St. Anselm's Abbey School • Washington, D.C. • Spring 2015
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THe Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage corbie chronicle . PAID Merrifield, VA Permit No. 1337 4501 South Dakota Avenue, NE Washington, DC 20017-2753 address service requested The Beach Ball 33rd Annual Fall Scholarship Gala Saturday, October 24, 2015 ave Sthe D ! a t e ST. ANSELM’S ABBEY SCHOOL • WASHINGTON, D.C. • SPRING 2015 • VOL. 23 NO. 2 ST. ANSELM’S ABBEY SCHOOL The Corbie Chronicle 4501 South Dakota Avenue, NE Washington, DC 20017 Spring 2015 • Volume 23, Number 2 202-269-2350 THE 2014-2015 www.saintanselms.org ANNUAL FUND The Corbie Chronicle is published two times a year by the Communications Office of St. Anselm’s Abbey Helping Bright Boys Become Exceptional Men School. We welcome correspondence and submissions from the St. Anselm’s Abbey School community. Please direct letters, class notes and other communication to Kristin Hurd at the School or via email at khurd@ saintanselms.org. Photography in this publication has been provided by the St. Anselm’s Abbey School faculty and staff, by David W. Powell, Yakntoro Udoumoh, ’13, parent Tom Connelly, and Constantin Miranda, ’16. We apologize in advance for any errors and/or omissions. Design and Layout: Kristin Hurd Production and Printing: Executive Press Inc. Last Chance! Use the enclosed envelope to make A Message from the President 3 your contribution Fr. Peter Weigand, OSB today. Reflections from the Headmaster 5 Mr. Bill Crittenberger Campus News 6 How can you support the St. Anselm’s Experience? From the Monastery 10 Overall School Budget Panther Sports 12 Faculty Compensation and Development All-Alumni Reunion 14 Care for the Abbey and Aging Monks Class Notes/Alumni News 15 Support for Current Year Scholarships In Memoriam 18 . Donations must be received by June 30. Use the enclosed envelope or donate securely online at saintanselms.org/support. Above: Over Spring Break, Ms. Hajnalka Enzel and Fr. Javier Castro accompanied a group of 14 students to Spain. Here, the group stops for a picture on a hill overlooking the city of Toledo. Trip highlights included the Prado Museum and Easter Sunday Mass. CFC/National Capital Area Agency Code: 90387 • United Way Code: 8967 from the President: The Abbey Road When man gives himself to various disciplines of philosophy, history, and of mathematical and natural science, and when he cultivates the arts, he can do very much to elevate the human family to a more sublime understanding of truth, goodness, and beauty, and to the formation of considered opinions which have universal value. Gaudium et Spes, Pope Paul VI Dear Alumni, Students, Members of the Board of Trustees, Faculty and Staff, Past and Present Parents, Benefactors, and Friends of St. Anselm’s Abbey School, When I started teaching in the Abbey School 46 years ago, to me over and over again how formative their days at St. before the present Metro subway system was in place, over 60% Anselm’s had been. Several stated that they would not be in the of our students arrived by DC Transit bus. Most of our students positions they hold today without the education they received at took either the uptown Brookland bus leaving from Union the Abbey School. Not only were they prepared for college, but Station and letting them off at the corner of Michigan Avenue they continue to have an everlasting commitment to academic and 14th Street, or they took the crosstown Ivy City bus leaving excellence and are instilled with a lifelong thirst for learning. from Friendship Heights and eventually arriving at the corner of 14th Street and South Dakota Avenue. While attending the Model United Nations conference in Boston with seven of our students and Assistant Headmaster Once at our gate, these bushy-tailed, bright-eyed, eager young Kirk Otterson, I was able to have an evening with three younger men began their trudge up our hill, laden with heavy backpacks alumni, Conor Hearn, ’13, Tom Zorc, ’09, and Christian stuffed with books and brown paper lunch bags. Little did Schorn, ’09. Conor is studying music, Tom is preparing to they know that continuing their daily journey up “The Abbey study medicine, and Christian has a fellowship at The Harvard Road” would eventually prepare them for a far greater journey, Herbaria. I was able to spend a morning with Christian looking and more importantly, they would also be nourished with at different species of cacti in the Harvard collection. This imperishable food. was an exceptional opportunity for me to visit my imprisoned Cactonian relatives. Ascending “The Abbey Road” to our monastic school is ultimately a road to understanding the nature of reality both in While in Philadelphia, I met up with Dr. Mark Smith,’73, divine and in human matters; it is a road to distinguishing—on who is a professor of Near Eastern Languages and Scripture at the