From Earth to Ether

After the excitement of yesterday’s section games, a peaceful hush lay over campus this morning. Just enough silence for thought, and just enough bustle to feel alive. Students on the New England High School Summer Program gathered their books and their breakfast plates and raced the clock to finish their readings before class. Golden morning light, flanked by rustling trees, lit the walk to St. Gianna Hall, a restful preparation for the intensity of the class to follow.

The morning class was on Antigone, a Greek play about the titular leading lady, who defies King Creon’s decree by burying her brother, believing divine law to outweigh human authority, and about the tragic chain of deaths — including her own — that follows. Groups at tables laughed and debated as prefect Paloma Gallivan (NE’27) probed the students with questions: “Was Antigone holy or headstrong? Was Creon cruel or just cautious?” 

In the classroom, conversation flared to life. The class pressed into questions about Antigone’s defiance: Is it reverence for divine law, or an impulsive refusal to yield? Was Creon’s decree a defense of order, or a brittle attempt to assert power? 

From there, the students made their way to Mass in Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel, stepping out of Antigone’s sacrifice and into another, much greater Sacrifice — one unfolding not on a stage but at the altar. Afterward came lunch, filled with laughter and lively echoes of the morning’s class. 

And then it was off again, this time into a different world entirely: the strange and wondrous realm of the pre-Socratic philosophers, who proposed theories about being, change, and the hidden fabric of the cosmos. Felicity K. reflected, “Every pre-Socratic in his account of the elements always keeps something underlying which does not change. It is very close to the truth as we know it today.” 

Discussing matter, the Void, and indivisible atoms, the conversation pivoted from the morning’s moral drama to the nature of the smallest parts of Creation. Despite the dramatic differences between the classes, a surprising thread emerged: Both the tragedians and the early philosophers were asking about the order of the world, considering what holds, and what falls apart.

Come back to the Summer Program Blog tomorrow to see the events of this afternoon and evening!