We're pleased to share the Founder's Day homily delivered by Georgetown Prep President, Rev. James R. Van Dyke, S.J., along with a thoughtful reflection from our President of the Yard Brendan Kozak '26. 

FOUNDER’S DAY
9 JANUARY, 2026

Raise your eyes and look about…
   – Isaiah 60:4a

Okay, so we celebrate today the Feast of the Wise Men, the Feast of the Three Kings.  Now, I don’t want to be too critical, but I want you to think about the story we just heard: how smart are these guys really?  Just think about it for a second…

These guys – the magi as they were known – are comfortably at home.  They see a star – a new star apparently – and they decide to “follow it” a great distance, perhaps for days, maybe months, maybe years across the desert.  Right.  And it leads them to a nothing kingdom – Judea is just another Roman province, and the Jewish people are under the heavy boot of the Empire.  And Jerusalem – not exactly something to write home about, and certainly not Rome or Athens or Alexandria.  Sort of the Gonzaga of world capitals.  And who are they seeking – “the newborn King of the Jews.”  Not exactly a star, you might say.

And then they go to Bethlehem.  Again, not exactly the center of the world – sort of like Gonzaga’s parking garage.  And they find a carpenter and his wife and a child.  Perhaps still in a barn or a cave, maybe in a house, but certainly not in a palace.  And they open their packs and offer this carpenter’s kid gold and frankincense and myrrh.  And they bow down in homage.

Now – I don’t know – who the heck brings gold and frankincense and myrrh to a baby shower?  Couldn’t they find something useful – maybe some toys, diapers, a onesie, some blankets, a bottle, a teddy bear?  Gold and frankincense and myrrh?  Really?  I don’t get it.

Well, while you think about that, let me tell you a story about another foolish wise guy – the one we celebrate today – John Carroll.  This guy, born into a wealthy family, had the best education in the world: he went to Jesuit schools, first secretly here in Maryland because Catholic schools were illegal, and then to St. Omer’s in Belgium.  He could have come home and lived comfortably, but, no, he decided to enter the Jesuits.  But then the Jesuits were suppressed in 1773, and that could have been a good excuse to go home and live on his folks’ plantation, but no – he decided to continue functioning as a priest here in Maryland, but only in secret because Catholic churches were illegal.  But as soon as – no even before – the Bill of Rights established freedom of religion in the States, he was thinking about creating a school – the best school in the world – the first Jesuit school in the capital of his new nation, right smack in the middle of … nowhere.  ‘Cause let’s think about that too: there was no Society of Jesus and there was no Washington, DC.  Sort of a bad bet.

And yet, here we are.  Because as St. Paul writes, the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men (1 Cor 1:25).

A bad bet, but an audacious one.  John Carroll had a vision, and he gave himself to that vision.  So much so that he made friends with all the wrong people – people who had no use for Catholics, and even less use for Jesuits – people like Benjamin Franklin and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  So much so that he started with virtually no money and began to build a school with little hope that the building itself would ever open.  And then in a hostile land created a Catholic church about as far from Rome as you could get.  So much so that he resurrected the Society of Jesus here in Maryland before the restoration of 1814, and did it without permission from Rome.  Because he wanted Jesuits to run his new school.

You know, a lot could have gone south in John Carroll’s plan; in fact a lot did, and given the history it’s pretty much a miracle that we are here today.  But he had a vision – he had imagination – and he gave himself to it generously.  That’s his gift to us.

You know, the wise men saw a carpenter’s kid, and they bowed themselves low in homage, and laid their gifts – their foolish gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh – they laid their gifts before him.  They had come to look for an earthly king, but trusting their vision – the vision of a new star born in the heavens – they presented the gifts they had where it led them.  And then they went home by a different way.  They went home different.

Pious legend says those gifts – those useless gifts for a newborn child – paid for that family to flee to Egypt, saving the child from the wrath of a jealous tyrant, saving him to go on to become who he would become.  The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men, and sometimes our own foolishness – our own bad bets – sometimes they take us with the gifts we have to exactly the spot where those gifts are needed.

And that, my brothers, my wise men, my little princes, that leaves us all – me, you, all of us – that leaves us with a question: are we willing to have a vision – an imagination – the audacity – of these wise fools, and to have the generosity to lay down our gifts where they are really needed?

AMDG

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Good afternoon,
 

I hope y'all enjoyed your fifteen-minute classes and got to stay up to watch the Ole Miss vs. Miami game. Sorry to anybody rooting for Ole Miss.

So why? Why shortened classes? Why a nice lunch with the whole school community? Why is Founder's Day important for the Prep community? I'll take you on a little history lesson—not quite a Dr. Ochs lecture, but one built by me, Brendan Kozak, on the background of our founder, John Carroll. Born on January 8, 1735, in Upper Marlborough, MD, when the now United States was considered the thirteen colonies, Carroll was the fourth of seven children in his family, and was born into a Catholic family when Catholicism wasn't exactly encouraged in the colonies due to discriminatory laws and even some persecution. John Carroll was homeschooled by his mother until he was sent to the Jesuits of Bohemia Manor in 1748, in Cecil County, the northeastern county of present-day Maryland. In 1753, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Watten. Two years later, he went to Europe to finish his studies in theology and philosophy, was ordained a priest in 1761, and took his final vows in 1771. He returned to the colonies in 1773 after the pope suppressed the Society of Jesus, at the college Carroll was teaching at. Returning home, he led a small Catholic community outside Baltimore for a couple of years. Then, in 1776, he was asked by the Continental Congress to persuade the Canadians to fight with them in the American Revolution. Patriotically, he went. With the revolution's outcome, the Americans won, and freedom from the British meant freedom of religion... kinda. John Carroll's fight wasn't over as people were still very skeptical of Catholicism within the newly founded United States of America. He fought and fought and was named the first bishop in the US, starting the Diocese of Baltimore in 1789 and also creating Georgetown College and Georgetown Prep in 1789.

So, to follow up our "Schola Brevis", that is my "Vita Brevis" on John Carroll. I know I maybe wasn't as thorough as Dr. Ochs or as funny as Mr. Rothenberg, but hopefully you sort of get the idea of what John Carroll did. However, I still haven't answered the why question—the reason this day is different than normal.

Founder's Day is for us to pause and really conceptualize all that happened to bring us here today and all that is currently happening around us. For freshmen—look at the last half year. Sophomores—a year and a half. Juniors—two and a half years. Seniors—three and a half years, and faculty and staff of Georgetown Prep—the tenure you've been here. Over the course of all these time periods, we are the living dreams John Carroll envisioned when creating the first Catholic diocese and school in the U.S. From the opening hymn we sang today to the closing hymn, from all the activities that make up Prep like A Cupola Hoyas, plays, musicals, and the senior night for the hockey team tonight—as we continue with our festivities this afternoon and throughout the day, let's embrace the Prep community as our founder envisioned it 237 years ago.