​Choosing a high school is a daunting task for parents.  In Cincinnati, there are many traditions surrounding the choosing of a Catholic high school such as family tradition, location of the family to the school and the gifts and talents of the student to name a few.  While each parent has a set of priorities guiding the final decision, I would like to offer some priorities from the inside of the high school window looking out.  These priorities have the potential to help you find the best school for your child.​

​Faith and its development is critical during the high school years.  These are the years students reflect on the world around them with a more critical eye.  The world is giving a view that is becoming more and more in opposition to traditional family values and, in the case of a Catholic school, often the antithesis of what we believe.  The question parents need to ask themselves is what do we believe?  What do I want for my child when it comes to their spiritual and faith life?  Not all schools are equal when it comes to values.  While all schools attempt to teach some kind of values to your child, a parent really needs to look deeper.  Is your child being taught the “values” you believe in or is your child being taught the “values” of a world that continues to pull away from what is good, right, and holy?  Catholic schools have at their mission, the teachings of Christ, the love of God and of neighbor.  Each Catholic school also has a different charism.  Most of the high schools in Cincinnati have a religious order that either owns or supports them and so the high school shares the charism of that order.  
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As a parent, it is important to know the charism of the order and the mission of the school.  Your child will be brought up in this charism.  Each Catholic high school should have at its aim to bring each child into a relationship with Christ and in the Catholic faith.  Does the Catholic school you are investigating have this as its mission?  This is a good question to ponder as we believe the parents are the first teachers of their child so the parent should take a deep look into the faith activities and campus ministry at the school.
 
Does a child have to be Catholic to attend a Catholic high school?  No, certainly not.  Catholic schools have been opened to those of other faiths for many many years.  Catholics believe in the dignity of every human person and we believe many families appreciate what great schools we have.  Catholic high schools have students from many different faiths, and while most tend to be Christian there are those who are not.  You will need to be mindful that your child will be taught about the Catholic faith and will attend many kinds of Catholic services.  What a great opportunity for your child to reflect on his/her relationship with God and others!  There is nothing like a strong faith development and character development program to help your child thrive throughout their entire life!
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Human Formation of a teenager into a young man or woman is critically important. The high school years are when a teenager is making decisions about be a leader versus a follower.  The right high school staff and environment can help a teen break out and try something new.  Therefore, the right environment, teachers and families who attend the school are very important.  Does the school you are considering have opportunities to grow your child into a leader?  These opportunities should be inside and outside the classroom.  A classroom that is too much lecture does not allow the student to stand before his/her peers to demonstrate leadership by giving a presentation or debating a topic.  Asking questions of other parents and students of each school you are investigating is important. Also ask about how the classes are run, does the school promote independency, rigor, fortitude, and a strong leadership programming in and outside the classroom?  What about the other families whose children are attending the school?  Do they hold the same values as your family?  While there is no perfect place, when your child is visiting another family’s home, would you feel good about entrusting your child to these families? The friends of your child will be very important and so will their families, as your child will be transitioning over these four years from seeing you as their primary relationship, to their friends being a very strong relationship.  Sometimes during high school, the parent/child relationship can become strained.  If the families of the school your child is attending hold similar beliefs, your child will need see a conflict and will not feel the pressure to choose between you as parents and their friend.  Often times, families forget this until the conflict arises. 
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Athletics are part of formation as well.  With the strong athletic programs that our Catholic high schools have in Cincinnati we find parents bringing their child to a particular high school because they believe their child will be the next star or the field/court.  While this could very well be true, this is very rare.  We love our sports as they bring together the high school community and bring some life and spirit into our schools.  The reason we have athletics, however; is not because of this, sports are really about forming the whole child.  Not every child will be part of the debate club or the theater team, but many will be part of a team sport.  Sports are about discipline, perseverance, diligence, and character.  In choosing a high school, there are many questions to ask about the athletic program.  If you want your child to play a sport, it will be important to check the cut policy.  If your child is exceedingly skilled you may not have to worry about this question, but if your child has moderate skills, but really loves playing a sport and you would like your child to play, a smaller school would have better possibilities for playing rather than being cut or sitting the bench.  If your child likes to play, but would not make the cut at a bigger school another option may be a club sport.  It will be important to know the options upfront.
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Academics are also very important and I am sure every parent wants a strong academic program to prepare your child for life.  Parents can look up every high school to compare the number of students going to college, but there needs to be a more critical look than just this.  What kinds of colleges are their students attending?  Is the school primarily a college preparation school?  Then, the expectation is that its students should be attending higher quality colleges.  The more elite a high school, the better college a student should be able to attend.  And what does a parent do for their child who may struggle with academics during high school.  Does the school have the proper support for your child?  We must admit that not every child is in the top 10% of their class.  Some students truly struggle or just need some support from time to time.  Is there tutoring before and after school?  Does it cost money?  How available are the teacher to help the student?  These are all good questions for a parent who has a student in the school.  What do the other parents say about this?  Another good question is: are the teachers and administration available for me to talk to when I have a question?  If I tend to email and call the school often about concerns, will I be communicated with in a timely manner?  Or if I only call if there is an emergency, how does the school make sure I know what is happening? Do the teachers send out newsletters or is there a school new line? 
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How is my child going to learn inside and outside the classroom?  Each high school normally has many different ways to learn.  Are there academic clubs as well as sports?  Do the classes venture outside the classroom with programs in science, math, and so forth?  The excellent Catholic high school should have many ways to learn, perhaps there would be an academic club, mock trial, writing contest, poetry contest, and other ways the student can demonstrate their leadership and academic achievements.  What is the talk of the school leaders and teachers about their academics?  Is it followed up by results?
 
