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Following Cristo Rey Jesuit’s sixth Baccalaureate Mass in late May, I mingled with a few alumni from CRJ’s Founding Class of 2019 in the aisles of Marquette University’s Gesu Church while our guests of honor, the remarkable Class of 2024, snapped pictures, celebrated, and reminisced.
Like all of the 554 graduates of CRJ, the alumni I spoke with that evening are in the community blazing trails. Two of them, in fact, were there as members of the current CRJ staff, where they bring to bear the experience and expertise they gained in college to ensure CRJ continues to pursue our mission and serve our community effectively and efficiently. Two others told me of their burgeoning careers at Baird and Komatsu, two of several prestigious Milwaukee firms that have welcomed CRJ alumni to their teams recently. Another alum described the freelance marketing and communications work she is doing with a local nonprofit that guides formerly incarcerated people back into productive citizenship. A woman in service for and with others, to be sure.
Standing right next to me and listening intently was the mother of a remarkable member of the Class of 2024 -- a Questbridge Scholar preparing to start at Stanford University in August. (She is also the mother of the alum now at Baird.) She kindly interjected to thank me and the CRJ community for the impact Cristo Rey Jesuit has had on her two older children. She then introduced me to her youngest son, now a seventh grader, who she hopes will continue his older siblings’ legacy at CRJ.
Outwardly, it looked like typical small talk. In reality though, for people like you and me -- who have played a role in bringing CRJ to life during the last 10 years -- these conversations were testament to the dynamic, ever-expanding impact of Cristo Rey, now and into the future.
As I prepare to step down after 10 years as founding principal, I am so proud of what we have accomplished together: 554 graduates; a $33 million, state-of-the art campus; a decade of balanced budgets and sound finances; 19 Kairos retreats; 100% acceptance to college for every senior class; a state championship title in boys’ soccer. The list goes on and can never fully capture what Cristo Rey Jesuit already means to this city.
And that’s just the foundation we have laid. There are 465 current CRJ students -- including 125 brand new freshmen -- feeling the support of over 100 dynamic CWSP partners, dozens of excellent faculty and staff, and countless community partners and donors as they prepare to set the world on fire, in the words of St. Ignatius.
As I chatted with those alumni, I could still see their 14-year old faces, the ones we greeted at the doors of the St. Florian campus on our very first day of Summer Bridge, back in June 2015. Ignatius reminds us to see God in all things, of course. How easy it is to see God in those faces then and now -- the divine creativity, dynamism, thirst for justice, compassion, and boundless potential.
What a gift to have been so deeply interwoven with this ministry for the last decade, connected to you and your hopes for CRJ, for Milwaukee, for our world. Thank you for walking with me and this community, for offering your support, for expecting excellence. I am deeply grateful, and I step down as principal excited for so much more that is yet to come through God’s good work at Cristo Rey Jesuit.
In gratitude,
Luke Harrison
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