Thoughts on Spring  

This appeared in a monthly newsletter I receive. I thought it was quite an apt description of adolescence.

Spring is such a haphazard season as it sputters and catches with starts and stops until it finally finds its way. On the days that promise summer, the students are in the courtyard having lunch and in the parking lots sharing fellowship; on days that remind us of winter, they huddle around tables in the cafeteria, shoulders drawn in, hunched over books and phones. Adolescence seems to me the springtime of life. On many days I see in our young men the promise of adulthood. They carry themselves with maturity, demonstrate a commitment to community, think deeply, prepare appropriately, and live out a kind of independence that takes responsibility for its actions. There are winter days in adolescence , too. Days of hunkered down, bunker-mentality thinking and acting where everything is someone else’s fault, the world has conspired against them and the nights are longer then the day. But then, spring comes back.

—Dr. Daniel J. McMahon, Principal, DeMatha Catholic High School. April 2019