Tony Braithwaite's Call to Arms

This past Sunday was the Alumni/Father & Son Communion Breakfast at my beloved alma mater, St. Joe's Prep. One of my closest friends, Tony Braithwaite, was the keynote speaker. His speech, in a word, was AMAZING. The text is below. Enjoy:

Prep Alumni and Father/Son Communion Breakfast – October 2009

By Tony Braithwaite ‘89

(Introduced by Charlie Gallagher ’66)

Thank you Charlie.

Full disclosure up front. Charlie told me last year that if I gave his son a part in the show he’d let me do this speech. Now you know.

You’ll all forgive me but I have to leave immediately after my speech today as I have a matinee performance of a play called Boeing-Boeing at Act 2 Playhouse in Ambler. Boeing-Boeing is a rollicking comedy that runs until next Saturday. For tickets and information please visit act 2 dot org. Or call 215. 654. 0200.

That’s 215. 654. 0200.

Ask for Beth.

25 years ago I entered St. Joe’s Prep for the very first time as a Pre-8^th Grade student. And coming home from the Prep on the bus that very first day, the bus stopped at a red light in the neighborhood at a corner right near here, and some young men from the neighborhood began to throw rocks at our bus. One rock went right thru my window and hit me directly in the forehead, drawing blood.

That was my first day ever at St. Joe’s Prep.

Now, if anyone had told me on that day, that 25 years later I would find myself here at the Prep giving a big swell speech talking about how much I love the Prep, and have devoted much of my life to the Prep, I would have told them, “Yeah that sounds about right.”

That is because, rock-pelting aside, from that very first day of Pre 8^th I loved everything about St. Joseph’s Prep. I still do.

On that first day, I began to bleed for the Prep.

Like so many of us who love the Prep, it’s hard to put into words what exactly it is we love, what it is that makes the Prep the Prep. It’s hard to explain.

One way to put it is that the Prep is not a school, the Prep is a way of life.

A Prep admissions catalogue in the 60’s defined that way of life this way: “The Prep spirit is created by the whole Prep family: the students, Faculty, alumni, parents, and friends. It is more easily experienced than expressed. Especially when we are all together cheering, laughing, singing, chatting, greeting, or crying. It’s just there and I guess that’s what it’s all about.”

In his book, the history of St. Joseph’s Prep, Father James Gormley S.J. quotes a Freshman in 1976 as saying this: “I’ll admit that the Prep has its bad points, Jug and sophomores for example, but there’s one really special thing here. I suppose that it’s a kind of feeling and it happens all the time, especially at a rally or something where everyone’s together. They start –I mean we start – cheering and pouring forth our pride in knowing that we belong here.”

Over my many years as a student, alum, and teacher I’ve come to think that the Prep is a way of life characterized by critical thinking, by intense knowledge of self, concern for others, deep spirituality, a keen wit and a strong sense of humor, the importance of brotherhood, and an indefatigable rising spirit. That, perhaps, is the Prep charism.

Where did that charism come from? Well, for years that charism was fostered at the Prep dominantly by, of course, the Jesuits. Ah the Jesuits. The best there is. The creme de le creme of the church, once called by Time Magazine as, “the bad boys of Rome.” There’s a famous saying that goes, “You can always tell a Jesuit. You just can’t tell him much.” The Prep Jesuits were giants of education who were grossly over qualified to be high school teachers but - lucky for us! - found themselves doing just that.

The Prep Jesuits were men who would have been titans of industry, politics, business, medicine, law, the arts, etc. but whose calling intuitively recognized the utter importance and absolute opportunity in teaching men in their teen age years - instilling their charism to young men at a time in their lives when it would be most likely to stick.

Men whose vocation also included devotion to this great institution: again, lucky for us! Since 1851 the Jesuits have loved the Prep - and since 1851 the Jesuits have lived the Prep. And in doing so they made us - alumni for over 150 years - love the Prep and live the Prep. They were the first for whom the Prep was a way of life.

How did they instill it in us? How did they make us love these ideals, and thereby love the Prep? I mean, come on. Kids, loving their school!? People from other schools can’t believe that Prep alums love their school. Let alone return to it, donate to it, support it. And yet that’s exactly what we alumni willingly do. One of my favorite stories in this vein comes from a few years back, when LaSalle College High School’s Development team actually came to the Prep and asked our development team, “What the hell are you guys doing to get your alums to love you so much? Please tell us.”

So, the Jesuits started all this, way back in 1851: but how did they do it? Well for one, they treated us like men. They treated us like men and we rose to the occasion.

The Late uber-devoted alum Hank Quinn ’52 of Wrestling Gym fame once said that what the Jesuits did was instill in us - right from the get go as Freshmen – the reality that any baby years, any kid stuff, was over for us. We were men now. And we had to act as such.

