Parting Gifts

Prefects pray for the high school students in Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel.

Every day for the last two weeks, while the high school students were at their morning class, the Summer Program prefects came together to pray a Chaplet of Divine Mercy for the students and their intentions. This morning’s was the last such gathering, as the program — hard though it may be to believe — is coming to an end.

While the prefects were at prayer, the students were at their final Euclid class, where they got to show how far they have come in just a few short days by demonstrating Propositions 16, 29, and 32 of Book I. At the afternoon’s class, the last one of this year’s program, they discussed the short story “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” by Flannery O’Connor, questioning whether the mother and son portrayed in the story truly possess self-knowledge.

The goodbye giftsAt the afternoon class the students received some goodbye presents — a Thomas Aquinas College messenger bag, a framed picture of this year’s students (a downloadable, high-resolution version of which is available here), a photo of their class section, and a wrapped copy of C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters. After class, out in St. Joseph Commons, they collected one more keepsake: a Thomas Aquinas College t-shirt.

There are now just a few more events on this year’s Summer Program agenda: the 3-on-3 basketball tournament, tonight’s banquet, Rosary and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, and the farewell dance. Check this blog Saturday for last-night pictures!