What about career education?  Is your child more suited to starting a career after high school?  While most Catholic high schools are now pushing for their students to attend college, we know this is not the path for all students.  Some students may need a year or two after high school to work in a career before determining their next step.  Some students would benefit from a vocational experience during high school such as medical, dental, technological, etc…  so they are ready to start work with skills and experience under their belt.  If your child may need this option, this is an important consideration.  Does the high school you are considering have any options in this area?  Does the Catholic high school have agreements with local career centers, career colleges, are their internships during high school?  In other words, how is the high school prepared to help your child be career ready the day he/she graduates?
 
Just remember when choosing a high school for your child, these are some of the most important years of their lives; faith, formation, and academics make the difference.   The Catholic schools of Cincinnati are some of the best in the United States.  Cincinnatians are blessed to have so many choices for their children, but this can bring stress to parents as they try to figure out what high school is best for their child.  Fear not, each school also wants what is best for your child as well.  The administrators and staff will answer all your questions because we want your child to thrive in high school and beyond. 

​On behalf of Royalmont Classical Preparatory High School, I wish you the very best as you discern the best high school for your child.

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​About five years ago, Catholic theologian, Matthew Kelly wrote the acclaimed, Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic, spelling out what the Church (made up of you and I!) needed to DO to be more dynamic, to BE RELEVANT in a world that is becoming more and more godless. According to Kelly those four signs were:

• Prayer
• Study
• Generosity
• Evangelization

 
The sad truth, Kelly contends, is that only 7% of Catholics are dynamic, only 7% of Catholics are consistently, routinely praying, studying the faith, being generous on a daily basis and evangelizing. And because of this fact…..the world is suffering. Jesus Christ is NOT being given to the world by the numbers needed; too many Christians are just not willing to die to themselves for the glory of God. Kelly explains the future of Catholicism requires all of us to rethink how to get Christ to the world:
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Chris Willertz, High School Principal
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“Cast yourself into the arms of God and be very sure that if he wants anything of you, He will fit you for the work and give you strength.” ---St. Philip Neri
 
As a high school principal, former athlete and coach I have grown to appreciate more and more the value of team, fraternity, and love/sacrifice for family, friends and teammates. Our “Me” Generation screams, contradictory, that our successes are and always will be because of me. But, we all know that this is absurd. Real success and more importantly, real happiness, is due to the community working together, solving problems together, celebrating together……being together. What we miss most when those precious times of shared “work” are over, are the people we shared them with.
 
The people you “played the game” with.

I have to think that this same truth holds true for the person of Christ, that He SO loved the people He played the game with. 
 
Think about Holy Thursday.
 
On that evening 2000 years ago, Christ institutes the Last Supper, eating and drinking with his favorite friends, his closest disciples. The King of the Universe and the BIGGEST Best Friend we will EVER have washed his closest friend’s feet, the very same friends that would betray him in the ensuing next 24 hours. In John’s Chapter 13-17, known as the Upper Room Discourse, Christ will assure the disciples of His love, over and over and over, ultimately calling them, “no longer servants…but friends.” (John 15:15)
 
Friends.   
 
Did you hear that?
   
We are friends of Jesus.   
I AM a friend of Jesus.
 
