AMDG on top...

Ahhh... AMDG or JMJ at the top of every paper. A worthwhile article that will remind you of that one teacher who made a difference in your life. Click on the title to read the entire article and to read about his passing click Beloved Brophy Jesuit Dies or Memorial to Fr. John Becker, SJ, 1925 - 2008.



To read one of Father Becker's novels click here or here!

AMDG.

The Greatest English Teacher

Terry Jeffrey


...At St. Ignatius -- in Father Becker’s class and all others -- we wrote the letters AMDG at the top of our papers. They stand for “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam” -- To the Greater Glory of God. These are the strategic watchwords of the Jesuit order: Everything ultimately must serve this purpose.

Father Becker taught us that Shakespeare was great not only because of the power and wit and poetry in his language but because his plays truly served the greater glory of God. They helped readers see good and evil and the consequences of choosing one over the other.

Father Becker also taught by example. He had the skills to succeed in many lucrative professions. But he took a vow of poverty and spent five decades as a good and faithful priest teaching boys to become strong and confident Christian men in an increasingly secular world.

In his later years, Father Becker published two mystery novels, while a third was published posthumously after he died three years ago. The hero, Father Luke Wolfe, teaches English at a Jesuit high school and spends his spare time at abortion clinics -- praying the Rosary.