Dear Parents,
The day started at
4:00 AM with a Vigil of Arms. As the
announcement was made over the loudspeakers, roommates woke up their partners
and everyone shuffled to the main room for the vigil. Surrounding the image of Our Lady of Fatima,
we sang passiontide songs in honor of the relic of the true cross. Appropriately, 4:00 AM was the hour that Our
Divine Redeemer was arrested in the Garden of Olives and the ability to spend one hour with a
relic of Our Lord’s passion was highly symbolic. The time seemed short and was very blessed
until the time, too soon, that Our Lady had to leave us for the day. Most of the boys went back to bed for the
remainder of the morning till the official wakeup time, but many did not.
This day was given
over to sword battles. Even the Dads got
involved today by taking on the boys during the games. These battles are done with pvc pipe covered
in insulation and then wrapped in duct tape to make a fairly resilient “sword”
that can be used to do what every boy instinctively wants to do...whack people
with sticks. The advantage is that no
bones are generally broken and a certain amount of skill is necessary to avoid
getting hit so reflexes are honed. Another
skill that is fostered in the mock sword battles is teamwork. When one is mobbed by ten young men
vigorously swinging a weapon of some sort it is very comforting to have a team
behind you.
The talk after lunch
was about the beginning of the Sexual Revolution that received its greatest
impetus using the slogans formulated by the Sorbonne University. This talk began with a slight overview of the
current crisis of morals and then got into the root cause of the chaos we are
surrounded with by analyzing the slogans of the Sorbonne Revolution. The psychological aspects of the slogans may
have been a little deep for some of the younger boys but there were plenty of
questions to keep them on their toes. I
am sure it did not help that many of the boys had been active since four in the
morning and this was their first down time in the day but they were troopers
and kept up their heads for the entire talk.
After the talk, most
of the Dads continued the discussion for over an hour, bringing up many varied
and extremely interesting topics more in line with the modern cyber
technological aspects of the revolution and some of the harmful effects they
can have on families. We discussed
getting internet filters and accountability using programs like K9 and Covenant
Eyes. The book Glow Kids has been a
real eye opener for the staff at the Academy and we cannot recommend people to
read it enough...get the real book not the e-book and then pass it on.
Swimming has been a
big part of this camp because of the terrible heat and the difficulty with
keeping the boys hydrated while doing outdoor games. After swimming, we all changed into casual
clothes and then headed down to a pizza dinner at the picnic tables. Following dinner, Mr. Thomas Schnieder read
an epic story from one of Peter Capstick’s books about hunting a vicious breed
of freshwater sharks located in a lake in Central America. The boys , and the Dads, were hooked
throughout the entire story and did not want to end.
Upon completion of
the story, we all lined up for a solemn rosary procession, in which we carried
the relic of the True Cross, as we marched slowly down the driveway and
back. Customarily, after the rosary is
finished, there is always some time given for indoor games and tournaments,
which on this day were all finished, excepting the final sword bout. After the final debate class and a
presentation on the customs of the different regiments of the British Army, the
boys headed for a well deserved rest, perhaps to dream of fighting alongside
Richard the Lionhearted or Godfrey of Bouillon in the conquest of the Holy Land.
P.S. I am attaching a link to the book that I
mentioned earlier when speaking with the Dads.
I cannot recommend it enough and I have also included links to the two
of the more effective internet filtration programs out there.
