Dear Friends of Bishop Montgomery,
A good friend of mine who was a college president for many, many years once asked me to describe my “sweetest moment” at Bishop Montgomery. We had been talking about our experiences as school leaders and the importance of that mission in each of our lives. I had to think for a minute and realized that it was almost impossible to name one moment. In the seventeen years that I have been Principal at Bishop Montgomery, there have been so many sweet moments and they have all been about our students. If I close my eyes to “see” my life at Bishop Montgomery, it is the students’ faces that come to me—each beautiful and each handsome in the here and now, and each so full of life and of promise for the future. I often tell the students I am rich beyond imagining because of their presence in my life. This is no exaggeration. I mean it. The students of Bishop Montgomery are prayerful, loving, caring, generous and intelligent—young people of whom I am immensely proud. Their love for life is reflected in the many, many good works they do for each other and for those beyond the gates of our school. They make a difference—both now and after they are graduated. This is an amazing community.
Last year, I asked you to help me establish the Queen of Angels Tuition Assistance Fund for current families who find themselves in crisis because of unexpected challenges such as the economy, a lost job, the death or serious illness of a parent. I was overwhelmed by your response. Through mostly small and some large donations we were able to dedicate the $265,000 that you contributed to helping these families in crisis. What I have found to be true is that more and more families who have always felt themselves economically secure need the support of our community—some for a short time, others for a longer period as they struggle for financial stability.
Again this year I am asking for a contribution of $50-$100, but if you are able to contribute a smaller or a larger amount, please know that I will be grateful for whatever amount you choose to send—each amount, large or small, is a gift and will make a miracle, a blessing, a surprise possible in a student’s life. I can assure you that I receive personal visits and notes from these students and their parents to say thank you and to tell me what it means to them to remain at Bishop Montgomery. You can mail your contribution to me or contribute directly through our website (click here), whatever is most convenient. During the Church’s celebration of Christmas which begins December 24th, Christmas Eve, and continues through January 12th, the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus, the trees outside my office at the front of the school will again be lit in your honor—a light for each of you who has contributed to the fund with my promise that you and your intentions will be in our school community’s prayers in a special way each day that they are lit. I know from experience the power of Bishop Montgomery’s communal prayer.
This is a very personal mission for me, one about which I care deeply. Each of our students matters, each deserves to be “seen” and cared for, and so I can’t send them away because of tuition, but to continue to do that, I need your help. I can’t do it alone. Dorothy Day says this so eloquently in her beautiful prayer: “We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love each other we must know each other in the breaking of the bread and know that we are not alone anymore. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet too where there is companionship. Remember that love comes with community.”
My life at Bishop Montgomery is filled daily with many sweet moments, many gifts, many miracles, one of the greatest of which is the power of this wonderful community. I am reminded every day by the love and care of our students that I am not alone—that we are not alone—that heaven is a banquet, but that this life is a banquet too—and that certainly love only comes with community.
Thank you for caring for and being part of this community that is Bishop Montgomery.
Rosemary Libbon
Principal