Friday night lights shined on the Vandeblit Catholic High School’s stadium field as hundreds of students and fans gathered to support their fighting terriers at the 2002 homecoming game. After two quarters of some great football action, it was finally time to announce the 2002 homecoming king and queen. As football player Andre Melancon stood on the sideline he anxiously awaited the results. Surprisingly his name was announced as homecoming king. Leaving the sideline he maneuvered to center field to except his crown, queen, and title with pride. Little did the fans know this would not be the greatest accomplishment of Andre’s life. Andre stood there with pride and excitement, but also a desire to be a part of the priesthood.
Andre grew up in
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He thought of priests as superheroes and he would often pretend to be one at home. Andre’s parents, sister, friends, and extended family always knew of his desires to become a priest and these desires only blossomed as he grew older. And even though his life took little a turn at the age of seven, when his father passed away from cancer at the young age of thirty-nine, his beliefs only grew deeper. This was a hard grieving period for both him and the rest of his family; however, through their faith life they were able to transform this pain into a deeper reality of understanding Heaven and who Jesus was. Another influence on Andre’s vocation choice was his childhood priest. As he stated “Praise God I had a good priest growing up because he was a great inspiration.” This particular priest showed him an example of a real authentic and love filled priesthood. This priest had later been diagnosed with cancer when Andre was around the age of eleven and had to go …show more content…
He loves being able to celebrate mass everyday and “enrich his relationship with the Lord.” He is able to use his gifts to walk with many in the community through hard times such as parents who loose their children or vice versa. With God’s guidance he can bring them to a place of understanding and peace. This past Holy week he was given the opportunity to give the homily for the Youth Rally mass. Being able to preach and exhibit a faithful fatherhood to over thirteen hundred youths was immensely exciting. He was luckily given the chance to expand his wings and further his call to not only priesthood, but
Before Father Gerber came to my parish, I had trouble going to mass every Sunday and praying as often as I should as a Catholic. Even though he might not have known it, Father Gerber helped me to go to mass and pray as often as I could. I look forward to going to mass every day to listen to him speak. His homilies to me are very inspirational, and they taught me how to pray in
High school sports can have a tremendous effect on not only those who participate but the members of the community in which they participate. These effects can be positive, but they can also be negative. In the book Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger shows that they are often negative in communities where high school sports “keep the town alive” due to the social pressure. In this way, Friday Night Lights gives insight into the effects of high school football being the backbone of a community, revealing that the fate of the individual football players are inadvertently determined by the actions of the townspeople.
Even though the Permian Panthers had won a state championship the community wasn’t fond of black people. They wanted a state title but not all the recognition to go to Boobie Miles because he was a black running back. “He responded without the slightest hesitation. ‘ A big ol’ dumb nigger.” (Bissinger, 49) There are multiple accounts of harsh and unneeded racism thought the book. “ They started chanting something. Some said it was ‘Oreo Oreo!” The expectations of how the season will go is a huge conflict in Friday Night Lights. Two weeks before the season starts there is a watermelon feed for the players and families to come support. People would come to the Watermelon Feed with their children as if they feel it’s important for the little ones to see this spectacle at a young age and be awed by it. Even though people struggled financial and economic hardships, the lights of a Friday night game ignite their hopes and dreams of a better
Football was not just a sport in Odessa, it was a lifestyle. In Friday Night Lights, Bissinger follows Permian’s high school football team. He is able to gain an understanding of the towns social components, and in the novel he analyzes the incompetence of the adults when making decision for their children, the bitter racism and unhealthy emphasis on the success of the football team. The author often compares Permian to a variety of schools and highlights the disproportionate emphasis on football and touches upon the vanity of the entire events. All in all, Bissinger is able to effectively show the reader the real Odessa.
The football players in Odessa were generally a wild party crowd. It was typical that late in the fourth quarter, when the game was in the bag, the players would begin talking on the sidelines about what parties they were going to after the game, what girls they were going to try to pick up, and laughing about how drunk they were going to get. They cared nothing for academics. The senior star running back, Boobie Miles, was taking a math course that most students took as freshmen. Many of the senior players' schedules consisted of nothing but electives. For the Oddesa footbal players, school was nothing more than a social get-to-gether, served up to them as a chance to flirt with girls and hand out with their friends. They knew that their performance in class didn't matter; the teacher would provide the needed grade to stay on the team. It wasn't uncommon for players to receive answer keys for a test or simply to be exempt from taking the test at all. Some didn't know how they would cope without football after the season was over. They ate, drank, and slept it. On the whole, these 16 and 17-year-old boys' identity was wrapped up in a pigskin.
As a spiritual leader, he is supposed to perform all duties given by his superior authority, bishop and delivers to the people in order to improve ethics and moral values in the community. In addition, as the reader goes deeply into the story, the Father Paul has to maintain an outstanding morale with a minimal of sins. The author shows to the readers two phases of Father Paul’s life: men who are the ownership of the universe and also an ordinary man. These two roles make the priest fight with his consciousness constantly. Therefore, his alcoholisms not only weaken physically but also his mentally to the point that it is obvious his unacceptable actions. There was a dialogue between the priest and
“Remember the Titians” is based on a true story of African American football coach, Harman Boone; traveled to Alexandria, Virginia to coach the T.C. Williams Titans. Coach Boone faced a difficult task coaching at a primary Caucasian school in early 1970. The Caucasion players were reluctant to play for a black coach. He also had an awkward relationship with assistant coach, Bill Yoast. Not only did Coach Boone and his family face challenges with his team and colleges, there was also challenges with the communities. As these two coaches began to work, sync and show their truthfulness and principle to the young men they were coaching, they and the community began to make a strong impact and everyone will always, remember the Titians.
