After eleven years as a forum for speakers on a variety of social justice topics, the Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Lecture Series at Saint Peter's Prep is undergoing a transformation. The 12th Annual Arrupe Lecture will still culminate in a keynote address — to be given this year by Sudanese refugees Elizabeth and Michael Kuch on March 27. But while the keynote address in years past has been a stand-alone event, the program will see major expansion this year.
Beginning Monday, March 23, a weeklong slate of events, both on campus and off, will invite the Prep community to examine the history of genocide and displacement in the 20th and 21st centuries, helping to place the Friday keynote address in a broader and deeper context. "For some time now we’ve wanted to look deeper at the social issues that the Arrupe Lecture have addressed," said Ryan Heffernan, Director of Campus Ministry, whose office organizes the Arrupe Lecture Series. "A weeklong summit, which is how we’ve re-envisioned the Arrupe Series, offers the opportunity to provide a more meaningful context to an important issue.”
In addition, while past Arrupe Lecture keynotes have been presented in the evening, this year's keynote will take place in the morning, during a schoolwide assembly, with a view towards increasing student participation. "Our students are active," explained Mr. Heffernan, “and placing something at night makes it difficult to attend, given the travel requirements, co-curricular and athletic demands, etc."
As the 12th Annual Arrupe Lecture approaches, more information (including a detailed schedule of events) will be posted on the Campus Ministry website at http://ministry.spprep.org.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Saturday, August 2, 2008
From Prep Magazine
Ryan Heffernan and Erich Sekel, ’98 didn’t originally intend on becoming campus ministers at Prep, but their respective Jesuit educations eventually brought them to Prep and its Campus Ministry program, as its first lay directors.
Heffernan attended Boston College and graduated with a journalism degree in 2006, but found another calling when journalism “stopped being fulfilling,” he said.
“I was on a Jesuit retreat when I decided that I wanted to commit myself to these same moments of spirit, and The Spirit, and to others … especially teenagers,” he said. “I had that experience at 20, and I thought how great it’d be to have that same experience five years earlier. I wholeheartedly believe in what the Jesuits ask of [their] students.”
Heffernan applied for joined Prep’s Campus Ministry staff immediately after his college graduation, administering the Christian Service program for a year before becoming the program’s first lay director – something that took the Prep community a little getting used to at first.
“For the first week of school, a bunch of freshmen typically call me ‘Father Heff,’ not realizing that I’m not a priest,” he laughed.
Heffernan has become a staple at Prep events – offering the opening and closing prayers at alumni gatherings, organizing campus and community Masses, and attending sports games and co-curricular events to cheer on his students. He hopes that his actions not only to show the community that he cares about Prep, but also help to alleviate any lingering doubts about the ability of laypersons to manage the Campus Ministry program.
“I think what they want is the best for Prep … I don’t think we’ve strayed from that,” he said, when asked how he thinks the school community has reacted to not having a Jesuit in charge of the program. “Being the Director [of Campus Ministry] and being a layperson has made it easier for me to say to the faculty, ‘This is the ministry, this is the Mission, and this is why.’ We all have to bring the experience of God to this building and to our work, because that’s what makes the everyday experience of God. I don’t think you need to be a priest to do that. Everyone has the opportunity to bring the existence of God to others.”
In the 1998 Petrean, senior Erich Sekel listed his career goal as “religion teacher at Prep.” Nearly 10 years later, after earning a Classical Civilizations degree from Boston University and a master’s in education from Seton Hall University, and working as both a handyman and a substitute history teacher, he received a call from Principal Jim DeAngelo, ’85 in the summer of 2007 asking if he wanted to rejoin the Prep family as Assistant Director of Campus Ministry. In August, Sekel joined Heffernan in the quest to bring the message of God and Christian service to Prep students.
“When I was at Saint Peter’s, I wanted to have the impact that my teachers at the time had with me. It might sound corny, but I believed in the message of ‘A Man for Others.’ You hear that message so much, but it was shown to me at Prep, and that’s what I wanted to be,” said Sekel about why he decided to return to Prep. “I think the lessons that I learned at Prep have stuck with me, and that’s why I wanted to come back. It stuck with me. It’s simply just the Spirit, and the Mission.”