Let that sink in.
 
It should follow, that if I am a friend of Jesus, I should want to be with Jesus……constantly. And if I know that my best friend is going to die, going to die for ME, then I really want to be with Jesus as long as I can before he faces that death for me. So many of our students at Royalmont Academy really understand this concept. And so they wanted to do something EXTRA special for Christ this Holy Week; something that they could give Him to really show their thanks for His incredible sacrifice and love, especially leading into His Passion when He is abandoned by those especially closest friends he celebrated on Holy Thursday.
 
So taking the cue from St. Philip Neri, we decided to befriend Christ on Holy Thursday. (much more than I as a cradle-Catholic have ever done before!) St. Philip lived in Rome in the mid-16th Century and during his life he began the tradition off the Seven Church Pilgrimage. http://www.todayscatholicnews.org/2017/04/a-holy-thursday-tradition-pilgrimage-to-seven-churches/  We decided we would do the same, visiting six Cincinnati area churches together as a high school (we would all do our 7th church with our family at our parish church) giving our time, prayer and friendship to Christ in the Eucharist in all those churches.
 
Too often, us adults can forget the insights that teens have about friendship. Their world is made up of social relationships that they interact in day after day after day. They are privileged to have a very real insight into the experience of friendship, which in some ways is more perfect than ours as adults. What better way for teens to grow in their relationship with Christ than to go to Him with their friends and classmates on the eve of His greatest sacrifice to us, His Passion?
 
So, thirty-five Royalmont Academy high school students visited Christ in the Blessed Sacrament in seven local Cincinnati Catholic churches last Holy Thursday.
 
They laughed with each other…… and with Christ.
They prayed with each other…… and with Christ.
They learned with each other…..and with Christ.
 
Christ invited them to experience Himself, maybe more deeply than ever before, during our Holy Thursday pilgrimage and they got each other, maybe more deeply than ever before, in the process.
 
These students learned more about their Catholic faith, they learned more about the Catholic tradition here in Cincinnati, they learned more about what true friendship is all about all because they were willing do something different for Christ this Holy Week.
 
I pray your experience with Christ this Holy Thursday was just as precious.

Chris Willertz, High School Principal

Community service, community service, community service.

More and more high schools are requiring their students to do community service, many districts even making it a graduation requirement. Without a doubt, I am sure many of these students involved are truly affected by this service. Obviously, serving others is a good thing.

Sadly, I am equally sure that some students really don’t embrace the spirit of such service; reluctantly giving their time, but not truly embracing the true spirit of charity. Equally as sad, being involved in education for 27 years, I have heard and experienced students outright refusing to serve or maybe even worse instead forging their required volunteer hours.

At Royalmont Academy Classical Prep our high school students too participate in community service, although we don’t really call it community service.

Because what we do is so much more than community service.

Instead, at Royalmont Academy Classical Prep, we do Apostolic projects. You see, we believe going out into the community to serve is so much more than just serving. We believe that instead, we are meant to be Apostles-to serve Christ by bringing Christ to those people we serve.

Don’t get me wrong, serving the community is good. But serving the community by being apostles to the people we meet; by bringing Christ to them is so much more a service. For we are a society in need of community service, to be sure, but we are a society in need of Christ so much more. People need God. People need witnesses to God. People need to see joyful apostles serving because God is the ultimate answer.

With that being the case, our Royalmont high school students have made it a priority to visit our local Mason Health Care Center Nursing Home each month bringing our service, our charity, but most of all, our love of Christ… and our students and the patients at Mason Health Care Center are loving it.

​Or should I say, are loving God.

Statistics show that 1 of 3 of the elderly are in nursing homes, and that almost 1 of 5 of us will end up in a nursing home before we die. People like you and me, people like our students; great athletes, great scholars, great musicians, great people with so much potential. Many will live incredible lives. But many also will end up needing assistance and help in the twilight of their lives. And those once bright, optimistic people will feel neglected, neglected by society, neglected by their loved ones… neglected by God.

Saint Mother Teresa once said, “In Haiti just as in England, Spain, Italy or India---there are unhappy people everywhere. Not only because they don’t have any bread to eat. No, they hunger for love, understanding, and companionship. They suffer from loneliness, the feeling of being unwanted and rejected, a poverty of the soul. These are the things that can be far worse than being hungry or not having enough material goods…..Sometimes we see how joy returns to the lives of the most destitute when they realize that many among us are concerned about them and show them our love. Even their health improves if they are sick.”

