Commencement 2000
Senior Address, Nathan Schmiedicke, Class of 2000
Nathan Schmiedicke was selected by his classmates to give
the Senior Address during Commencement Ceremonies on June
10. Schmiedicke intends to enter the seminary for his native
diocese of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Following is the text of
his Address.
One of the things we learn here at Thomas Aquinas College
is to look for the deeper meaning in everything. Now sometimes
– like when you’re listening to your 80’s station
on the radio and you hear, “What’s love got to do,
got to do, with it?” – you may have to look very
deep to find the meaning. However, having read Joseph Lee’s
Senior Thesis about how love perfects the virtues, I am confident
that I can answer the question quite simply: Love has everything
to do with it.
All of us are here today precisely because we loved something.
In our time at Thomas Aquinas College, we found the love of
learning in an academically excellent tradition; we found
the love and friendship of each other in a peaceful community;
and my sincere hope is that we have also found within ourselves
that union of the love of learning and the love of others
which manifests itself in that holy desire to share the truth
we have learned with everyone we meet.
When we first arrived here, I think a good many of us were
more than a little worried at times that our Admissions Director,
Mr. Susanka, had pulled a fast one on us, especially in those
early days of Euclidean Geometry and Freshman Theology when
we weren’t really sure whether a point was that which
had no part, or whether arguing about the Bible with our classmates
was that which had no point. Even so, it was remarkable to
see how quickly we cohered as a class. Arguing with other
sincere and intelligent men and women about those things which
matter most – about everything from religion and language
to math and the natural sciences on a daily basis – forms
an exhilarating bond — even between people who do not
always agree. (Or, in some cases, as in Mr. Beitia, who do
not ever agree!)
After learning in Freshmen Language that the word “student”
comes from the Latin studere [to be eager for], I remember
telling my friends and family at home how wonderful it was
to be going to a school where everyone was actually a student
— even the tutors. A universal and rather contagious
enthusiasm for the truth about everything, from the life of
the lowliest
insect to the motion of the highest stars, and ultimately
to the Uncaused Cause of all of these things, pervaded our
endeavor to know. Now, admittedly, studying the works of the
greatest minds of Western Civilization about the greatest
ideas and the greatest things was not always the greatest
fun. The work-load was burdensome at times and even the subject
matter could be a little tedious. (Unless, of course, you
happened to be our classmate, Shannon McAlister, in which
case nothing is ever tedious; she’s eagerness incarnate).
But still, we kept at it and kept on, probably stopping once
in a while to look at ourselves and think, “Why am I
doing this?”
I think that many of us found the answer to this question
in the example of our tutors, whose own love of wisdom fathered
forth the desire for the life of wisdom in us. Just as with
St. Thomas, who received in some measure his great desire
to understand “being” from his teacher St. Albert
the Great, so with us, it was as if we had received from our
tutors the seed and first fair flowering of a voice that would
not let us rest, but kept on saying in our hearts and minds:
“Have you seen Him whom my heart loves? Have you seen
Him? What is this Being Who etches little images of Himself
all across the cosmos and Who fills the Earth in a special
way with creatures who imitate Him — even in His Knowing
and His Loving? Have you seen Him who my heart loves? Have
you seen Him?”
Our natural desire to know the First Cause really owes its
guidance and growth to our tutors. What other school is there
where the faculty are not only ready and willing to stay after
class, often for a very long time, to discuss the day’s
questions with students, but where the teachers also join
the students on a regular basis at mealtimes to continue the
conversation? The keen and personal interest that the tutors
took in us and our questions, along with the wonderful discussions
that this led to remain, in my mind, as one of the most important
aspects of the daily life of the College. The good habits
of thought and discussion that we received owe themselves
as much to our interaction with our tutors as to ourselves.
Good conversations and our tutors, however, were not all
that kept us here and kept us going, especially in that first
year. The prevailing atmosphere of peace and the real friendships
that we fostered here played an important role as well. Although
probably not all of us would be willing to admit it, we sensed
almost immediately upon arriving here a rather certain, indefinable
wholesomeness in the people we met and in the peacefulness
of the community. We knew something very good was going on
here, beyond the obvious good of the curriculum, but we did
not necessarily know, at first, what it was. Only later did
we begin to see the immense, but quiet, efforts and generosity
of so many of the benefactors and staff as the solid foundation
of that good. Without the genuine purity of heart and sincere
charity of so many people here, this College would not be
half of what it is. The kind of peace that is necessary for
learning would not be possible here.
