Most of the world falls in love with the finished sculpture.
The awards. The championships. The accolades. The scholarships. The polished version of a person after success has already arrived.
But Michelangelo once said something remarkable about creating his masterpiece, the David. When asked how he sculpted it, he responded: “The statue was already inside the stone. I just had to chip away everything that wasn’t David.”
He believed the masterpiece already existed beneath the rough surface.
Founder’s Day this week reminded me that this is also the heart of a Lasallian education.
Throughout the day, our students prayed together, competed together, served together, celebrated together, and ultimately gathered for Mass as one community rooted in Faith, Service, and Community.
Yet beneath all the traditions and celebrations was something deeper.
Lasallian education is not called to love students after they become extraordinary. We are called to love the granite before it becomes the masterpiece.
This is profoundly countercultural.
The world often teaches young people that they are worthy of love only after they achieve something: a grade, an accomplishment, a title, or recognition. Yet the Gospel reveals something entirely different. People flourish not because they are first successful, but because they are first loved.
As we honored Monsignor Yeazel ‘59 during Founder’s Day, I found myself thinking that he, too, was once simply a student walking these same hallways. Before the priesthood. Before decades of ministry. Before changing countless lives.
Somewhere along the way, people saw something beautiful within him long before he fully saw it himself.
Teachers.
Mentors.
Friends.
People who patiently chipped away fear, doubt, and uncertainty until the person God created him to be could emerge more fully. Faithfully following God's call, he impacted thousands of lives.
This is the quiet work of a Lasallian school.
It happens every day in ways the world rarely notices: a teacher staying after school to help a struggling student, a friend offering encouragement at the right moment, a coach refusing to let someone give up on themselves, a community continuing to believe in a young person as they are still becoming.
Like Michelangelo’s sculpture, formation unfolds slowly, patiently, and often invisibly.
Yet extraordinary things happen when people are loved this way.
Founder’s Day serves as an important reminder that the true mission of Christian Brothers Academy is not merely to produce successful students. It is to help young people discover the goodness, dignity, and purpose God has already placed within them.
To see the David hidden within the granite.
And perhaps that is the mission our students now carry into the world: to become the kind of people who look at others and recognize the beauty still waiting to emerge. To move from David to Michelangelo.
Love first. And extraordinary things will happen.
Happy Founder’s Day, and congratulations to the CBA Class of 2026!
Mr. Matthew Keough
President, Christian Brothers Academy
