Commencement 2001
Senior Address (Abridged)
By Brian Dragoo, Class of 2001
June 9, 2001
"A Hopeful Beginning"
[Brian Dragoo, who entered the College with a master's
degree in engineering, was selected by his classmates to give
the Senior Address during Commencement Ceremonies on June
9. Following is an abridged text of his Address.]
How fitting that we mark this momentous occasion, this calling
of our graduates into the world, with the Holy Mass, which
is the greatest of the public prayers of the Church, and at
the same time contains the greatest of the sacraments!
Our class patron, St. John Vianney, the Curé
of Ars, spoke fervently on the virtues both of public prayer
and of the sacraments. He praised public prayer such as the
Rosary, the Angelus, and especially the Mass itself even over
private devotion, saying, "Private prayer resembles straw
scattered here and there over a field; if it is set on fire,
the flame is not a powerful one; but if you gather those scattered
straws into a bundle, the flame is bright, and rises in a
lofty column towards the sky: such is public prayer."
How wonderful it is to be Catholic, we who pray
the Holy Mass together the world over every single day. Our
prayers certainly are a bright flame rising to heaven to be
heard by God the Father, and to be answered. It is obvious
to me that He has answered the common prayers of the College,
not only materially, with the new construction, but also spiritually,
with the conversions of so many souls who come into contact
with the College.
The Curé of Ars is an especially appropriate
patron for our class in a certain respect, as we are now prepared
to go out into a seemingly uncaring and unconverted world.
The parish in the town of Ars in France had much in common
with our contemporary culture when the Curé arrived
there in the cold February of 1818. Abbé Trochu, his
well known biographer, described the situation at Ars: "Here
under his very eyes, were a thousand occasions of sin . .
. [b]lasphemies, profanation of the Sunday, dances and gatherings
at taverns, excursions and meetings in private houses at night,
immodest songs and conversations - all these evils must be
lumped together in a common reprobation."
This description of these goings-on might seem
somewhat tame to our corrupt times, but they were fueled by
substantially the same sins that we must face every day in
our world, and especially in ourselves. The subtleties and
nuances of the sins may have changed in our day, but the sins
themselves, of course, remain fundamentally unchanged: pride,
envy, lust, gluttony, and the rest. Moreover, the Holy Father
reminds us often of the words of his predecessor, Pope Pius
XII: "The sin of the century is the loss of the sense
of sin".
On the face of it, it might seem that leaving
this beautiful haven of holiness to go out into such a sinful
world might fill one with a certain sense of despair. But
not us - not the graduates of Thomas Aquinas College. Instead,
our labor of the past four years has countered the effects
of our society by helping us to see things as they really
are - truly hopeful. Thomas Aquinas College imparts this hope
to its graduates in two particular respects: through the education
itself, which I believe is unparalleled, and through the spiritual
life, which is irreplaceable not only for our salvation, but
also for our formation and sanctification here on earth.
How does this College, through the education
it provides, give hope where others fail to do so? By providing
access to the minds of those who through the centuries have
been part of the twenty-five hundred year-old "Great
Conversation" of western culture. This Conversation has
been a continuous presence in the world for as long as man
has questioned - man who by nature desires to know. The fundamental
questions about nature, man and God asked and answered in
the Great Conversation have not changed.
Our access to the Great Conversation here at
the College comes through reading the Great Books instead
of reading textbooks. Reading textbooks, we would find out
what people today think about what those in the past have
thought. But by reading the Great Books, we skip this step;
we learn for ourselves what great thinkers thought at the
times in which they lived. And of course, our instruction
has come not only by the content of this education, but by
its mode as well: by discussing these works in small groups
instead of listening to others lecture about them we have
come to learn for ourselves what those great minds are thinking.
By reading honestly the thoughts of the greatest
thinkers of all time, we students are given the tools to avoid
two classic blunders, which are really just two opposite extremes
of the same fundamental error. One extreme, the one toward
which contemporary culture tends to gravitate, can be expressed
in this way: the newer or younger something is, the better
it is. While this is certainly true of computers and space
exploration and the fastest time for running the mile, it
is obviously not universally the case.
Before I came to Thomas Aquinas College, I was
trained in a highly technical field. I can tell you from my
own experience, that technology, or innovation, or what those
in the early part of the Twentieth Century called "progress,"
is not the primary answer to evil in the world. Is it not
obvious? A computer on the desk of every elementary school
student will not help them in the least, if they are not being
educated. To think that man's highest function is to be a
"producer of tools" is to misunderstand fundamentally
the nature of man.
Others tend to be drawn to the opposite notion:
the older something is, the better it is. By looking
at the signs around us, it's not hard to think this way, to
think that our world is spiraling wildly out of control. The
skyrocketing rates of abortion, murder, euthanasia, suicide,
divorce, domestic abuse, all this in our culture drenched
in pornography, relativism, egoism, commercialism, and materialism
- there is plenty of cause for great despair. It is very easy
to find ourselves holding this second extreme, I think, by
which we tend to see past times, our grandparents' times,
through a sort of "nostalgia filter," forgetting
the very real evils that faced our forebears.
Entering into the Dialogue of the Ages by way
of the Great Books gives us the hope of a moderate realism.
It keeps us from forgetting the errors of the past, while
at the same time it prevents us from putting too much stock
in things to come. It brings to life the preeminent thinkers
of all time. It brings them to the same table of conversation
at which we sit with our fellow students and tutors. Collectively,
they have centuries upon centuries of experience. (That's
the authors, not the tutors!)
We can ask the authors for advice; we can see what they have
to tell us. G.K. Chesterton says this: "Tradition means
giving a vote to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors.
It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit
to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen
to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified
by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being
disqualified by the accident of death."
The second way Thomas Aquinas College gives
hope to its graduates is by fostering the spiritual life.
One way in which this spirituality is especially manifest
is through the emphasis on the inclusion of the entire mystical
body of Christ, especially the Church Triumphant, the Saints
in heaven. Just as through the Great Books we bring the past
to life and commune with those who went before us, similarly
we have the intercessory work of the Saints, present and available
to us right now.
Further, we also have a living Tradition, the
teaching Church, to guide and protect us from error. And this
is not a mere tradition of philosophy and earthly contemplation,
but rather a divine Tradition that gives us hope in this life
and in the life to come. This Tradition gives us the teaching
of the Church and Communion of the Saints. The Catholic spirituality
of Thomas Aquinas College presents to us a model of how we
ought to live and pray with each other in a community.
So, having been nourished by the twofold charge
of our alma mater, the solid foundation in the liberal arts,
and the guidance of Catholic spirituality, we, the Class of
2001, are prepared to go forth on this great day into a hard
world not with despair, but rather with a bold hope in the
future of the Church on earth, and in the eventual return
of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Let this be our prayer as we leave here today:
that we may all hold fast to the Faith, with the help of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, whose soul magnifies the Lord, and may
we do all we do for the greater glory of God.
God Bless You.
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