionally solemn,
often mildly funny to downright hilarious, and, for many, frequently a centering and thought-provoking influence. One example: following the
9/11 attack on the Twin Towers, one alumnus at college in New York City “came home” to Priory chapel.