College Celebrates Alumnae Religious
(Winter 1998-1999 Newsletter)
"Thomas Aquinas College was my 'stepping
stone' to responding to the Lord's call and for that reason
alone is precious to me. No words can pay tribute to the intellectual
formation I received there and which I humbly hope am imparting
in some way to my Sisters, students and friends." Sr.
Mary Catherine Blanding, I.H.M. ('76), in Wichita, Kansas,
expresses what so many women religious feel about their beloved
alma mater.
While many alumnae have tested religious
vocations over the years, twelve have taken final vows in
the religious life, while four more have taken temporary vows.
Currently, two more are postulants.
About half of those who have entered religious
life have joined contemplative cloistered communities, while
the other half have entered active orders. The community which
has drawn the most so far - five - is the Dominican Sisters
of the Congregation of St. Cecilia in Nashville, Tennessee
(the "Nashville Dominicans"), a teaching order that
follows an austere Dominican rule.
Sr. Mary Aquinas Halbmaier, O.P. ('89), one
of the Nashville Dominicans, is currently principal of Our
Lady of Mount Carmel School in Newport News, Virginia. She
recently helped form a Vocation Team in the Richmond Diocese
ó the first of its kind there ó to work with teenagers and
young adults open to priestly and religious vocations. Her
hope is that all parishes will have such a team to foster
and promote vocations to the Church.
"Though I did not graduate, the three
years I spent at TAC were instrumental in knowing and responding
to God's holy will," says Sr. Mary Aquinas. "If
I had not attended, I seriously doubt my answering positively
Christ's call to be one of His consecrated religious."
One of her fellow sisters is also her blood sister, Sr. Thomas
Aquinas Halbmaier, O.P. ('84). Together, they are affectionately
called the "Aquinas" sisters, having taken their
names from the patron of the College they attended. Both women
hail from Orofino, Idaho, where the latter was valedictorian
of her high school class before coming to the College. Both
now bring their talents to teaching high school as well.
Also part of the talent draw to the Nashville
Dominicans are Sr. Mary Augustine Brilliant, O.P. ('86) and
Sr. Mary Brigid Burnham, O.P. ('94), who teach at the Community's
school in Tennessee. Sr. Mary Brigid also speaks to groups
around the country about Christ's challenge to youth, and
her language skills in Spanish and German have allowed her
to travel the world. (She won the outstanding student of German
award at Middle Tennessee State University before she had
entered the convent). She says that living at Thomas Aquinas
College showed her "the great beauty of life in Catholic
community," and sees Dominican religious life as the
completion of that same life.
If the Nashville Dominicans have enjoyed
success in recruitment, it is in no small measure due to the
work of Sister Catherine Marie Hopkins, O.P. ('82), who is
their Vocations Director. She, in turn, credits the College
with having influenced their vocations: "All of us who
have benefitted from the spiritual and intellectual formation
provided at Thomas Aquinas College are grateful for its influence
and acknowledge the direction and abilities a truly liberal
education provides."
Those who have entered the cloister say the
same thing. "Little did I know when I walked onto the
campus in 1978 what graces lay before me," says Sr. Mary
Colette, P.C.C. ('82), a Poor Clare nun in Alexandria, Virginia.
"Not only did I receive an education for which I can
never be grateful enough, but I was privileged to experience
the astounding fraternal charity of our college life; and
without that experience who knows when or whether the grace
of conversion to the Church would ever have come to flower?
And that has been followed by the even more unmerited grace
of the call to make Profession as a Poor Clare nun. I think
I can truly say that TAC provided me with an indispensable
formation for life after TAC, as it has done for all us graduates."
Sister Karen Gallop, O.S.B. ('82), a cloistered
Benedictine nun, echoes the same. "I have found this
monastic doctrine and simple but penetrating spirituality
to be much in harmony with all that I received at the College.
For it aims at contemplating and entering into the great mysteries
or realities of our Faith and thereby to be ever more assimilated
to them - and through them to Christ Himself."
This year Sr. Gallop was granted the rare
opportunity to study Gregorian Chant and Theology in two monasteries
of the Solesmes Congregation in France for one year, where
she has been exposed to the world's greatest practitioners
of Chant. Previously, she herself had taught Chant at her
abbey in Vermont, in addition to serving as novice mistress
giving courses in theology and helping initiate novices to
the Benedictine way of life. She had developed her love for
Chant while at the College.
Three alumnae belong to lay consecrated movements.
One, Maria Reinagle ('87), a lay consecrated member of Regnum
Christi, a canonically-established movement under the auspices
of the Legionaries of Christ, says: "Looking back I can
see the hand of God. It was at the College that I fell in
love with the Church, and now my life is dedicated to serving
Her. TAC convinced me of the need for intellectual leaders
who can shape the course of history and have a definitive
impact on society. Now my mission is to kindle that love in
others and to form more leaders who can transform society."
All of the alumnae religious feel a debt
of gratitude toward the College. As Sr. Mary Kiely, a fellow
Benedictine of Sr. Gallop, says, "It would be a privilege
and an honor to do anything I possibly could to contribute
to the good of TAC - to help the students love the intellectual
life and the spiritual treasures of the Church so dearly that
they cannot bear to live without them."
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