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We are nearly there! Today is the last day of school for the Class of 2020, and the rest of us are a mere week from the finish line.

We continue to pack a lot of information into our weekly newsletter, all intended to help your family finish the year well.

Only two short weeks lie between us and the end of the most eventful school year in recent memory. While I don't know all that your family has faced and may continue to face, all the signs suggest that, as a community, The Atonement Academy has come through this trial stronger, more unified, and better prepared to meet future challenges.

This Easter season I've been pondering the ways in which the resurrection of Jesus changes everything. Earlier this week, I came across this passage from St. Basil the Great in his treatise On the Holy Spirit:

I hope you enjoy this edition of theCrusader Times. I also want to pass on the link to a "fireside chat" I recorded yesterday.

We are sending out this week’s Crusader Times a day early so that, beginning Holy Thursday, we can leave academics behind for a time and enter deeply into the high feast of the Christian year. 

This season of restricted movements and limited action puts me in mind of a sentence I first read nearly twenty years ago. It comes from a little book entitled The Sacred Journey, Frederick Buechner’s 1982 memoir of his childhood and youth during the Great Depression and World War II.

I hope you will enjoy this issue of the Crusader Times. Of special note--this is our Third Quarter Awards Edition. Congratulations to all award winners.

Mr. Creech tells me that all Lower School remote classrooms had assignments waiting by 9 a.m. this morning. Well done, Lower School! Remember, if you and your Lower School student(s) run into any technical difficulties this week, please reach out to Mr. Patrick.

Well, we’ve almost made it. Three quarters of the school year under our belts and Spring Break beckoning.

Yesterday, I wrote to you about our investigation into whether it was still prudent to proceed with our plans to send a group of students and parents on pilgrimage to Rome next week.

When was the last time you ate dinner as a family? It wasn’t until last night over a meal of pasta, homemade marinara sauce, broccoli, and pinot noir (adults only!), lovingly prepared by my wife, that I realized how busy this time of year has become.

This past week, an Academy parent passed along a copy of an article from the August/September 2017 issue of First Things entitled, “Dying of Despair” by Aaron Kheriaty, a professor of psychiatry and medical ethics.

February is upon us. From science and college fairs to the beginning of the Lenten season, the month will end just before the end of the third quarter and promises challenges but also celebrations—the 25th Anniversary Gala this Saturday, a four-day weekend, and our annual class ring ceremony.

The Atonement Academy had a busy week. Congratulations to Dean John Creech and our Lower School teachers on their Academic Showcase Nights this past Tuesday and Thursday evenings. 

This week I have news from Mrs. Powell, our College and Guidance Counsellor. Below is her update on our seniors’ college activities.

Last week’s “State of the School Address” culminated in the formal launch of our new Strategic Plan entitled, “Cultivating the Vineyard of the Lord.”

Happy New Year! It is good to be back. This morning, at our weekly 7:15 a.m. check-in, teachers and staff were remarking on the positive start we’ve had this week. I hope this is an indication that you and your children had just the Christmas Break you needed. 

Our wait is nearly over! I hope your family has been able to enter deeply into the Advent season and that this period of holy waiting will yield as its fruit a most joyous Christmas.

The universe is a beautiful place. Like wise men following a star, we naturally are attracted to beauty. As we follow, beauty should prove a thread to guide us into the truth and goodness of reality, and ultimately to the One who created reality and in the fullness of time entered into it.