August Adventures

Campus Life Update

August has arrived, and life at Catholic Tech is warm and wistful. Our High School Summer Program recently ended, and though we miss our students, we are proud of their successful completion of the intensive computer programming course.

At the end of the program, everyone watched the lovely final project presentations from all the students at CatholicTech’s first-ever Hackathon event. Students spent the evening perfecting their coding projects, with the encouragement of a few dedicated staff. One team’s project was an Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe game. Though the team lost some of their code partway through, they worked together and triumphantly recovered the source code. Students stayed up all night coding and enjoying some delicious snacks, including Haribo bananas, Pringles, and homemade mint chocolate cookies. Every team did very well on their projects, but there could be only one winner – shout out to Team Alpha Sigma for their wonderful coding of a space orbit computer game, which earned them first prize. A big congratulations to all students for their amazing work.

After all that hard work, along with the Italian summer heat, the students earned a cool splash in Lake Albano. Students enjoyed a kayaking trip around the lake, once home to the Summer Olympics canoe and rowing competitions in 1960. The next day, they also got to experience the views of the moon and the rest of our incredible solar system through the Vatican Observatory telescope in Castel Gandolfo. A fun evening trip up to town concluded with games on the rooftop in celebration of all of our students’ hard work and dedication to their summer class and projects.

On the final day of the summer program, the students had a lovely day trip to Rome with a visit to Santa Maria Maggiore, where they were blessed to have the experience of passing through another one of the four Holy Doors designated for the Jubilee Year. The Holy Door that pilgrims pass through every twenty-five years in the Jubilee Year is symbolic of grace, forgiveness, and God’s mercy. Along the way, everyone stopped at Sant’ Ignazio, another of Rome’s beautiful churches, which was actually in the past an old site of the Vatican Observatory.

Following one last walk up from the Castel Gandolfo train station and the breathtaking view of Lake Albano, our students enjoyed their last gelato run in town and said their goodbyes to Bar Carosi and the rest of Castel Gandolfo. Our closing Mass was said on Sunday by our summer chaplain, who graciously provided the campus with the Sacraments and adoration throughout the past month.

With the Summer Program completed, the rest of CatholicTech found solace by attending the dedication Mass at the Basilica of Saint Mary Major on August 5th. According to the tradition, Our Lady appeared in a vision to a wealthy Roman couple who had no heir and wondered what to do with their fortune. She advised them to build a church wherever the miraculous snow would fall that summer. Upon seeing the snow, the couple designated the location of the basilica, which sits at the top of the Esquiline Hill. Those in attendance at Mass on this feast day watched thousands of white rose petals flutter down from an open panel in the ceiling during the triumphant Gloria, commemorating the miraculous snow. As we look forward to the coming months, we pray that everyone has a blessed Feast of the Assumption and enjoys the next few weeks of summer!