Prep itself has welcomed this new approach with open arms.
“Since Vatican II, the Church has encouraged the lay vocation, and as a Catholic school, Prep finds itself embracing an opportunity to fulfill the desires of Vatican II,” commented President Bob Reiser, S.J. about handing the Campus Ministry program over to Heffernan and Sekel.
Heffernan and Sekel have taken steps to build upon the pre-existing Jesuit foundation behind the Campus Ministry program. New retreats have been implemented –IgNite (the school’s first freshmen retreat), HalfTime (a sophomore retreat which examines the students’ progress halfway into their Prep career), and Kairos (translated as “God’s Time,” a retreat in both October and February designed to be a more in-depth version of Emmaus). The Grad-at-Grad program in April, a follow-up to HalfTime, will ask sophomores and their parents to get together and discuss how well the student is progressing during his time at Prep. Heffernan and Sekel have organized a Christmas party for students from a New York City Jesuit grammar school, led canned goods collection drives to stock a Jersey City food pantry for Thanksgiving, and sponsored lectures from environmental experts on ways to make the campus more environmentally responsible. In addition, they have sought to strengthen the school’s Christian Service requirement by asking students to reflect a bit more on what the commitment is really supposed to achieve.
“It’s not the ‘Community’ Service Program … it’s the ‘Christian’ Service Program,” said Heffernan. “It forces the kids to ask questions about themselves and their society that a community service program might not.”
Sekel added, “[I wanted to] try to make Christian Service worthwhile. I wanted to show them that I felt it was important to serve. I wanted to give them options to continue their service. One kid said it really well: ‘It stopped being [just] 20 hours that I have to get done, and it became, How can I help these people more?’ That’s exactly what I want. It should be a big part of their lives.”
They stress that, although they feel that a layperson can do just as good a job as a Jesuit of leading the Campus Ministry program, Prep’s Jesuit influences are always evident in their mission and in their students. And, despite being laypersons and also being younger than Prep’s Jesuit priests (Heffernan is 24, Sekel is 27), they say that has not at all diminished the respect and the confidence they have received from their students – again, thanks to the Jesuit education and influences that students have received at Prep.
“They [the Jesuits] put you at ease, and they make you feel comfortable to speak about your problems. I can only talk about what I know from Prep … the people who become Jesuits seem to have an air about them that makes you comfortable,” said Sekel. “That’s what I try to emulate – I want people to feel comfortable enough to talk to me. “
“I think ‘personal’ is the best way to say it,” Heffernan said, commenting on how Prep’s Jesuit roots have made its students so pleasant to work with. “I think the Society is just very good at meeting people where they’re at. When it comes to students in their high school years, I think that’s why it works for Erich and me.”
Heffernan attended Boston College and graduated with a journalism degree in 2006, but found another calling when journalism “stopped being fulfilling,” he said.
“I was on a Jesuit retreat when I decided that I wanted to commit myself to these same moments of spirit, and The Spirit, and to others … especially teenagers,” he said. “I had that experience at 20, and I thought how great it’d be to have that same experience five years earlier. I wholeheartedly believe in what the Jesuits ask of [their] students.”
Heffernan applied for joined Prep’s Campus Ministry staff immediately after his college graduation, administering the Christian Service program for a year before becoming the program’s first lay director – something that took the Prep community a little getting used to at first.
“For the first week of school, a bunch of freshmen typically call me ‘Father Heff,’ not realizing that I’m not a priest,” he laughed.
Heffernan has become a staple at Prep events – offering the opening and closing prayers at alumni gatherings, organizing campus and community Masses, and attending sports games and co-curricular events to cheer on his students. He hopes that his actions not only to show the community that he cares about Prep, but also help to alleviate any lingering doubts about the ability of laypersons to manage the Campus Ministry program.
