St Michael’s Prep
Parent/Student Handbook

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Chapter 1: General Information

1. SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY

Drawing upon a tradition of over eight centuries in education, the Norbertine Fathers of St. Michael’s Abbey govern and serve St. Michael’s Preparatory High School. The formation of a St. Michael’s student integrates faith, academics, and character. These advantages will continue to form him throughout life, long after he has left his school days behind.

FAITH

St. Michael’s welcomes young men who possess the aptitude and commitment both to receive and to enrich what its school community has to offer. The heart of our unique school’s identity is the Catholic Faith, from which flow the truths on which we base our approach to education. The person and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ are the source and fulfillment of true happiness. The experience of Catholic Christian living leads the student to Jesus through a liturgical and sacramental life, supported by prayer, teaching, guidance and example. The sacraments of Penance and Holy Eucharist are available to students every day. The bishop confers Confirmation on eligible students every other year.

ACADEMICS

Our program consists of challenging academic courses for the college-bound student. These courses endeavor to communicate knowledge in fidelity to the Catholic intellectual tradition, and so to form our students as men of insight and integrity, qualities which will enable them to be discerning, responsible citizens in a world which has great need of them. Our scholars center their efforts on preparation for college and fulfilling life work. While emphasizing the Western heritage of theology, humanities, the arts and the sciences throughout our curriculum, we seek to round-out a young man’s education through athletics as well.

CHARACTER

As a boarding school, St. Michael’s offers significant opportunities for a consistent and wholesome growth toward maturity. Much of the responsibility for the day-to-day running of the school is shared with the students who learn to cooperate with their peers and with those in authority in attaining common goals. A positive, but realistic self-knowledge along with an attitude of respect for others is the foundation of a young man’s moral character. The cultivation of individual dignity guides students to accept self-discipline and responsibility as essential aspects both of personal freedom and participation in a community. St. Michael’s fosters this character development in all areas of student life. [Return to Table of Contents]

2. SCHOOL’S MISSION STATEMENT

St. Michael’s Preparatory School witnesses to the fullness of the Catholic faith and teaches in fidelity to a sound Catholic intellectual tradition. St. Michael’s is exclusively a boarding school for boys, grades nine through twelve, who are capable of benefiting from and contributing to its spiritual and academic community. The School provides the academic attainments necessary for acceptance to a four-year college or undergraduate program at a university in the United States of America. St. Michael’s is served by Norbertine confreres and by others who share in the Norbertine teaching apostolate. [Return to Table of Contents]

3. ACCREDITATION

St. Michael's Preparatory School is jointly accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and the Western Catholic Educational Association (WCEA). [Return to Table of Contents]

4. CEEB/ACT CODE: 052273

5. SCHOOL SHIELD

The school shield closely parallels that of the Abbey. The wing which appears on the left represents St. Michael the Archangel, the heavenly patron of the school. The fleur-de-lis on the opposite side represents the Norbertine Order which was founded in France. The ribbon surrounding the shield is the motto of the school. This practice of “looking ahead from the vantage point of tradition” has taken its character from the educational philosophy of the Norbertine Order; it receives its spiritual moorings from the very roots of the Catholic Church itself. The “tradition” St. Michael’s seeks to embody is truly timeless. Such a tradition affords one a “vantage point” without equal. The value of this tradition is proportionate to our fidelity to it. [Return to Table of Contents]

6. SCHOOL COLORS:

White, Blue and Gold. [Return to Table of Contents]

7. ALMA MATER:

Purity of purpose, values and ideals,
Wings of St. Michael guide us through the years.
White, blue, and gold, a fleur-de-lis, a cross,
Prepared for all good works, no matter what the cost.

Friendships are formed, tradition’s found its home;
Deeply rooted people the world to ever roam.
White, blue, and gold, a fleur-de-lis, a cross,
Prepared for all good works, no matter what the cost.

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8. THE HISTORY OF ST. MICHAEL’S

After World War II, the Communists gained control of many Eastern European governments. By 1945, the Communists were in power in Hungary and they systematically destroyed the whole fabric of the Church’s involvement in society. A focal point of the Communists’ efforts was the Catholic schools. The Norbertine priests at the time were respected, well-established teachers in the national educational system of Hungary that encompassed religious and secular schools alike. All private schools were nationalized by 1948. Faced with certain arrest and imprisonment, two small groups from the Norbertine Abbey of Csorna fled their native land on separate July nights in 1950. Shortly thereafter, their religious community was suppressed.

The Hungarian refugees immigrated to America. It was a difficult transition. In 1957 James Cardinal McIntyre, archbishop of Los Angeles, invited the Fathers to teach at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California. The exiles saw the move to Orange County, California as their chance to establish a new foundation.

