June 8 is annually a special day for me because in 2005, it was my final day as a student at Percy Julian Middle School and my graduation was that evening. 17 years ago, June 8 was on a Wednesday, as it is this year in 2022, which adds an extra special touch to the occasion and connects me even more deeply with my middle school experience as I celebrate the day that capped it off and sent me forth.
Certainly, every experience in our lives shapes us. My middle school years went a step further and truly defined the most important parts of who I am. Even at the point of graduating 17 years ago, I had a sense of how the experience was a great gift to me that made me who I am, and, over the years since, I have sensed how it is a gift that has called me to act. I became more fully aware of who I am by engaging my interests. Furthermore, I sensed the call to action by being involved in my community to help edify the United States as a citizen. And even greater, I sensed a call to act upon the faith that had been defined during my middle school years.
Teaching Religious Education has been the most profound opportunity I've had to put faith into action. In the presence of my students, I think back to how alive my faith became in middle school, when I was their age, and realize that faith is not something that I keep to myself, but I offer to edify others. And in giving of myself, I discover who I truly am.
I thought about this about a month ago when I was inside Julian, attending a concert featuring the Julian choral students, including three of the students in my class this most recent year of 2021-22. Two of them were MCs for the concert. When they entered the auditorium and saw me, they were certainly surprised and, I also sense, delighted to see me there.
Following the concert, I saw them in the main 1st floor hallway right outside the auditorium, which I have twice heard called "the Spine". I went to greet them and affirm them for a great performance. Just feet from where I met them was the plaque for my graduation class of 2005, and while standing there with them, I pointed to it and reached up to show them where my name is.
Then, one of those students asked me what I regard as a truly profound question:
"What is it like being back?"
In my response of just a few seconds, I said that it was so wonderful to be back reconnecting with a place that truly defined me, especially in my sense of faith, which I have acted upon as their RE teacher.
It was an especially profound question coming from one of my RE students, with a very religiously-oriented name, who was currently a Julian student.
Both of them, their classmates during that same year, and all my other 200+ students have been part of how I have lived out my experience, going from celebrating the gift I had received and capped off 17 years ago to putting it into action.
I also think about a stanza from the poem "Puerto Rico (Regreso)" by Jose Gautier Benitez:
Translated into English, it reads: "Forgive the exile this sweet frenzy:/I return to my beloved world./I'm in love/with the land where I was born."
This stanza is the inspiration for Justice Sotomayor's memoir My Beloved World.
Sometimes, it seems strange that I'm so obsessed with my middle school years. Some people don't think of that time in their lives with fondness, and I got lots of eyerolls when in high school for singing the praises of Julian.
So the line "Forgive the exile this sweet frenzy" resonates with me as I think back to my Julian years, because it was the time when I had a sort of "birth" through such a character-defining experience for me.
My Julian years were like a wonderful dream that when I awoke, I wished I could dream again. And in some respects, I relive that dream when I'm in the RE classroom. But more than just reminiscing, I'm acting on that dream-like time in my life to edify the students in my class.
I thought about that stanza as I reflected on the profound question from my student. I think about how my love for Julian has never ceased, but has been refashioned.
It's wonderful that this anniversary comes this year in the week after Pentecost Sunday, enhancing the celebration as I become fully aware of how the Holy Spirit has been at work to lead me to greater Truth through my pursuit of knowledge. Notably, red is the liturgical color for Pentecost, and it's the color for Julian. So ever since 2005, I've had a fondness for red as I think about donning a red cap and gown to conclude my time as a Julian student. A few months later, I stood before red-vested Bishop Kane and became a confirmed Roman Catholic, an impactful experience that was defined by what happened during my Julian years.
It's fitting that this week also marks 20 years since my final day as a student at Irving, which I'm fairly certain was June 7, 2002. While I couldn't have realized it then, the Spirit was guiding me to an experience like no other in middle school.
And for many years, June 8 has been a special day for my family because 48 years before 2005 on June 8, 1957, my grandparents Martin and Dorothy were married at St. Catherine of Siena Parish, just a half-mile east of Julian. From that wedding flowed forth the great gift of God's love into succeeding generations, including me, creating an environment in which I could grow up affirmed and aware of God's presence revealed in that love.
While I attended a public school, I marvel at how the environment there helped me embrace my faith in a stronger way, and furthermore, realize the vocation God has called me to, revealing it in the context of my relationship with Him. Teaching RE wasn't necessarily something I had ever dreamed about doing, but when I'm in the classroom, it feels like I'm in my dream job. Those classes are a time when I can circle back to Julian, reconnecting with how it defined my identity, and then act on it in a way by which it pours forth to edify others.
That's why I feel that the celebration of June 8, 2005, persists, as I continue to do something with the experience that blesses others.
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