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Two Wings: President’s Posts

Two Wings No. 27

By December 30, 2022May 5th, 2023No Comments

“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know Himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.”

–St. John Paul II Preface to Fides et Ratio

Mary, the Mother of God & World Day of Prayer for Peace

“Mary’s motherhood…is like a final message from the Octave of the Nativity of the Lord.

“Birth always speaks of the Mother, of Her who gives life…the first day of the New Year is the day of the Mother. There is no image…of the mystery of the birth of the Lord simpler than the image of the Mother with Jesus in her arms.

“Is not this image the source of our singular confidence?

“But there is another image of the Mother with the Son in her arms: the ‘Pieta,’ Mary holding Jesus taken down from the cross. With Jesus, Who expired before her eyes…and, after death, He returned to those arms in which at Bethlehem He was offered as Savior of the world.

“I would therefore join our prayer for peace with this twofold image…”

-Pope St. John Paul II

Mike Hagstrom

mike.hagstrom@jp2schools.org

Mike Hagstrom was named President of St. John Paul II Catholic Schools and Director of Catholic Schools for the Diocese of Fargo on March 15, 2016 and assumed office on July 1, 2016. When he applied for the position, he wrote that his “approach would be that of stewardship of the great gift of Catholic Schools. With the help of God’s Grace and all our stakeholders we can be good stewards together, seeing that our schools not only merely survive, but also thrive. For they are designed for human flourishing, forming as we do the whole person, each and every student, made in God’s image and likeness, endowed with a transcendent dignity and destiny.” Prior to this role, he taught Religion and served in a number of other leadership capacities at Shanley High School for 31 years. There, he embraced St. Bede’s notion that “I have always found delight in learning, teaching, and writing.” Mike earned his B.A. in English and M.A. in Systematic Theology from Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota. He and his wife, Shawn, have two children (Therese ’08 and Joseph ’16) and two grandchildren (James and Oliver).