In December 1958 Cardinal McIntyre gave his consent to the Fathers establishing their own foundation. Their desire was fueled by the realization that they alone were free to perpetuate the religious and educational heritage of their native Csorna. Under the leadership of Fr. Ladislas Parker, the Fathers invested their savings to purchase property. Fr. Hubert Szanto joined Fr. Parker to open St. Michael’s Junior Seminary and Novitiate in September 1961. When the school began, St. Michael’s enjoyed a small part of the vocation boom then occurring in America. The Founders of St. Michael’s had blended the best of the “old” from Central Europe with the best of the “new” America. Rapid changes in American society and in the Roman Catholic Church prompted Fr. Parker to petition Cardinal McIntyre to allow the school to introduce a parallel college preparatory program for lay students. This petition uniquely changed St. Michael’s.

When the 1970s began, St. Michael’s was flourishing more as a high school than as a seminary. As the number of those interested in the priesthood at the high school level continued to dwindle, the parallel programs gradually merged into one. The boarding school setting became the most conducive environment to blend and sustain what the Founders valued. The results were quite positive.

All of St. Michael’s graduates continue to college. They gradually fill the ranks of professional society and bring with them values of personal responsibility, dedication, and Christian ethics. Our graduates share with the world what they received. One these is Fr. Martin Benzoni. Twenty years after his own high school graduation from St. Michael’s Prep, Benzoni resumed the educational work in Hungary where his own Founders had left off in 1948. He, together with Fr. Theodore Smith, helped to reestablish the famous Norbertine high school in the city of Szombathely. Through the generosity of these two, the Norbertine traditions of education and religious life take root in their original soil.

Back in the United States, educational programs similar to St. Michael’s were closing. Such that by 1995 St. Michael’s Prep became the only institution where Catholic, secondary education was available in the entire Western United States for those seeking to study in an all-male, residential environment. [Return to Table of Contents]

9. ST. NORBERT AND THE HISTORY OF HIS ORDER

St. Norbert, founder of the Norbertine Order, was born of noble parents in Xanten (in what is now northern Germany) about the year 1080. His early life was characterized by a fondness for “the good life” in search of which he became a rather worldly subdeacon at the court of Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor. Norbert was a young man with many personal gifts and charms. In 1115, Norbert was thrown from his horse and nearly killed in a thunderstorm. He interpreted this as God’s invitation to repent and immediately began to lead the life of a penitent, barefoot and dressed in sheepskin. Norbert was ordained a deacon and a priest on the same day by Archbishop Frederick of Cologne. He began to travel about the countryside preaching reform of the abuses common in the Church at his time. Norbert founded a religious community in the marshy valley of Prémontré in response to the desires of Pope Calixtus II and an appeal by the bishop of Laon, France.

St. Norbert chose the rule of St. Augustine as the guiding light for his new community, becoming one of the most avid Augustinian reformers of the day. The community was marked by its austerity of life, its poverty, its intense liturgical life of prayer and, above all, its complete fidelity to the ideal of community life as depicted in the Augustinian rule. In the meantime Norbert continued to preach and attracted many men and women to the lifestyle of his new Order. The first professions were made in Prémontré on Christmas Day of 1121. Thus were the beginnings of the Canons Regular of Prémontré.

Norbert was ordained Archbishop of Magdeburg in July of 1126. This appointment forced him to relinquish the leadership of his Order to Hugh of Fosse (in present-day Belgium). Hugh was the first disciple of Norbert to persevere in this new way of life. The vast diocese of Magdeburg lay on the northeastern frontier of the German Empire and exposed its Archbishop to many assassination attempts by the corrupt clergy. As chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire and close friend of St. Bernard (dynamic abbot of the Cistercian Order), St. Norbert was instrumental in defending the rights of Pope Innocent II against the encroachments of secular princes and their antipope, Anacletus II. An ardent champion of the Roman Pontiff, Norbert even went so far as to accompany Bernard and the emperor on a military expedition to Rome in order to return Pope Innocent II to the throne. Weakened by his travels and labors, and probably by malaria contracted at Rome, Norbert returned to Magdeburg and died on June 6, 1134.

After his death, the Premonstratensian (Norbertine) Order continued to flourish, spreading throughout the known world. The motto of our Order, “Ad omne bonum opus parati” (Prepared for every good work), expresses well the variety of apostolates in which the Norbertines engage around the world today. In all continents, the Premonstratensians perform a variety of services for the People of God. The initials O. Praem. after each confere’s name is an abbreviation of the full Latin title of this Order begun in Prémontré. Here at St. Michael’s Abbey, the community has dedicated itself to the education of the young as its primary apostolate. [Return to Table of Contents]

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