home office.
His surprise at my situation, you see,
was heavily related to my upbringing.
I was raised amidst tremendous social
and economic strife and upheaval that
accompanied the late 1960s and 1970s.
I witnessed drugs, gangs, and all other
sorts of corruption that can take hold of
the human soul. My brother and I had
also suffered the loss of our mother, who
committed suicide in 1971. I made it out,
though, thanks in large part to Bishop
McNamara High School.
By the time I showed up on the doorstep
of Bishop McNamara, following my older
brother, I can only describe myself as a
broken young man. I grew up in a violent,
ugly time, and had been through very
difficult circumstances. I was angry and,
largely, emotionally shut off. It would have
been very easy to succumb to the pressures
around me, and to throw my life away to
crime, drugs, and violence.
As a freshman at Bishop McNamara, I
found some things that had been sorely
lacking in my life: kindness, compassion,
and the Holy Spirit. If not for the teachers
and Holy Cross Brothers of Bishop
McNamara recognizing my struggle and
caring for me, by the grace of God, my life
could have gone in an entirely different
direction.
For the first time in my life, I had sanctuary