Brebeuf Jesuit students excel academically and position themselves for acceptance to the college or university of their choice. When they begin their undergraduate studies, they do so equipped to succeed in the classroom, manage their time efficiently, and fit in socially in their new setting.
At the heart of this preparation process is a desire to provide young people with much more than an academic experience. Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School strives to instill in its students five interrelated moral qualities – qualities named in the last 30 years as the modern articulation of what the early Jesuits called “fides et pietas,” faithfulness and character.
These five qualities are grounded in the belief that the educated person is in the first instance
intellectually competent.
Intellectual competence, however, is incomplete without a spirit of inquiry – what the late Jesuit-educated national political commentator Tim Russert called “restlessness of mind,” and what a Brebeuf Jesuit grad-at-grad calls being open to growth.
As alumni become increasingly open to growth, they discover that they love what they do. They love study and what it exposes them to: growth, new horizons and questions, new experiences and opportunities, and new people. And because they love, Brebeuf Jesuit alumni serve. In short, they are loving.
Once open to growth and loving, Brebeuf Jesuit alumni fully discover too that God is in the midst of their work, play and service. They learn that they can discover God by reflecting regularly on their experience, a process called the daily examen, a prayer that ends each school day at Brebeuf Jesuit. They are religious.
Having discovered God – who loves them and invites them into new life in a world they have come to love – students also discover that many people live in conditions of injustice and oppression. Consequently, Brebeuf Jesuit alumni become increasingly committed to promoting justice in the world, especially in their immediate world.
These qualities constitute the heart of Brebeuf Jesuit graduates’ character, and define what these people become through their choices and their initiative. They become men and women for others.
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