Marianists lauded
The Marianist spirit of faith, family and equality will continue in San Francisco – but with a lighter, more distant touch.
That was the promise of the Marianist priests and brothers who gathered at Archbishop Riordan High School on Nov. 11 to celebrate 100 years of Marianist education in San Francisco – and to memorialize the passing of an era. At the end of the 2009-10 year, Marianist Father Tom French, president of Archbishop Riordan High School, passed the leadership role on to a layman and native San Franciscan Patrick Daly, whose father attended the precursor to Riordan, St. James High School.
Father French returned for the special day, and as the Riordan boys came up for communion or with arms crossed for a blessing, smiled and the boys smiled back, as the priest blessed each one.
“We’re saying thank you to the Marianists,” said Auxiliary Bishop William Justice, in remarks at the Mass. He reminded the boys “to continue to share what they have given us.”
Going forward, the archdiocesan boys’ high school will be a member of the 18-high school and three-college network of Marianist schools in the United States, but will no longer be run by the Marianist priests and brothers who formed the backbone of the school from the founding of St. James High School in 1909, continuing with Riordan, founded in 1949. Teachers and administrators will continue to learn about Marianist spirituality via annual retreats and other educational tools. Brother Ed Brink, Marianist associate provincial for education, said a Marianist will remain on the school’s board of trustees.
The founder of the Marianists, Blessed Father William Joseph Chaminade, believed that the rebuilding of the Church in France in the aftermath of the French Revolution would best be accomplished by the engagement of the laity in small communities of faith, dedicated to prayer, education and acts of service to the larger community, a spirituality the order brought to the United States in 1870 and to San Francisco in 1886.
U.S. Provincial for the Society of Mary, Father Martin Solma celebrated Mass, with Bishop Justice and former Riordan presidents Marianist Fathers French and Timothy Kenney present in the school’s Lindland Theatre. The theme of the readings and Father Solma’s homily were bittersweet, with the Gospel of Luke about the faith the size of a mustard seed, ending with “when you have done all you have been commanded to do, say ‘We are useless servants. We have done no more than our duty.’”
“If you have faith the size of mustard seed, it has power,” Father Solma said.
“It is not about us,” Father Solma said, noting that the order’s numbers have declined in the U.S. although there has been a recent uptick in vocations here and East Africa, India and Mexico are seeing many vocations. “We cannot do what we did in 1949.” But Father Solma said that the Marianists’ founder always emphasized partnership with lay people.
“Great things are accomplished when we cooperate with God,” Brother Brink said, emphasizing the Marianists’ continuing sponsorship of the school. Father Solma quoted a graduate of the high school, as he urged all to “remember your teachers.”
“In the end it was about the brothers. They weren’t in it for profit or pleasure. They lay down their lives for us, a day at a time,” Father Solma quoted the unnamed student.
Father Solma, himself returned just this year from 27 years running an elementary school and helping the Marianists establish an independent African province in Kenya, said that the legacy of Blessed Chaminade is still important for Riordan High School going forward. “He began a legacy of education that addresses the whole person,” Father Solma said, “and that is what our legacy is.”
By Valerie Schmalz
From November 19, 2010 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
