Good morning. 
 

Welcome to the 2026-2027 school year at St. Christopher’s School. What a delightful morning, albeit a bit warm, for us to gather as one community to officially commence a new school year together. I want to welcome all of you—students, faculty, staff, and parents—to this beautiful campus, to this joyful worship service, and to this celebration of a united Saints community, one that shares a mission to know, love, and celebrate boys—all types of boys, and especially each of the 1,054 unique ones under our care this school year.
 

Let’s take a moment and recognize our Senior and Kindergarten classes, the Class of 2027 and the Class of 2039, respectively, who just processed in together, following tradition while demonstrating the remarkable growth that takes place on our campus over 13 or even 14 years. Will you please join me in recognizing our Senior and Kindergarten boys and their families?
 

I want to thank our three chaplains, Mr. Cross, and members of our Glee Club for their service this morning, as well as our student leaders Michael, Leo, and Henry, and I want to welcome the president of Church Schools in the Diocese of Virginia, Mr. Henry Broaddus, who is here with us this morning. Will you please join me in thanking all of these individuals for their service and leadership?
 

I want to offer a special welcome to the 137 new Saints students and the 23 new colleagues who join us this year. If you are brand new to St. Christopher’s, will you please raise your hand so that we may offer you a warm St. Christopher’s welcome? 
 

Seniors, this is your year to lead the St. Christopher’s community. Some of you have been part of this community for over a decade, watching other classes lead before you, while others joined us more recently in the Middle or Upper School. Regardless of when you came to this community, it is yours now and you are a vital part of it. 

At St. Christopher's, the relative success of any school year is almost always linked to the caliber and engagement of the senior class, so seniors, we are ready to follow your lead and to make this a fantastic school year, together.

In Michael’s remarks, he encouraged all of us to lean in to the opportunities presented to us at St. Christopher’s, to take chances, to say yes, and to step outside of our comfort zone.
 

Today I want to talk to you about two ways that you can view the school year to come, and they dovetail nicely with Michael’s wisdom.
 
Students, each of you, and all of us, really, can make this school year transactional, or it can be transformational. 

You can, to borrow phrasing from Reverend Patton-Graham’s homily earlier this week, choose to simply be present on campus, physically. You can do the bare minimum of what is expected of you, which is to show up, to do your work, to meet basic expectations. If you do this, and if you follow the basic school rules of honor, decorum, and civility, you will very likely be promoted to the next grade level of study and, eventually, you will graduate from St. Christopher’s, earning a diploma and the privilege of becoming a graduate of this wonderful school.
 

However, in doing just that, the bare minimum, mere presence and compliance, you will have experienced only a transactional relationship with this place and with the people who make it special. You will have missed out on the relational dynamic, the profound interplay between student and teacher, classmate and classmate, older student to younger student.  
 

Gentlemen, what we seek and expect from each of you, what we freely give as educators, and what almost always occurs over a period of many years, is much, much more than a transactional exchange between distant parties.

The word “transformation” has a deeply spiritual context, present in almost every world religion. It literally means to shift, to transform, from one state of being to another. The word metamorphosis is often used when describing a transformation, and in most contexts a transformation has a positive connotation.
 

In the King James version of the Bible, the words “transformed,” "transforming," or “transfigured” are used in several different verses.
 

So, with this biblical and world-religion context, perhaps I am too aspirational in believing that a St. Christopher’s education can be transformational–that we can shift your very state of being from your beginning here through Commencement.
 

But, as Michael reminded us, one of our Community Pillars is the Pursuit of Excellence and, along with Honor and Integrity and Community and Brotherhood, we have high hopes and standards for your experience here.
 

So, for this coming school year, I invite you to open yourself to the gift and possibility of transformation. Each of us is blessed with the capacity to change and to grow each and every day. In so doing, we can grow our overall health and well-being, we can strengthen our connections to fellow Saints, and we can please a loving and generous God, who calls on us to live lives of purpose, connection, and even transformation. 
 

God bless you and this new school year at St. Christopher’s School.