The Novum presented in Starship Troopers is the rule of the Veterans and the resulting primacy of the military. This Novum sets the novel up as a utopic pandering to a readership demographic that the author himself is a member of. This is a normative sci-fi construction. Starship Troopers deviates in that the true target readership is the young man who has not yet been given a chance to join up. He is meant to gain a favorable understanding of the military man by sharing in his dream. The dream then - the world created – is the persuasive device.
Abstract: High school football in the state of Texas has become out of control. The sport is no longer played for the sake of the school but rather has become a Friday night ritual to these small towns in Texas. The players are no longer just high school kids inter acting in school sports but have now become heroes to these small town communities. Communities simply no longer support their local high school team but rally in pride of their hometown rivalry against another team. School administrators and coaches no longer are teachers and mentors for the kids but are the equivalent to what in professional football are team owners and "real coaches". Parents have become agents and sacrifice their jobs and homes so that their child may play for the right team. Finally the fans, the fans have lost the sense that it is just a high school sport and changed the game to a level of professional sports. I plan to prove and show that for all these reasons Texas high school football has become out of control. It is no longer the game that it was originally meant to be.
H.G. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights brings to mind the cold, autumn nights of 1988 where a town, just like any other rural town in America, was brought together in such a raw and emotional way. From the rise and fall of Boobie Miles to the push for the playoffs, it is clear that 1988 Odessa was swept up in the glory of football to replace the grandeur of the 1950s, which seemed to deteriorate throughout that hectic decade. While a modern reader may view Bissinger’s masterpiece as a tale from a dated and faraway place, several factors have kept it in the public’s eye. What is it about Friday Night Lights that still resonates today? The answer can still be found in the same rural towns of America. Though it may seem incredible, Texas is still football crazy, and it may be fairly concluded that emotions have only slightly receded from the obsession they once held towards high school football. People’s inability to analyze themselves, the impact a community can have on younger generations, and the way priorities can easily be warped all struck me as subjects that have stayed true in Texas culture over the past 26 years. I will be discussing these topics throughout this dissection of Friday Night Lights.
“The call is something that is an indescribable joy and an indefinable burden at the same time.” (Bryant and Brunson 2007, 32). There is nothing more rewarding than seeing a congregation of the redeemed moving forward in their faith. However exciting this may be, it is usually not the thrill that propels the pastor in his service. It is the burden placed on the pastor by God that compels him in his work. The pastor understands that he is largely responsible for the work of God being accomplished by his faithfulness to his calling. “All through the Word of God and down through the annals of history, when God has moved it has almost always been attended by the preaching of the Word.” (Bryant and Brunson 2007, 31)
Goisman, Matt. "Book Review: Friday Night Lights." Sports of Boston RSS. Sports of Boston, 9 July 2010. Web. 06 Mar. 2014.
In Friday Night Lights we see the theory of functionalism not only in the team, but the town and its dream of solidarity through winning the state championship. In a small town, such as Odessa, Texas, high school football helps to keep the town together by keeping it alive. On Friday nights, when the flood lights turn on inside the Permian stadium the strength of Odessa seems dependent on what will occur in that football stadium. Businesses shut down; families and community come together within the constraints of this stadium to cheer their team onto victory. Thus during football season, litt...
“We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.” Said by St. Pope John Paul II during one of his World Youth Day homilies this quote perfectly represents the man that St. Pope John Paul II was: a bold, forgiving, selfless, and loving man. Born on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, Poland; John Paul II suffered a number of tragedies in the early years of his life. By the age of the twenty he lost all of his immediate family, and he credits the death of his father as the point in his life when he heard the call to live a life of religious vocation. In 1939, about one year after John Paul enrolled in The Krawkow Jaggelonian University, the Nazi closed the school and to avoid deportation to Germany all able men had to work. From 1940 to 1941 his holiness did various jobs, but it was during this time period that he was seriously contemplating priesthood. In 1942 John Paul II started studying at the underground seminary run by the Archbishop of Krakow, and during this time he was hit by a truck and recovered in matter of two weeks. To him this was a confirmation of his vocation. Once the war was finished the future pope was ordained priest and was then sent to Rome for further studies. After a two year time period in Rome, His Holy Father received his doctorate in theology and returned to Poland. After serving in several parishes and becoming a well-known religious face in Poland, St. John Paul II became the bishop of Ombi. During the six year time period that his holiness was the Bishop of Ombi, he achieved one of his life’s major accomplishments: he became one of the leading thinkers on the Vatican II council. While he was one the Vatican II co...
The homecoming is a book with a lot of conflicts in it between all its characters whether it be person vs person, person vs society, or person vs nature almost every character struggles with something in this story. One conflict we encounter is person vs nature and this occurs to the main protagonist clay-boy, while adventuring though the woods looking for a Christmas tree clay-boy comes across a doe stuck in a dead fall. While clay-boy was removing sticks from the dead fall and loosening the doe free an albino deer ready to mate comes across ready to attack clay. He ducked into a tree which also happened to be the one he was going to cut down for a Christmas tree, the albino deer starts slashing and ramming the limbs ruining the tree. The