Good morning and welcome back to the new school year from what I hope were restful and restorative summers. It is, as always, wonderful to be together with you this morning as we prepare to begin a new school year of meaningful work with one another in support of our mission and our amazing boys.

 

This Opening Cathedral Service, my ninth as headmaster, carries a very special significance for me. Eight years ago, in September of 2018, the current members of our senior class, the St. Albans Class of 2027, were beginning their journey as C Formers. It is hard to believe how quickly the years have passed.

 

Seniors, you are the first class I have had the privilege of knowing and working with for the entire duration of your time at St. Albans. Seeing you walk in this morning holding hands with our current C Formers transported me back to the time you were little boys starting your journey here, filled with such hope and possibility. And look at how much you have made of these years and how quickly they have gone. We are so proud of you and look forward to a senior year defined by your leadership and impact on our younger boys, who look up to you with such reverence and admiration.

 

I was thinking this summer about the gift we have at St. Albans, as parents and teachers, of watching these amazing students grow from young boys into young men. We have the privilege of being part of their journeys — their joys, their growth, their challenges — during one of the most formative periods of their lives.

 

It’s a feeling — this sense of gratitude and responsibility — we carry with us all the time, but is perhaps especially present and poignant during this service at the beginning of each school year.

 

I’d like to share a story that helped me give words to these emotions, to what we feel in our hearts as we think about the arc that our boys travel during their time with us.  

 

It’s a story from this past June. Attending the International Boys’ School Coalition’s annual conference is always a highlight of the summer for me, and this year was no exception. The conference was hosted this year by a wonderful boys school in Johannesburg South Africa called St Stithians College.

 

It was my and my wife, Olinda’s, first trip to this magical country, a beautiful and inspiring juxtaposition of inspiring landscapes, wonderfully gracious people, regular sightings of zebras and giraffes, archaeological sites documenting the origin of the human species in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, and constant reminders of the complex history of apartheid, as our visit coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the Soweto uprisings that catalyzed the anti-apartheid movement in 1976.

 

One story from the International Boys’ School conference has especially stayed with me, and I’d like to share it with you this morning.

 

During the conference, we got to interact with the boys from the host school, St. Stithians College. The boys sang for us, played rugby, showed us amazing works of art they had created, and warmly introduce us to their school and their country, including the South African philosophy of Ubuntu, which means “I am because we are” — a reminder of how we are all connected and derive strength and purpose from our relationships with one another.

 

One day a group of young men from the school got on stage and performed a poem for the six hundred boys school educators who were in attendance at the conference. It was written by the Arts Faculty at the school. And it was one of the most moving moments of the entire conference.

 

The poem is titled “The Bravest Thing a Boy Can Do.” I could think of no better way to start this school year than by sharing the poem with you.

At St. Albans, we have the gift of meeting boys at this formative moment in their lives. They arrive with wonder, joy, questions, and limitless possibility. And we work very hard to keep this alive within them, this spark of curiosity about themselves and the world around them. We know that growing up as a young man is both beautiful and challenging. And our covenant with all of our boys and their families is to walk with them on this journey, to help them grow in ways that reflect the best of who they are and the wonder and beauty they were born with — to remember, as in the reading today from the Gospel of Matthew, that whoever takes the position of a child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

The road ahead will not always be easy, gentlemen. But I promise you that when you gather here in this Cathedral for your Commencement — nine months from now for our seniors, nine years for our C Formers — you will look back on this experience and find that it has shaped you more profoundly than any other experience you may ever have in your entire lives. This is our gift and our responsibility as we work together — teachers, parents, and boys — to take this beautiful school we are privileged to be a part of — one handed to us by the generations who came before — and make sure its mission remains alive in the wonderful boys entrusted to our care. To help them grow into men who remember freedom in wonder, strength in kindness, men willing to ask questions, who still believe that gentleness and greatness can walk hand in hand.

 

With that, I wish you all a blessed school year. We cannot wait to watch you grow and flourish — and to be a part of your lives during these luminous years.

 

God bless you.