Giving Thanks Through Teaching and Song
by Mark Lajoie, Theology Teacher
(An article for "Guertin Pride" about Mark)
(An article for "Guertin Pride" about Mark)
“Thanksgiving”. That word means so much to me, as to faith, as to my band, and as to my school.
When I was a teen, I was such a sad case in so many ways, but the Lord saw my poverty and reached out to me in my need. Our Mother, Mary, and her Rosary saved my life and gave me joy and a purpose in faith & music, mostly through a young group of friends who became my band and my faith family, Living Waters. (I also became an academic who loved research, learning, and teaching.) Here is a song that Mike and I wrote together, around the summer of ’78, in which the ‘thanksgiving’ just poured out of me. Click to listen: “Song of Love”. Many years of great music, faith, and friendship followed.
I continued to grow and experience so much! As time went on, I got married to Julia from the band, had kids and, late in the game, I began to teach Theology to high school kids, which seemed so perfect for me. Then, in 1999, I lost my job and most everything, and we had to leave the place where we were living immediately, with nowhere to go and a newborn baby! The mover we contracted to store our stuff took one look at our stuff and drove away, leaving us in an impossible quandary. I called my best friend in the band, Chuck Rossignol; within an hour, almost the whole band family showed up with two moving vans and moved our stuff into WHY storage in Nashua and got us set up at the Residence Inn in Merrimack! You cannot buy friendship like that; I am forever grateful for this kind of love they have always shown. Every Thanksgiving I truly celebrate how many blessings like this we have received from this group!
Around this time, I interviewed at Bishop Guertin and I was amazed at how active the service club and campus ministry was, how alive the spirit was, how perfectly the Brothers seemed to fit my own background and temperament. I prayed and prayed I could get in there – and the Lord heard my plea! I was SO happy and thankful! I told everybody that I felt I had ‘landed POW! right in a pot of jam’! I got up at the Faculty Meeting in the A/V Room and said ‘I LOVE this place!!. (Coach Mac used to make fun of me for this, but I would just say, ‘well, it’s TRUE’. It STILL is true!) It has been over 18 years and I know how blessed I am to be here. Here is a recent song I wrote to express this! Do What He Tells You to Do Video
This all fits our Catholic faith here at BG. A sacrifice of thanksgiving is what Abraham sought, the bread & wine offered by Melkizedek. Eucharist means, “thanksgiving” or “Good Gift”. We could not get a better gift than our Risen Lord truly present with us at Mass and in our life of faith and charity. I have been able to experience this fully in my band and in the wonderful school known as Bishop Guertin High School!
My band gave a song to Pope John Paul II, and, in recent years, we have won awards, thrived on line and worked on new recordings. You can read some of the stories of our band on our official blog AND you can listen to the music we have produced for over 40 years on Spotify and other streaming services. Here are some links below!
My most recent work: Light of the World DEMO
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