Fr. Earle Markey, SJ

I entered St. Peter's Prep in Jersey City as a freshman and have been "with the Jesuits" for the rest of my life. High School was a most demanding and maturing experience, but a happy and joyful one. Besides Latin, Greek, weekend essays and Province exams, we had good athletic teams, basketball championships and wonderful friends. Behind it all were the numerous Jesuits, Priests and Scholastics, who nourished us teenagers, pushed us to academic excellence and seldom accepted less than our best efforts in the classroom and in our academic assignments. Weekly Mass and annual retreat had a more profound influence on our lives than we realized at the time.

Upon graduation I enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Ma. Once again the Jesuit influence was strong in our lives. There were 80 Jesuits on the faculty at the time , so it was clear that we were never very far from their presence. Once again, Latin and Greek dominated the first two years of my academic life, while Scholastic Philosophy and English courses absorbed most of my classroom efforts. Strange to say, basketball was my "major", as much as English. Two years before I arrived at the College, the Holy Cross basketball team had surprised - indeed "shocked" the college basketball world by winning the NCAA National Championship in 1947 in Madison Square Garden, thus including the college in the ranks of the basketball elite. It was a time before television, a sane time for a student to also be an athlete and graduate from college with a meaningful degree. For the next 10 years or so Holy Cross College competed on the highest level of college basketball and attracted great players as students and athletes. The NCAA championship team included Bob Cousy, who eventually was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and George Kaftan, who was the MVP of the NCAA championship tournament. Other NBA players followed, including Tom Heinsohn, a Hall of Fame inductee, and Togo Palazzi, who played 5 years in the NBA. I was fortunate enough to play in that era, between the college careers of Cousy and Heinsohn, on a team in 1953 that reached the elite 8 before losing to LSU for the right to play in the Final Four.

The experience of committing oneself totally to study and to athletics was a lesson for life, a lesson that led me to the realization that one must eventually put aside the things of a child and grow into the fullness of manhood. The influence of family and of the many Jesuits with whom I interacted both in high school and in college moved me to consider my life's purpose. Recently concluded World War II reminded all of us that life is much more than fun and games. I eventually decided that the Jesuit life would be a challenge to me, and a way to live out my Christian commitment to "Love God and Love Your Neighbor."

My interest was in school work, a work begun by the earliest Jesuits in 1547 and which became the heart of Jesuit apostolic works for all these years until the present. Where else could I "love God and love my neighbor" better than working in one or more of the many schools the Jesuits sponsor all over the world?

I joined the Jesuits and after an abbreviated course of studies, cut short by three years because of the studies I took at The College of the Holy Cross, I was assigned to three years of Regency at the Ateneo De Zamboanga in the Philippines. If you want "work" the mission of the Philippines at the time was a perfect place. But it was almost "too much work". Upon my arrival in Zamboanga I was assigned the first 5 classes in the morning, teaching high school seniors, so that (as Fr. Rector put it) "I would be fee to coach the college men's team from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM AND the high school team from 3:30 PM until 5:30 PM." Needless to say, I did not have an outstanding teaching year that year, but I survived, the basketball teams won some games and I learned more than the students I taught. My next two years were better!

I returned to the U.S. was ordained, and returned to the Philippines to teach at the Ateneo de Manila University. Basketball became my pastime, playing in a local businessman's league as well with a Philippine Airlines team that toured the country playing weekend games in various towns and barrios serviced by the airline. The University prospered and grew. I enjoyed teaching theology to some of the brightest and finest young men in the country.

After four pleasant and satisfying years in Manila I returned to the U.S. for further studies, but was side tracked when asked to assume the roll of Principal at the Prep school of my youth, St. Peter's Prep. It was a time of considerable unrest in the nation, an unrest caused by the Vietnam war and economic problems for many. This unrest was also reflected in schools - a challenge to any administrator or teacher. As Principal I saw many young men who did well academically, excelled in extra-curricular activity, and became successful doctors, lawyers, business men and professionals in every profession offered by our society. As an administrator I would often reflect on the words of Ignatius:

"From among those who are merely students, in time some will depart to play diverse roles- one to preach and carry on the care of souls, another to the government of the land and the administration of justice, and others to other callings. Since young men become grown men, their good education in life and in doctrine will be beneficial to many others, with the fruit expanding more widely every day."

These words are as true today as they were when Ignatius (or was it Nadal) uttered them in 1551, shortly after the Jesuits founded their first school in Messina in Italy. It is a consolation to me, a Jesuit who has spent his entire adult life in Jesuit schools, to realize the great good that has come to so many students, their families, the clients they have served in their professional lives and the cities and towns in which they served. Ignatius realized, once he accepted the challenge to found schools, that such institutions were good not only for the students they served, but also their parents, whose first obligation is the proper education of their children, for the cities in which these schools were located and even for the Jesuits themselves, because they believed that good teachers learn to be good preachers.

After 18 years as Dean of Students and Vice President for Student Affairs at the College of the Holy Cross I moved to the Office of Admissions as Associate Dean for Jesuit relations. The title means that I visit Jesuit High Schools in the east, including Cleveland, Scranton, Philadelphia, Jersey City, New York City, Fairfield and Boston. I have seen growth and change in all levels of education and in all schools with which I have been associated, and with which I continue to be associated. I have taught in high school and in college, in the United States and in the Philippines, and have been an administrator in many of these same schools. I have been blessed to be associated with so many fine students, dedicated parents, accomplished teachers and administrators over many years and in many places. I know much good has come to the Kingdom of God because of these fine people and these excellent institutions. I have also had the consolation of serving, in some small way, the two schools that educated me in my youth, St. Peter's Prep and the College of the Holy Cross. When I look back on my life and my vocation, I thank Ignatius for his wisdom in founding schools and for allowing me to be part of that wisdom and that vision of his. It is my prayer, that despite modern changes in Jesuit life, the schools that we have founded may continue to prosper and grow, more and more each day, for the "Greater Glory of God and the Good of Souls", as Ignatius intended it.

I am especially grateful to those dedicated Jesuits and lay persons who founded and strengthened both St. Peter's Prep and the College of the Holy Cross, the schools that led me to the Altar of God and gave joy to my youth.