What was so remarkable - something that these great men knew almost instinctively it seemed - is that the more they treated us like men, the more they respected us - the more we respected them, and respected the charism they wanted to instill in us.

That philosophy seems so simple and yet it’s so easily - and so often - lost on so many educators we read about in the world today: fear-based educators, who talk down to students and thereby instill a passive mistrust in them. Aren’t we fortunate that we had the Jesuits, treating us as men.

This is part and parcel of a Jesuit philosophy called, “cura personalis.” It translates into care of the individual person.” The Jesuits believed that in order for education to really flourish, their students must be deeply known for who they are as individuals. And in order to do this, the Jesuits helped us to first figure out who we were as individuals. They talked to us, they believed in us, the mentored us, and as such they knew us.

A member of the class of 2000 said to me once at a Reunion, “At the Prep they cared for us as individuals and somehow we got also got a great education along the way.” This kind of Jesuit charism naturally fostered community, and broke down many typical, “Us/Them,” walls and barriers that often exist between Faculty and students. A Prep senior in 1997 – one of the brightest kids I taught here – said that Jesuit high schools were the last bastion of true centers of learning, made popular in the ancient Greece and the Renaissance, characterized by respect by the master teacher for the individual students.

I was fortunate enough to be a student and then a Faculty member at what will probably be viewed - when the History books are written - as the last of the Jesuit era at St. Joe’s Prep. The last time there were more than a handful of Jesuits at the school, as there are now. Names like Keller, Michini, Maher, Sauter, Taggart, D’Allessandro, Collins, Garber, Ward, Hricko, O’Connor, Peduti, Grady, Ryan, Dennis, Boyle.

In 1988 one of these greats, former Prep Chaplain Father Joe Michini, kicked the Prep up a notch from its already high pedestal when he brought an unknown Retreat called Kairos to the school. Mine was the first senior class to go on Kairos. In fact I am still wearing my Kairos pin on my lapel today.

For the uninformed: Kairos is a deeply impactful spiritual retreat, rooted in the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius, which provides the students a 4-day off-campus experience to strengthen their relationship to God, to self, and to others. Right from the get go in 1988, Kairos’ impact at the school was unmistakable. It’s been a big hit here for twenty years.

Kairos, and the confluence of having these great Jesuits at the Prep at that time, brought about a set of kind of halcyon years for the Prep in the 1990’s. The Jesuits of that era somehow managed to interweave the messages of the Kairos Retreat - which nearly every student willingly went on - with Prep Pride and a sense of brotherhood. The results were palpable and overwhelming to those of us fortunate enough to be here at that time. Long term Faculty member Earl Hart probably said it best when he said, “the kids are just nicer now.” And I vividly remember a new Faculty member saying to me during this time, “Tony, I’ve worked at a lot of places and this kind of education doesn’t happen anywhere else.” My educational role model, the man who hired me, former Principal Father Herb Keller was fond of saying about the Prep, “It’s the best place in the world.”

It was during this time – these halcyon years, this Kairos Culture time - that I was asked to take over the Drama program here, in hopes of making some improvements to it. This task proved easier than I imagined. For you see, at the Prep, it wasn’t just the kids who got cut from sports teams who did the plays. In fact one year we had more kids going out for the show than for football. Over the years we’ve even had so many kids wanting to work on our Stage Crew to build the sets that we had to go to an application and interview process. A Mothers’ Club President once playfully told a group of new Prep moms, “Have you ever heard of a school where there are cuts for Stage Crew?” I am currently directing my 31^st production, Sweeney Todd. We open November 6^th. For tickets and information please call 215. 978. 1019.

That’s 215. 978. 1019

Ask for Beth.

I am deeply proud of the Drama program at Mother Prep, and running it truly has been the greatest joy in my life, as Charlie’s introduction mentioned. For example, this weekend, I had four performances of a local show as a professional actor – my dream come true – plus a family party, and this event. And yet tomorrow at school the set is due to be completed, and we have four hours of acting review. And I have looked forward to that more than anything else.

Our philosophy in Cape and Sword is to empower the kids. To treat them with respect, to treat them like adults. And the results have overwhelmed us.

I saw some tangible signs of those results this summer standing in the middle of Times Square New York. I had brought our students to see the Broadway musical Avenue Q, and then attend a workshop run for them by four New York actors. With me were several alums of the program, who have returned to assist me. I have been so blessed over the years that more than 30 alumni of our program have come back at one point or anther to join the Adult Staff. We all stood in Times Square looking up at a huge billboard advertising the TV show Melrose Place. And there - larger than life on a poster in the world’s busiest thoroughfare, was the star of Melrose Place, Michael Rady, class of ’99, former star of the Prep stage. Next to Rady’s billboard was an advertisement for Momma Mia!, the hit Broadway musical which now stars Alyse Wojichowski, better know to Prep audiences as Golde in 2005’s Fiddler on the Roof, among other roles.