God is allowing our students at Royalmont to be these type of people. Apostles. Messengers of love.

Messengers of God.

For us at Royalmont Academy Classical Prep, there is no better community service.

***Dedicated to all the wonderful people at the Mason Health Care Center, especially Mr. Tom Williams who in his youth, refused to take a back seat to Roger Staubach.

Chris Willertz, High School Principal

Frustration!
Discouragement!
Depression!
Despair!
 
A best friend that didn’t return a phone call.                                          What a rough week!
My child is sick… AGAIN!                                                                                  What a rough week!
Another financial emergency, “How will we pay for this?!”            What a rough week!
My boss is on my back again...”Why am I doing this job?!”               What a rough week!
Nobody ever listens to me……”I am so lonely!”                                   What a rough week!
 
For many of us, these failures just seem to be the norm, more and more. How can this be?  I am working harder, working smarter, working longer, even working BETTER, and yet nothing seems to change. What is the problem?  Why can’t I seem to turn this life around?
 
I am such a failure.
 
And God, where are you in all of this?! Don’t you even care about me?! How can you allow this to happen to ME?!
 
I should just quit.                             I should just quit.                              I should just quit.
 
Then that voice, that quiet voice, barely audible whispers to me; “Chris I am with you. Chris, I am suffering with you. I KNOW your pain. I intimately know your pain, for don’t you remember that I love you so much that I came down from Heaven to be with you? I came down from Heaven to die for you on a cross. I suffered just like you and I suffer when you suffer. I KNOW your pain and I am with you, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
 
Don’t quit.                                         Don’t quit.                                         Don’t quit.”
 
WOW!  Is this the voice of God? I think this voice was God. I hope this voice is God…….. But I’m still not sure.
 
Then it happens……. God ACTUALLY appears--- I get to see Him with my own eyes!
 
The best friend returns the phone call- “I’m sorry for not calling back!”
My child recovers from their illness- “Thank you Mom/Dad for taking care of me!
A check comes in the mail---out of nowhere---for the exact amount of money we need.
My boss notices me, pats me in the back and tells me that I am needed…”I love this job!”
I reach out to somebody, in my loneliness, and now TWO PEOPLE are no longer lonely.
 
And God says through it all, “I love you, I will never abandon you, I will be with you always!”
 
Thank you, God!                               
 
I will never quit!                                I will never quit!                                I will never quit!
 
Because God loves me and He will ALWAYS appear! It may take a week, a month, a year, a decade or even a lifetime but God will ALWAYS appear. He loves us in our trials, He loves us in our disappointments, He loves us in this messy, rough life (the one that He lived in, just like us!) and He will ALWAYS appear.
 
Let’s not lose hope, people! Let’s pray for the belief that our God is with us always. Let’s pray for that barely audible voice to speak to us. Let’s pray for our ability to hear that voice. Let’s believe that through all of our frustrations, discouragements, even despair; God is with us, loving us-SUFFERING WITH US. He has not abandoned us, He will never abandon us.
 
We are loved.
We will always be loved.
 
Thank you, God for yet another rough week, another week of seemingly being abandoned and yet another opportunity to see YOU through it all… Indeed, I am a lucky man!
 
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. ..” Psalm 23 1-6
 
***Dedicated to our whole Royalmont Academy family (and all our RA website readers!) for when we feel like we just can’t handle this thing called life anymore. Jesus IS and will always be with us!

Matt Schlotman, Grade School Principal

​As we end the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, the grade school students of Royalmont Academy embrace Mercy as October’s Virtue of the Month. 
 
I’d like to share with you some words of wisdom I heard from Fr. Carlos while on retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani, near Bardstown, Kentucky.    
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Fr. Carlos asked me what were the similarities between the following three bible stories:  The Prodigal Son, The Woman Caught in Adultery, and The Good Thief on the Cross. He then provided the following answers regarding similarities in the depth of mercy that is shown in each of the stories:

• No mention of the sin
• No demand for payment
• No punishment
• Total forgiveness and acceptance

Wow!  God loves us.  God loves you.  I think the first step for us to take as we end this year of mercy is to come to a better understanding of how beautiful God sees each of us to be, and to approach Him and allow him to embrace us as he desires.  We can then better respond to the call to be merciful to our neighbors. 
 