Hidden as we are out here among the hills of Southern California,
I am often reminded when I think of this fact, of the words
to a song which was the favorite of some young students in
Hitler’s Germany, who started an underground, intellectual
resistance to Hitler’s regime during World War II, eventually
at the cost of their lives. The translation of the song says:
Close eye and ear awhile
Against the tumult of the Time.
You’ll not still it or find peace
Until your heart is pure.
We all expressed in action, in our choice to come here and
to keep coming back, the same thing that the song expresses
in words. We were seeking something solid, and still, an intellectual
refuge of sorts amidst a truly tumultuous Time. We were seeking
a kind of peace, which was not merely freedom from external
distraction and misdirection, but something that went soul-deep
and manifested itself by an interior receptivity to the truth
and by that humble attentiveness which makes one able to listen
both to Nature and to Nature’s God, to be measured by
reality, rather than to make oneself the measure.
Toward the end of Sophomore year, I sat after dinner one
evening with a man who is graduating today, and whose monologues
at the dinner table were rightly considered to be one of the
great wonders of the Western World. I have never forgotten
what he said to the small group of us there with him that
night. With a kind of awe in his voice, he looked around at
us and said, “It took me two years. Two years! But now,
I am finally ready to listen. I am ready to be a disciple.”
Discipline is freedom. Obedience to the Truth is peace.
At first, this man had probably only seen this peace in others,
but like all of us, time brought him to find it in some measure
for himself, especially as aided by the truly virtuous example
of so many people here, and by the vibrant liturgical and
sacramental life which imbues every aspect of the College’s
life.
Now, to say that many of us found peace is still not to say
that we have been completely 0without our own trials while
we were here. During our Sophomore year, one of our dear chaplains,
Fr. Thomas Conn, died after suffering a long, drawn-out battle
with cancer. Less than a month later, a very lovely, in fact,
a simply beautiful young woman in our class, Angela Baird,
died in a hiking accident just a few miles northeast of here.
Both of these events could have been very destructive, but
because of the strength we have in this community, from our
shared Catholic Faith and because of the blessing of God,
both of these trials of sadness produced an almost miraculous
fruit of even greater charity and real joy among all of us.
Fr. Conn would never let students leave his hospital room
without a smile on their faces. I remember him lying on his
back, a mere sliver of the man he once had been, barely able
to move at all. He took the opportunity to smile weakly and
tell me that since they had revoked his driver’s license,
he had decided that he was just going to have to go out and
buy a skateboard. He would conclude every visit by giving
everyone a blessing, though he could only just manage to raise
his arm to make the sign of the cross. And just as he ended
each visit by bestowing a final blessing, so he ended his
life; he is still a blessing for us.
When Angela died, something similar, but in many ways even
more remarkable, took place. I wish that all of you here could
have witnessed the transformation that took place on this
campus. From the time we first heard about the accident, through
a long night of listening to a rescue helicopter fly back
and forth over our heads, until about two in the morning when
Dr. Dillon announced the sad news of her death, the chapel
was filled with students on their knees before Jesus in the
Blessed Sacrament, praying for her. Only later did we find
out that in praying for her, we had also been praying with
her. What a miracle of God’s grace this strong, Catholic
young woman was, who prayed the Rosary for her father and
for the unborn children in danger of death from abortion,
while she herself lay broken and dying. Inspired by such generous
and self-forgetful love, all of us suddenly looked at one
another, as if for the first time, with a renewed reverence
and respect for the goodness and personal dignity and beauty
present in each other.
This greater appreciation for the worth of others had long-lasting
and tangible effects. Probably the most noticeable effect
was that quite a few members of our class recognized so much
beauty and goodness in each other, that they ended up as one
of the half-dozen or so engaged or married couples. My suspicion
is that there are a good truckload or so more who are still
contemplating such a move. I know you’re out there.
