{"id":23819,"date":"2019-05-16T17:23:44","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T21:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23819"},"modified":"2019-05-23T16:03:30","modified_gmt":"2019-05-23T20:03:30","slug":"st-max-marks-10th-anniversary-with-celebration-of-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/st-max-marks-10th-anniversary-with-celebration-of-heroes\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Max marks 10th anniversary with celebration of everyday heroes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heroes are all around us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some may have already achieved greatness through selfless\nacts and personal determination. Others are heroes just waiting to come into bloom\n\u2013 with proper care and nurturing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a prevailing theme last week as Aurora\u2019s St.\nMaximilian Kolbe Catholic High School celebrated its tenth anniversary last\nFriday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Held in conjunction with Catholic Education Week, St. Max\ncelebrated its milestone with a star-studded day of celebration and reflection,\nbeginning with a traditional Catholic mass, a pep rally and rugby game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ceremonies concluded with a special surprise\nperformance from Glass Tiger, which was something of a homecoming the band\u2019s\nfounding guitarist Alan Connelly, who has served as an Educational Assistant at\nSt. Max for the better part of ten years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fred Fox, brother of hero and icon Terry Fox, served as\nthe keynote speaker at the morning mass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Fox was on hand to congratulate St. Max students for\nsurpassing their goal of raising $10,000 in last year\u2019s Terry Fox Run — $1,000\nfor each year St. Max has served the community \u2013 and for the $62,000 St. Max\nhas raised for the Terry Fox Foundation since they first took on the challenge.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSchools like St. Max are continuing Terry\u2019s dream,\u201d Mr.\nFox told students. \u201cTerry showed us that one person can make a difference.\nIndividually, any one of you can make a difference in whatever you want to do\nin the future. Terry believed that anything is possible if you try. Today, over\n$750 million has been raised in Terry\u2019s name, from that $1 million he thought\nmaybe he could raise across Canada [in his Marathon of Hope], it\u2019s schools like\nSt. Max that have truly made a difference in the lives of so many people. A\ncancer diagnosis today is so much better than it was 10, 20, 40 years ago when\nTerry was first diagnosed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry, he said, \u201cnever thought of himself as a hero\u201d and\nwhen people used that term referring to him during his Marathon of Hope, he was\ndecidedly uncomfortable with that moniker. He wasn\u2019t running to become rich and\nfamous, have monuments dedicated to him across the country, or to become a\nCanadian icon; rather, said his brother, he was simply trying to make a\ndifference in the lives of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The theme of the everyday hero was one also touched upon\nby Father Frank McDevitt of Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church, who led Friday\u2019s\nservice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Father Frank shared the story of St. Maximilian Kolbe,\nthe Polish priest interred by the Nazis at Auschwitz, who volunteered to die in\nthe place of a stranger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe Christians are great believers in heroes,\u201d said\nFather Frank. \u201cIn our Christian tradition, we recognize and celebrate how\npeople have lived and how they have died as a profound statement of who they\nare and who they can be. St. Max is no exception. His death at a concentration\ncamp reflects his call to be a good shepherd. If there was one thing that\npersonified evil as it is understood in the last century, perhaps concentration\ncamps may stand as the symbol of that evil. The Good Shepherd is one who does\nnot run away in the face of evil. St. Max did not run away, but the heroic\ndeath runs the risk of causing us not to recognize the life that went before. A\ngood life is the natural conduit to a good death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf there is any gift the school can give you beyond the\nknowledge that is imparted, beyond the skills of problem solving, beyond the\nconfidence in your own intuition that the school can give you is the ability to\nstretch yourself, to reach out, to reach way out, to be a shepherd [who] stands\nfor the truth in the face of evil. Whatever the valleys that most define your\nlife and relations with the world and God, at the end of it is you that will\nshepherd these values throughout life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The founding values of St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic High\nSchool were underscored during the evening program which featured live music\nfrom the school\u2019s impressive programs of choirs and bands, food prepared by\nstudents studying hospitality, the presence of local dignitaries including\nNewmarket-Aurora MP Kyle Peterson, Mayor Tom Mrakas, and Trustee Elizabeth\nCrowe, along with former principals Dominic Scuglia and Melton Moyo who each\nreceived rock star welcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can have the most beautiful building with all the wonderful\nprograms, but the thing that will make the building special will be the\npeople,\u201d said Mr. Scuglia. \u201cI can honestly say in my time back, after three\nyears having left the school, nothing has changed in this school. Kudos to\nMelton Moyo and to Peter (current principal Peter Parente) who have carried on\nthe wonderful tradition of this school in inclusion, to making sure that every\nstudent matters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Mr. Moyo: \u201cThe one essential component I found was\neveryone strives to cultivate a safe, nurturing environment for reflection and\ngrowth by sacrificing for the other in their own special way. Wherever your\nlife journey takes you, never forget the compass or essence displayed by our\nfaith champion, St. Maximilian Kolbe.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Heroes are all around us. Some may have already achieved greatness through selfless acts and personal determination. Others are heroes just waiting to come into bloom \u2013 with proper care and nurturing. This was a prevailing theme last week as Aurora\u2019s St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic High School celebrated its tenth anniversary last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/2019-05-16-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6cb","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 07:08:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}