The theme for the 2016-2017 school year is:
Care for Our Common Home
In awe and wonder, we recognize that earth,
our common home, provides for our human life along with all other living things
in a marvelous cosmos of being. Our school community proclaims, “Let the
heavens be glad and the earth rejoice!” (Psalm
96:11) as we join with St. Ignatius Loyola and contemplate God’s love manifest
in the existence of natural elements, the life of plants, the sensation of
animals, and the intelligence and dignity of human beings (Spiritual Exercises, #235). Yet, as Pope Francis teaches, the earth
cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on it by our
irresponsible and selfish use of natural resources; the earth is “burdened and
laid waste…among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor” (Laudato Si’, #2).
During this Summit
year, we seek new lifestyles more respectful of nature based on different ways
of thinking and acting. Attentive to solid scientific consensus and sound
environmental practices, we will care for our common home through “concern for nature,
justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace” (Laudato Si’, #10). Ultimately, our
Summit journey toward dignity and justice for every member of the human family
is a journey of the heart so that we will fall more deeply in love with the
grandeur of nature, the nobility of the human person, and the mystery of the
gift of life.