Alyse emailed me the day she was cast in Momma Mia! to thank me, and the Prep, for all we’d done for her. Alyse joins more professional actors, comedians, singers, etc. the likes of Justin Hopkins, Howie Brown, Chris O’Donnell, Joe Mallon, Jeff Civillico, Maria Brinkmann, and a myriad of others who credit Prep Drama as shaping their success.

Mike Rady tells the Hollywood press that St. Joe’s Prep and the Cape and Sword Drama Society made him who he is today. I will be Best Man in Mike’s wedding in May. He sent me a text just this morning that said, “Good luck today with the speech for the Communion Brekfast.” (Now he did spell breakfast wrong, so we can’t take THAT MUCH credit.)

We in Cape and Sword strive every day to keep the Prep charism alive.

For you see, that’s now our charge.

It’s mine, it’s yours, and it’s the charge of all here today. It’s up to us now, the alums, the students, and the mostly lay Faculty and Staff in whose hands the Prep charism has been entrusted.

Part of Jesuit philosophy involves seeing the world as it is, facing reality. And the reality for Jesuit schools today is that if they are to survive they will be manned not by Jesuits, or certainly not by many Jesuits. We at St Joseph’s Prep today enjoy the stewardship of some wonderful Jesuits, but they are four in number. Now, lucky for the Prep, we have a terrific foursome in the persons of Bruce Maivelett, Frank Skechus, Michael Magree, and of course George Bur. But the time is already here when the passing on of the great Prep charism is no longer in the hands of just the Jesuits. And this should give everyone here some serious pause…

For years, those entrusted to passing on the Prep charism, the Prep way of life, were the Jesuits - men who had been trained for years in the deep nuances of that same charism, and men who devoted their very lives, their whole beings to that charism and to its longevity. The Jesuits passed along to their students what had been instilled in them for years and years over the course of their intense study and training.

Can we lay people adequately do the same?

Are we up to this task?

It gets trickier still I’m afraid. Because much of modern educational philosophy flies in the face of Jesuit charism. How does one practice cura personalis – care for the individual student - in a world where many educators are told in their Masters programs, “If there’s ever a school fight, run the other way. You don’t want a law suit on your hands.” It isn’t so easy for teachers to know and mentor students as individuals when all modern litigious warning signs say, “don’t get too close!”

And make no mistake; it’s difficult to follow in Jesuit footsteps. Case in point: when the great Prep fire happened in the 1960s, then-Principal Father Joe Ayd went running into the fire to rescue the Blessed Sacrament from the Prep Chapel. This man had devoted his entire life to the Prep mission, his entire calling was St. Joseph’s Prep. Who of us here would be willing to rush into a burning Prep today to rescue something precious for fear it be lost forever?

The late celebrated Jesuit Pedro Arrupe said that the spirit of all Jesuit schools must be one which produces men for others. Father Arrupe stated that the Ignatian spiritual and educational tools must be used to mold men whose love of God and other men would fuse to produce social justice. This must be done, Arrupe said, even if it means a radical change in one’s own manner of life and environment.

Arrupe’s charge must become our standard to bear, as we, the lay people, take up the great cause.

Here’s the good news: the Jesuits think we’re up to the task. They’re ready and willing for us to do this. And they want to help us in this transition. But we must heed this call as strongly as they heeded theirs. We must take charge of the Prep, and care for her needs. (Perhaps we can start by reinforcing the windows on those pre-8^th busses and making them rock-proof.)

But seriously, this is our vocation now. To give our lives in ransom for the many, as Father Feeney spoke so eloquently of in his homily this morning. To deeply and knowingly pass on the great Jesuit charism and the Prep way of life. We – all of us here, all who cherish Mother Prep and hold her dear, we who love the Prep and live the Prep – it is we who must be as devoted to this vibrant institution as those great men who came before us have been. We must be able to give to the next generations the very essential Prep that was given to us. We must, like the Jesuits before us, never take the Prep way of life for granted. And we must be ready to run into the flames if we ever feel that something precious about the Prep might be lost.

So…who’s ready for this challenge? This steady and just war, this great fight – the fight to sustain Mother Prep. Because it needs us all. Everyone here, every son of the Prep. To fight the good fight. And guess what, more good news: the fight is ours for the winning and the day is dark for the foe.

For the Prep is – and must always be - a great way of life.