It is to these couples, in a special way, that I attribute
the choice of our class Saint, and I commend them for their
choice. It was not an accident that we chose the Father of
the Holy Family to be our special patron. St. Joseph is not
only a model of the loving husband and father, but also a
shining example of that third kind of love I spoke of in the
beginning, the love which synthesizes the love of learning
with the love of others. The natural setting for this kind
of love is the family, where the mother and father love and
teach their children. Whatever St. Joseph learned, he used
for the good of others. This man, who received messages from
Angels and who dreamed prophetic dreams, never speaks in the
Gospels. He is a personification of one who is ready to listen
and then to act in accordance with God’s commands, using
what he has learned for the good of others. To open oneself
up to the truth, to learn the most important and difficult
things in order to share them with others for their own good,
is an incredible act of charity.
Perhaps it is just because I happen to be the son of a farmer,
but I cannot help being extremely happy when I see things
grow and come to fruition. When a man and a woman unite in
the Sacrament of Matrimony and are blessed by God with children
whom they raise and educate to know, love and serve God, the
best of fruit has been produced. Another person who loves
God has come to be. The spiritual children that we bring forth
in this life will be one of the very best arguments we can
make when we stand in the gateway and have to give an account
of ourselves to God.
And so, before I close, I want to remind everyone here of
something they may have forgotten, or may never have seen
as being particularly significant. We are the class of the
year 2000! By what I believe to be a special mark of divine
Providence, we are graduating in this year which our Holy
Father, John Paul II, has honored by naming it a Jubilee Year.
He has placed great hope in this year, which he sees as the
gateway, not only to the third Christian millennium, but also
to the new evangelization. Since he has always had the unbounded
hope and confidence of a true father for his true children
in us, the young people of the Church, let us listen to his
constant exhortation to “be not afraid.”
And let us take with us when we leave here, the truly glorious
goods we have received, and share them in our daily humble
lives with the world that is literally dying for lack of them.
Let us not be conformed to an age obsessed with sterility,
both of body and of spirit, and which is missing the entire
point of the universe and the voice of the Church, both of
which are calling out, “Do not be afraid to fall to the
earth and die. You will come to life again in the fruit you
bear for the Lord God.” So many are looking for some
kind of heaven among the things of earth, but have failed
to find that one only thing of earth that is also truly heaven,
which St. Joseph found in Bethlehem: Jesus, our Incarnate
Lord. We will never rest in heaven unless that same Jesus
has first found a resting place in us, here and now. As that
heaven comes to be in us, He will be the light that others
see, our inner joy will be our message to them. Look, then,
to Christ and take with you, to share with others, the heaven
you have found in Him.
I spoke earlier of the peace which all of us have enjoyed
here, but if there is to be any peace for ourselves, or our
world in the future, it must be that peace which surpasses
all understanding; that hidden peace which is found only in
the heart of Christ and His Church. No other peace can last.
Take with you, then, when you leave here, the Peace of Christ.
The gloom of the world is only an effect of the fact that
we still see darkly, as through a glass. Behind this gloom,
yet within our reach, is the hope-filled joy of seeing the
triune, all-loving God face-to-face. Take with you that joy!
And so, in closing, remember that when we leave here, we
cannot yet say with full completeness what St. Paul said to
Timothy: “I have fought the good fight, I have run the
race; I have kept the Faith.” We have only made a good
beginning and have still to retain that wonder which makes
us delight, like little children, in the Truth that keeps
us running toward that goal. The more we long for the finish
line, the harder we should strive while we are still here
to make our earthly home a more perfect image of our true
native land in heaven. And when, please God, we stand together
on that day beyond all days, then will the seeds we have sown
in tears make us sing when we present the fruit of all our
labor to the Lord of the Harvest. On that day, truly, there
will be laughter in our mouths; on our lips there will be
everlasting songs.
And so I leave you, yes, with the words of St. Paul, but
in the imperative: My brothers and sisters in Christ, fight
the good fight and fight hard. Run the race with your heart
faithful to the goal. And always, and whatever happens on
this adventure of life, hold fast to the Faith.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Summer 2000
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