My Life and Code

I recently learned of the passing of Brother Mark McBride, T.O.R.. Brother Mark was the principal of my high school, and someone I thought of as a friend. Though I hadn’t kept in touch with him, he was someone who’d cross my mind from time to time. He was a kind man, very down-to-earth, and very unlike a principal or other authority figure. On the first day of my sophomore year of high school, I arrived late and had to ask one of the faculty where I should be. I was new there that year. I didn’t know anyone, didn’t know the building, didn’t know the first-day routine. I was told that sophomores should be in the auditorium (the different grades were in different areas), and somehow found my way there. The crowd was sparse and I took a seat. A Franciscan friar was on the stage, speaking into a microphone. This was Brother Mark. The first impression he made upon me was when he said something that elicited a smattering of tepid applause — he reacted to this by saying, very dryly, “You may