Some of the holiest people around
are also some of the most quiet and unassuming. Jesus often pointed out that
spiritual bravado wasn’t the equivalent of holiness. He spoke up against the
Pharisees praying aloud for all to hear, while highlighting the barely-noticeable
widow who put a few coins in the offering jar. We all know of the
salt-of-the-earth folks who go about their lives matter-of-factly doing good —
they don’t carry a bishop’s miter or have a position of authority in their job
or the community, yet their example shines forth and their goodness inspires
others to become better.
It
is a paradox of Christianity that strength and truth often arrive humbly
wrapped — in swaddling clothes, for example.
And
if this is true for Christian people, it is also true for Christian
institutions. Dominican High School, a small co-ed Catholic high school in
Whitefish Bay, is so quiet and unassuming, it doesn’t even show up on the radar
of some parents who are considering Catholic high school for their children.
But
for those who slow down enough to take a look at Dominican — for those who
recognize the Gospel connection between humility and greatness — they
invariably find in Dominican the genuine beauty of Catholic education done
right.
Catholic
faith is at the heart of Dominican; there is an intentionality to the parent
community. Dominican families don’t choose the school for its status or its
legacy — it is too small and too young to have much in the way of either.
Rather, Dominican families choose the school because they come to visit and
become aware of the holy. Not holy in the sense of the overly pious or a
chest-thumping spirituality. Rather, holy in the sense of genuineness, and God
present in the ordinary.
And
somehow, in tandem with that quiet faith comes an academic rigor that manages
to be neither boastful nor arrogant. When our oldest son Jacob was in eighth
grade, I was concerned about whether Dominican, as a high school with fewer
than 400 students, could wield the academic chops of larger schools that might
draw from a wider base. I needn’t have worried—much in Jacob’s freshman and
sophomore curriculum has been material and works of literature Bill and I
remember studying early in college. Dominican just published the universities
where its 80 or so seniors have been accepted so far, and the list— which
includes Fordham, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Boston College, Marquette and
Purdue—is a simple, yet eloquent statement about the strength of Dominican’s
academics.
Part
of Dominican’s strength comes from its diversity. More than any other Catholic
school in metro-Milwaukee, Dominican mirrors the ethnic and racial makeup of
the metro area it serves. Dominican reaches past the homogeneity of surrounding
Whitefish Bay and welcomes a multicultural student body that will prepare its
students well for an increasingly global work experience.
For
me, the spirit of Dominican can be expressed through an example of the JV boys
baseball team last spring. At the end of the season, the boys and their families
gathered for an end-of-season celebration at a pond near our house. The
majority of the boys were excellent swimmers and were comfortable in the water,
playing keep-away, leaping off a raft in the middle of the pond, racing each
other. Two of the boys didn’t have much experience with natural bodies of water
and didn’t know how to swim.
“I’m
more of a land animal,” one confided to me.
“Well,
you two could just stay in the shallow part,” I told him. I didn’t actually
think the young man would go in the water at all. I thought he and his friend
would just stay on shore; that he might be concerned the good swimmers would
give him a hard time. Instead, though, he thanked me, nodded and the two slowly
ventured out to waist-deep water.
As
I looked on, the swimming kids splashed their hellos to the guys in the shallow
water, and included them in a game of catch. No one commented that they both
kept their feet firmly on the bottom of the pond. When the ball landed beyond
the comfort zone the non-swimmers, one of the swimmers would stroke over and
toss it to one of them without comment. It was a remarkable moment for its
ordinariness. And it struck me that at Dominican, quiet kindness is the norm,
not the exception.
This
Catholic Schools Week, eighth graders and their families all over the city are
preparing to make their final decisions about which high school to attend.
Perhaps a thousand of these students will choose Catholic high schools with big
names and correspondingly big enrollments—excellent schools indeed— and I would
never second-guess the education those students will receive. And as those
thousand students sign the enrollment papers for their schools, a separate
group — of perhaps just a hundred—will choose Dominican. And I can’t wait to
meet those families; to hear the stories of how they found Dominican and the
moment they knew it was for them.
Dominican.
Small and quiet. Leaning humble. Filled with spirit and grace.
Salt
of the earth.
And
strong. So strong.
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