ethical plane—those things that are good and those that are NYU. We ended up taking Amtrak to New York. Mark has bad, and it is a peaceful road to learning any rule of reasoning written over 15 books, and he and his wife, Liz Bloch-Smith appropriate for reaching truth and understanding. This is (an archaeologist), and their three children, Shula, Ben, and concretely what is encompassed by Saint Anselm’s dictum, PAX Rachael, live in Philadelphia. Both Liz and Mark spend time in IN SAPIENTIA. New York and in Israel, where they both teach. Most assuredly, what you have just read is what our graduates Mr. Richard Stafford, ’53, hosted 15 alumni at the River Club articulate during my many “Alumni Gatherings” around the in NYC, with Headmaster Bill Crittenberger and yours truly. world each summer, as well as just a few months ago. At the Each alumnus spoke about where they went to college and what end of January in Boston, and during the first week of February they are now doing—CEO positions, bankers, law professors, while in Philadelphia and in New York City, our alumni stressed mechanical engineers, managing directors, art designers, In February, Fr. Peter Weigand, OSB, traveled to Boston and to New York City to visit alumni. Left: Christian Schorn,’09, shows Fr. Peter a cactus specimen from the Harvard Herbarium. Center: At the River Club in NYC, 15 alumni gather with Headmaster Bill Crittenberger. Right: Fr. Peter met up with members of the St. Anselm’s Model United Nations team, who competed in the 61st Session of the Harvard National Model U.N.. corbie chronicle 3 consultant analysts, clothing executives, database engineers, In 1899, Saint Bede was and current college students. Each had a vibrant story of their made a Doctor of the Church own with fond memories of their days at St. Anselm’s; all were by Pope Leo XIII; he is the enthusiastic about their time at the Abbey School and were only native of Great Britain grateful for their education here. to achieve this designation (Anselm of Canterbury, also As an example: Benjamin Oh, ’14, who as you will read on a Doctor of the Church, was page 17 was selected to represent the U.S. at the Winter originally from Italy.). Bede Universiade in Granada, Spain, wrote a thank-you note to me was moreover a skilled linguist for our school’s financial support in this effort. “Thank you and translator, and his work all for your tremendous support! I am truly proud to be an made the Latin and Greek alumnus of such an amazing school. My time thus far at the writings of the early Church University of Pennsylvania has been amazing and I hope Abbey Fathers much more accessible boys will come to visit or attend soon! Best of luck this year, I to his fellow Anglo-Saxons, hope everything is going well at the Abbey and our sports teams contributing significantly to are doing great!” English Christianity. So how did this all happen, and where did we come from? Our Next on the educational scene Benedictine heritage remains strong, coming down to us from comes Saint Anselm (1033- the early Middle Ages, which have been called “the Benedictine 1109). Around 1060, as Benet Biscop also known as Biscop centuries.” In April 2008, Pope Benedict XVI acclaimed the Abbot of Bec in Normandy, Baducing influence Saint Benedict had on Western Europe. The pope Anselm attracts young said that “with his life and work, Saint Benedict exercised scholars from all over Europe and some Moslem countries as a fundamental influence on the development of European well with his burning desire for lifelong scholarship and his civilization and culture” and helped Europe to emerge from the thirst for seeking God above all things. Anselm spent years “dark night of history” that occurred after the fall of the Roman writing about and trying to understanding God, and his many Empire. treatises and prayers continue to have impact upon scholars and modern Benedictines. Eventually, Anselm became Archbishop History also tells us that by the year 515, Saint Benedict (480- of Canterbury, spoke at Church Councils, and was named the 547) already had young boys under his tutelage in the persons Father of Scholasticism and a Doctor of the Church. Anselm of Maurus and Placid. These boys were sent to him by their died in 1109, so for over 900 years, Benedictine schools have fathers to be trained and educated in Benedict’s School of the been guided by his wisdom and mystical insight. Lord’s Service. So literally, for 1,500 years, the Benedictines have been involved in education. St. Anselm’s Priory in Washington was founded in 1923 by Fr. Thomas Verner Moore, OSB, under the In the summer of the year 597, Benedictines were established in auspices of Fort Augustus Abbey in Scotland in 1923, England as the result of Pope Saint Gregory the Great sending and the first monks arrived in Washington in September forth Augustine of Canterbury, then the prior of a monastery in 1924.