“I think what they want is the best for Prep … I don’t think we’ve strayed from that,” he said, when asked how he thinks the school community has reacted to not having a Jesuit in charge of the program. “Being the Director [of Campus Ministry] and being a layperson has made it easier for me to say to the faculty, ‘This is the ministry, this is the Mission, and this is why.’ We all have to bring the experience of God to this building and to our work, because that’s what makes the everyday experience of God. I don’t think you need to be a priest to do that. Everyone has the opportunity to bring the existence of God to others.”
In the 1998 Petrean, senior Erich Sekel listed his career goal as “religion teacher at Prep.” Nearly 10 years later, after earning a Classical Civilizations degree from Boston University and a master’s in education from Seton Hall University, and working as both a handyman and a substitute history teacher, he received a call from Principal Jim DeAngelo, ’85 in the summer of 2007 asking if he wanted to rejoin the Prep family as Assistant Director of Campus Ministry. In August, Sekel joined Heffernan in the quest to bring the message of God and Christian service to Prep students.
“When I was at Saint Peter’s, I wanted to have the impact that my teachers at the time had with me. It might sound corny, but I believed in the message of ‘A Man for Others.’ You hear that message so much, but it was shown to me at Prep, and that’s what I wanted to be,” said Sekel about why he decided to return to Prep. “I think the lessons that I learned at Prep have stuck with me, and that’s why I wanted to come back. It stuck with me. It’s simply just the Spirit, and the Mission.”
Prep itself has welcomed this new approach with open arms.
“Since Vatican II, the Church has encouraged the lay vocation, and as a Catholic school, Prep finds itself embracing an opportunity to fulfill the desires of Vatican II,” commented President Bob Reiser, S.J. about handing the Campus Ministry program over to Heffernan and Sekel.
Heffernan and Sekel have taken steps to build upon the pre-existing Jesuit foundation behind the Campus Ministry program. New retreats have been implemented –IgNite (the school’s first freshmen retreat), HalfTime (a sophomore retreat which examines the students’ progress halfway into their Prep career), and Kairos (translated as “God’s Time,” a retreat in both October and February designed to be a more in-depth version of Emmaus). The Grad-at-Grad program in April, a follow-up to HalfTime, will ask sophomores and their parents to get together and discuss how well the student is progressing during his time at Prep. Heffernan and Sekel have organized a Christmas party for students from a New York City Jesuit grammar school, led canned goods collection drives to stock a Jersey City food pantry for Thanksgiving, and sponsored lectures from environmental experts on ways to make the campus more environmentally responsible. In addition, they have sought to strengthen the school’s Christian Service requirement by asking students to reflect a bit more on what the commitment is really supposed to achieve.
“It’s not the ‘Community’ Service Program … it’s the ‘Christian’ Service Program,” said Heffernan. “It forces the kids to ask questions about themselves and their society that a community service program might not.”
Sekel added, “[I wanted to] try to make Christian Service worthwhile. I wanted to show them that I felt it was important to serve. I wanted to give them options to continue their service. One kid said it really well: ‘It stopped being [just] 20 hours that I have to get done, and it became, How can I help these people more?’ That’s exactly what I want. It should be a big part of their lives.”
They stress that, although they feel that a layperson can do just as good a job as a Jesuit of leading the Campus Ministry program, Prep’s Jesuit influences are always evident in their mission and in their students. And, despite being laypersons and also being younger than Prep’s Jesuit priests (Heffernan is 24, Sekel is 27), they say that has not at all diminished the respect and the confidence they have received from their students – again, thanks to the Jesuit education and influences that students have received at Prep.
“They [the Jesuits] put you at ease, and they make you feel comfortable to speak about your problems. I can only talk about what I know from Prep … the people who become Jesuits seem to have an air about them that makes you comfortable,” said Sekel. “That’s what I try to emulate – I want people to feel comfortable enough to talk to me. “
“I think ‘personal’ is the best way to say it,” Heffernan said, commenting on how Prep’s Jesuit roots have made its students so pleasant to work with. “I think the Society is just very good at meeting people where they’re at. When it comes to students in their high school years, I think that’s why it works for Erich and me.”
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
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