Check out this YouTube link for a great song on this topic: https://youtu.be/bZH13wFGffg

Chris Willertz, High School Principal
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Back on August 27th, the Church celebrated the feast of St. Monica, mother of St. Augustine.
 
As most of us know, St. Monica spent a great deal of her life praying for her son, Augustine, hoping and trusting that he would reform his life, turn to goodness and become a follower of Christ. Years and years of prayer, sacrifice and trust (17 years in total) eventually, and finally resulted in Augustine turning to Christ and ironically becoming one of the greatest saints of the Catholic Church.
 
I know many of us follow St. Monica’s example and pray for our children… constantly. It’s something we feel we are called to do. But do we really believe our prayers can help make our children saints?  Do we really believe our prayers can make US saints?  Maybe, St. Monica realized her prayers for her son would help her son be a great saint.
 
Maybe she didn’t.
 
Maybe, she realized her prayers would help herself become a saint.
 
Maybe she didn’t.
 
Regardless, St. Monica prayed… and she prayed… and she prayed. We are called to do the same. And we are not only called to pray for our own children, we are called to pray for many, many others, like our children’s friends, our children’s classmates, even our children’s teachers. Could your son’s or daughter’s classmates become better with and by your prayers for them? Even saints? Could your children’s teachers become better with and by your prayers? Them too even becoming saints? Would that be a good thing if they did?
 
Yes it would!
 
Maybe, St. Monica realized her prayers would help create so many, many, many other saints through what St. Augustine became, just because she decided to make a commitment to praying for him without ceasing.
 
Let’s make sure we are aware of a reality in our children’s lives. The people our children are MOST around on a day-to-day basis are their friends, their classmates and their teachers. They are interacting with them, learning from them, being affected by them……WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT. And sure, we can email and/or call the parents of those students to make sure they are “safe” for our kids, setting up “play dates”, or email and/or call our children’s teachers to make sure they are doing everything we want them to do for our children so they can give our children the best learning experiences possible. But, ultimately, what is the best way to help them?
 
Prayer.
 
At Royalmont Academy, we WANT our parents praying for their children and for our school. We WANT them involved. But we want our parents to take it to the next level, we want them also praying for their children’s classmates and teachers. We have very powerful parent prayer warriors, why not ask them to pray for all our community and not just their own kids?  Why not, especially because we have many students and teachers in need of prayers, literally, we have potential St. Monica’s and St. Augustine’s in our midst.
 
But, HOW DOES one foster that type of prayer that can make a bigger difference, a difference that literally made Monica and Augustine saints?
 
We at Royalmont have decided it is time to do something; to do something more with intentional prayer in our learning community. Therefore, we have decided to start a High School Parent/Student Prayer Program so our parents can not only pray for their own children, but where they can choose to pray for other Royalmont students and teachers.  These may be people they know or may not know.
 
We want to wrap our community up in prayer. 
 
Because, after all, isn’t that what an effective school is?  A community of people-students, teachers, parents alike- that actively work, learn, and pray together for the benefit of all.
 
We hope you seriously consider taking our lead at Royalmont Academy and commit yourself to more and better prayer.  Just ask St. Monica, you won’t regret it.

Matt Schlotman, Grade School Principal
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“It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.”  -Saint Mother Teresa
 
Each year at Royalmont for the past 15 years we have held a totally free carwash for the community.  We do our very best to make the cars as shinny and clean as possible and we expect nothing in return.  If patrons ask to make a donation we respectfully decline and thank them for permitting us to practice charity.  At Royalmont we strive to help the children know, understand, and live the queen virtue of charity at all times.   I define charity as unconditional, unending, unlimited self-sacrifice for the good of another.  Charity is love’s foundation. 
 
But for this year’s carwash I wanted to help the children come to an even deeper understanding of love. Is there more to love than charity?  I asked the children of Royalmont to reflect on the question, “How do you wash a car with love?”  I then shared with them Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 13, where Paul writes, “And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”  From this verse we come to understand that it is possible to make significant sacrifice for someone, even giving up our life, while at the same time not participating in love.  It is possible, but how is this possible?  How can it be that I could wash someone’s car, not ask for anything in return, and yet my action would lack love?  How can I make sure that when I wash the car I am doing it with love in the fullest sense of the word?  Saint Paul is saying there is something beyond sacrifice that is necessary.  What is that something… that something that will make what I am doing count… that will make my action an act of love? 

Royalmont fifth grader, Joey D. answered the questions this way, “I washed cars with love today by loving the work I do and loving the people who I’m doing it for.” 
 
Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his encyclical, God is Love, “I must give to others not only something that is my own, but my very self; I must be personally present in my gift.”  
 
For love to be complete it must involve more than our actions, it must involve our hearts.  What is going on in our hearts while we wash our neighbor’s car free of charge?  Are we loving our neighbor from the depths of our heart.  This is the call of the Saints of God--to love as God loves.  Christ does not just give us his life, he gives us his heart too.  As he looks down from the cross he sees us as beautiful, he desires forever unity with us, he morns our separation caused by our sin, and it is this great love God has for us which holds Jesus to the cross. 
 
He sacrifices for us because he loves us.    We are called to do the same for our neighbor.  To do so, we must begin by having an encounter with God, who is love.  Love changes and fills our hearts.  This is how they will know we are Christians.  This is how we can wash a car with love.  ​

Chris Willertz, High School Principal

Last Monday, September 12th our Royalmont High School students took a walk.

Not just an ordinary walk.
 
But, instead, a strenuous walk, in dress shoes, shirts, and ties, skirts or dress slacks and blazers.  We walked for a mile and a half, praying and thinking about others.  It definitely was more than just a walk, maybe more like a Memorial Walk.
 
Our high school students at Royalmont are great young people!  They are thankful, “Thank you for teaching us today,” many say.  (I kid you not!)  They are respectful, they aim to please… They really “try.”  We, the administration and teachers, feel like we owe it to them to do the best we can to educate and form them because they deserve it.
 
When we got the opportunity to attend a forum at Mason High School to hear the last known survivor of the South Tower from 9/11 give his testimony, we jumped at the chance.  As adults, we have an OBLIGATION to educate our youth, especially those things that MUST be remembered.  Of course, you and I remember exactly what we were doing that fateful Tuesday morning in September 2001, but our teenagers don’t.  Most weren’t even alive yet and if they were born, they were too young to remember.
 
So we decided to give our Royalmont high school students a day they would never forget, even though it was 15 years later. We were all so proud of our effort to educate.
 
Little did we know that Jesus would top all our efforts!
 
We left the Royalmont campus at 12:15 p.m. praying the Rosary, despite the road construction up through old town Mason, despite the heat and the traffic. We were running late, so the students hustled and prayed, hustled and prayed, sweating and being uncomfortable (to say the least!), experiencing maybe just a little bit of what some New Yorkers experienced that day.
 
By 1:00 p.m. we were in our seats. Our speaker, Mr. Ron DiFrancesco, came up onto the stage and began to narrate the day’s events. Our students were riveted. They were there, they were there on 9/11 experiencing it through the explicit explanation with all the details of a survivor who had been in the building with all the smoke, the fire, the terror, the death and the hope.
 
Hope?
 
Hope, you may say?  How, was there hope?
 
For, when it seemed like it was over, our survivor had called it quits, he was stuck in the stairwell, smoke everywhere, blockaded at the 72nd floor with no ability to go down and only smoke and fire up.  He laid down, closed his eyes and heard,
 
“Get up.  Get up and go downstairs.”
 
He did not hesitate, he got up.  What else would YOU do if you heard a voice in an empty stairwell, speaking to you in your head, urging you to LIVE? 
 
So, he got up and started downstairs.
 
And as he reached the part at the 72nd floor where the stair was blocked, our hero punched through the wall to discover it was particle board.  Soon, he was through and after 72 agonizing flights of stairs he arrived at the lobby.
 
Our students sat in stunned silence, with everyone thinking, “Did he just say that God spoke to him?” “I think he just said that God spoke to him.”
 
Yes.  He.  Did.
 
Our young people need experiences like this.  They need to know about survivors.  They need to know about tragedy.  They need to know about real life.  They need to know that God loves them.  God cares about them. God is constantly thinking about them.  God comes through despite tragedy and the drama of real life.  When there is death, there is also life.  They need to know that God can and does talk to those He loves.
 
In this secular world, we rarely hear witnesses to the eternal.  And I must admit, I was not expecting anything “religious” when we started our walk to get some real life history remembering 9/11.  But when you have an open mind and an open heart and you go out to serve, God just happens to appear.  Indeed, God did appear and what is more, He embraced all of us.  How do I know?
 
Because we decided to take a walk and celebrate true heroism last Monday, September 12th.
 
I hope He did the same for you!
  
The watch Mr. DiFrancesco’s was wearing when the 2nd plane hit Tower 2.