2019 Mass of the Holy Spirit Highlights
The Loyola Blakefield community gathered in the Hollow on the morning of Wednesday, September 11, to celebrate our annual Mass of the Holy Spirit—blessing the start of another school year and honoring Dan McNeal ’90, who died tragically in the World Trade Center Towers on the morning of September 11, 2001. We were joined by several members of the Class of 1990 and Dan's family. School Chaplain Rev. Bruce Steggert, SJ, and Rev. John Savard, SJ, Rector of the Jesuit Community at Loyola University Maryland, presided over Mass. After Mass, Matt Seward '90 provided his unique and heartfelt reflection on fellow classmate Dan McNeal. View his remarks below.
To conclude the ceremony, Principal John Marinacci announced senior John Staugaitis as the recipient of the 18th Annual Daniel W. McNeal Scholarship Award (see remarks below). Per tradition, Kitty McNeal (Dan’s mother), Kathleen Sheeler (Dan's sister), and Danny Sheeler ’20 (Dan's nephew) presented the award.
"The recipient of the 18th annual McNeal Scholarship Award carries on Dan’s legacy as an exemplary Don in every aspect. He is an enthusiastic, active student, involved in every area of the school. He is a four-year member of the lacrosse and soccer programs. He has sung in the chorus for four years and is a member of AnDONte. He has been a retreat leader for Ignite as a junior and will serve again this year. Last summer, he was selected along with ten other students to participate on the service trip to Belize. Following last spring’s elections, he currently serves as the Vice-President of Communications for the SGA. While involved with his many activities and leadership roles at Blakefield, this Don is a serious student who has taken a rigorous curriculum, consistently earning academic honors in his time here. His presence has enhanced Loyola Blakefield due to his hard work, energy, and his love of his fellow students and his school. He loves being a Don, and he shows it every day in his words and deeds, and he encourages other students to do it in the best way they are able. In this way, he exemplifies the ideals that Dan McNeal brought forth being a man with and for others. Exemplifying what it means to be a Loyola Don in the same fashion that Dan did, it is my honor to present this year’s Dan McNeal Scholarship Award to senior John Staugaitis."
The Daniel W. McNeal Scholarship Award is given in loving memory of Dan McNeal, member of the Loyola Blakefield Class of 1990, and recipient of the Loyola Alumni Medal. Dan died tragically in the World Trade Center Towers on the morning of September 11, 2001. A faculty member described Dan as the example of the man Loyola seeks to foster: involved, energetic, brimming over with enthusiasm for life and anything Loyola, and a friend to all he met. Dan led his life, giving of himself and thinking of others first. This award is given to that member of the junior or senior class who embodies the characteristics that we hold dear in Jesuit education—one who lives his faith in word and deed, displays academic excellence, is actively engaged in his community, and most of all, exemplifies being a man for others.
