Last assembly, they got me. Not just our Principal, who incidentally is very good at keeping a secret, but the whole darn school. Granted, Mike Odiotti was definitely the ring leader. A recurring agenda item at every weekly assembly is “Celebrating Success.” Mike asked if I would be willing to say a few words as our CFO was going to be highlighted for recently earning her MBA from Northwestern’s prestigious Kellogg Graduate School of Management, where I had also earned my master’s many, many years ago. Of course, I agreed.
Viridiana has a remarkable story and she is not done yet. The oldest in her family, she is a model of grit and determination. After graduating CRSM, she got her Medical Assistant certification and worked in healthcare while earning her associates degree. She then went on to get her bachelor’s in accounting, all the while working to pay for it, and finally, getting her master’s in the Executive program while working at CRSM. She is the first alum of any Cristo Rey school (there are now 41 around the country) to come back to her alma mater as a member of its Leadership Team.
So, there I was, in front of the entire school, singing Viridiana’s praises and trying to bring the whole talk back to the idea of ‘collective success.’ This concept was coined by our first alumna to graduate from Dartmouth. She came back to address the students a few years ago, saying that her personal achievement really meant very little as a stand-alone degree. What was far more important was finding ways to lift up her community. We speak of collective success to remind ourselves that no one truly achieves success alone. Somewhere, at some time, there have always been other people to support us, to help us, to stand by us, and to challenge us along the way. When we celebrate one, we really celebrate all who have made the one’s success possible.
I was pretty proud of myself when I finally handed the microphone back to Viridiana for her to say a few words about her accomplishment but, what was my surprise when she started talking about me! It took me several beats to realize what was happening… they got me!
January marked my 30th year working for the Cristo Rey movement. My first day of work back in 1996 was the day the Chicago Jesuits held a press conference announcing they were opening a new high school for the immigrant families in the Pilsen neighborhood. Fr. John Foley, SJ returned from 34 years in Peru to be the school’s first president. Sr. Judy Murphy, OSB, an accomplished educator and former president of St. Scholastica HS on the north side was the Principal. The school was to be funded by students working in real jobs while attending school. I was brought on as the CFO and Director of the innovative Corporate Work Study Program to take the idea and make it a reality. What started as a single school meant to meet the needs of a local community, blossomed in to 41 schools and still growing!
John Foley would always marvel as we grew and grew, “This whole thing is bigger than all of us! The best we can do is hold on and try not to get in the way!” He also reminded us frequently that this was God’s work, not ours. To this day, my mantra to myself and my team is this: We can’t truly know what God wants, but if we put our students’ best interests at the center of our decision-making, then we have our best chance of getting close! That’s what John Foley taught me and still teaches me. It’s not about us. It’s about humbling ourselves to be receptive and available for what we think God might want.
Since that fateful day in 1996, Cristo Rey Schools have graduated over 33,000 students with another 12,000 actively enrolled on their way to graduation, their parents and families sacrificing so much to give them a shot at a better future through the power of a quality education. Thousands of faculty and staff (and former faculty and staff) accompany those students on their life journeys. Even more thousands of corporate managers, supervisors, and coworkers guide and enlighten our students on their career possibilities and help them realize what positive impacts their choices can make on society. And finally, the thousands and thousands of donors who see the potential for our young people and invest their hard-earned money to fund those dreams. It’s mindboggling!
As Viridiana finished sharing the amazing words she said about me, the whole school rose to give me a standing ovation. I was overwhelmed. I still am. What’s clear to me is that this is God’s work. We are a small part of something bigger than all of us.
I am most proud of what we have done together at Cristo Rey St. Martin College Prep, taking a struggling school about to close and steering it toward its real potential to be, not just the best school in the entire Cristo Rey Network (which we are), but the very best college prep school period. We are not there yet. In fact, we will never get there because the potential of our young people and our community defies imagination. We have the potential to always be better than our best.
Margaret Mead famously said, “Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” I would only add that the commitment has to be rooted in an unwavering faith in God’s love, regardless of your religious tradition. As Ken Untener expressed so eloquently in his prayer attributed to St. Oscar Romero:
“…We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us…
This is what we are about
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development…
…It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.”
Or as Fr. Foley once said, “Our world is awash in grace. Grace makes us excited about the future. The Kingdom is coming and we are an essential part of that dream!”
¡Viva Cristo Rey!