From the Desk of the President
President Thomas E. Dillon
(Summer 2004 Newsletter)
[Index
of Past Articles by President Dillon]
 Each
year, following the last senior exams, the College president
hosts a reception and formal dinner, attended by faculty members
and their spouses, to honor the graduating seniors. The event
is traditionally marked by merriment and toasting, but there
is also some serious reflection. Following are President Thomas
E. Dillon's remarks to the Class of 2004 at the President's
Dinner on May 12, 2004.
"First, on behalf of the entire faculty, let me congratulate
all you seniors on having today completed the college's academic
program.
Think again about the kind of texts you have worked your
way through over the years: Descartes' Geometrie, Newton's
Principia, Augustine's tract On Grace and Free Will,
Saint Thomas' Treatise on the Trinity. Yours is no
small accomplishment, and hearty congratulations are in order.
Because you studied here - because you were willing to submit
yourselves to the curriculum we presented you and to the tutors
who guided you - you have what few college graduates in America
have: a grounding in the great works that have shaped our
civilization and an intellectual habituation that empowers
you to tackle nearly any subject from the inside and to make
reasoned judgements concerning the various claims made about
the nature of reality. You are especially fortunate to have
been able to encounter the rich intellectual tradition of
the church and to study her wisest teachers - wise especially
because of their own docility to Christ and to His Church.
You have been afforded four years apart from the cares of
the world to develop intellectual and moral virtue, and there
are very few so fortunate as you, because there are very few
who have been given such an opportunity to acquire these genuine
human goods.
What you must now face is, in many ways, daunting.
Not daunting because of the uncertainty of the future, because
of the vicissitudes of fortune that await you, or because
of the practical necessities that will increasingly press
themselves upon you - college graduates have always faced
these things.
What is daunting is that you are beginning your adult lives
in what is more and more a post-Christian age. Ours is not
a time that awaits the good news of the Gospels - rather,
ours is a time that has heard Christ proclaimed and, by and
large, explicitly rejects Him - yet, you are called to be
witnesses of Christ. This is daunting.
As you leave the comforting and idyllic confines of this
peaceful little valley of Ferndale, you will, in order to
live out what you have learned here, need great strength,
you will need prudence, and you will especially need an abundance
of God's grace. You leave a community of friends who care
about you and who support you in your desire to perfect your
minds and your souls. You are re-entering a culture which,
even in these past four years, has grown more hostile to the
Catholic faith, to the pursuit of virtue, and to the worth
of reason.
My advice to you, however, is not to worry too much about
conquering the world and setting it straight. The truth that
we all have to worry about, first and foremost, is conquering
ourselves and setting ourselves straight. Yes, you will be
called upon to be leaders in your families, in your communities,
and in the Church. But you will be in the best position to
lead if you have the integrity to be followers - to be in
your own lives, day by day, in the little things, followers
of Christ.
It is unlikely that many of you will be tempted to be great
sinners. The devil rarely tempts us to do what is reprehensible
to us today - rather, he tempts us to give in the tiniest
bit here, and to yield to something that hardly matters over
there, until sometime, down the line, what was unthinkable
doesn't seem so bad.
What you and I face, of course, is essentially no different
from what anyone faces who struggles against original sin,
and the beam in our own eye is usually enough to occupy us
for a lifetime. In a way, however, our spiritual task is made
especially difficult because our culture virtually worships
the seductive allurements of sensuality, wealth, and honor,
as it disdains temperance, charity, and humility.
We are, like it or not, children of modernity, and modern
man sees himself as a god unto himself - we shall, in our
self-importance, not be subject to the divinely-created order,
but we shall, according to our desires, decide upon our own
order, and make ourselves the measure of all that is. As you
are quite aware, the consequence of this is that everything
is turned upside down and inside out, as we absurdly deny
what is our true good and foolishly attempt to force illusion
to be reality.
I certainly don't want to say that there is no hope, because
surely there is. You have the sacraments, you have God's grace,
and you have the gifts God has given you in your education
here. Be courageous, be prayerful, and be hopeful - but have
a plan of action, with devotion to christ at its center. It
is so easy to become complacent, to slip away - imperceptibly
so at first - and then more and more. Yet the stakes are not
just high, they are beyond measure.
Your class quote for the Commencement program is especially
pertinent to all this - your motto is the same as the one
taken by the Holy Father himself - Totus Tuus. What
an excellent thing to strive for. Two simple words, but not
too simple to live out. The tuus doesn't seem so arduous.
It is easy to say that we are Yours, O Lord. It is the totus
part that is difficult - if we are to belong to Christ wholly
and completely, there is no room for lukewarmness, but only
for fervor. There is no room for self-indulgence, but only
for self-sacrifice. How, then, are we to be wholly Christ's,
Totus Tuus?
Let me read Pope John Paul II's own words about his motto,
taken from his wonderful little book Crossing the Threshold
of Hope:
"Totus Tuus. This phrase is not only an expression
of piety, or simply an expression of devotion. It is more.
During the Second World War, while I was employed as a factory
worker, I came to be attracted to Marian devotion. At first,
it had seemed to me that I should distance myself a bit from
the Marian devotion of my childhood, in order to focus more
on Christ. Thanks to Saint Louis de Montfort, I came to understand
that true devotion to the Mother of God is actually Christocentric,
indeed, it is very profoundly rooted in the mystery of the
Blessed Trinity, and the mysteries of the Incarnation and
Redemption."
What the Holy Father is suggesting here is that if your motto
is Totus Tuus you are implicitly proclaiming a devotion to
Mary, who will be helpful to you in living out your desire
to be devoted wholly to Christ. Mary is for us both a model
and a mediatrix, and to turn to Mary - as the Holy Father
does - is to put ourselves further on the road toward wholly
serving Christ.
Every year at this dinner I like to suggest to the graduating
seniors that they make Saint Thomas' prayer for after Holy
Communion their own, and now I suggest this to you as well.
Here is what Saint Thomas has to say, in part, in that prayer:
"May this sacrament perfect me in charity, in patience,
in humility, in obedience, and in all the other virtues."
I have always been struck by the fact that in Saint Thomas'
prayer we implore that the Eucharist perfect us in four virtues
that are explicitly named: charity, humility, obedience, and
patience. Upon reflection, I see that these virtues are especially
Marian virtues - consider Mary's great love of God, her humble
acceptance of and obedience to the divine plan, and her patient
endurance of her sufferings at the foot of the Cross. In reciting
Saint Thomas' prayer after Communion, we are asking, then,
that we become more like Mary herself.
So as you develop a plan of action and a plan of prayer
for your life after Thomas Aquinas College, let me
suggest that you follow the Holy Father's example and deepen
your devotion to Our Lady.
Finally, let me conclude this little talk by exhorting you
to pray for your parents in thanksgiving for the sacrifices
they have made to send you here, for the College's benefactors,
without whose support Thomas Aquinas College would not exist,
and for the College itself, that we might always do God's
will.
I pray that God will bless you all, that He will keep you
in His grace, and that He will guide you on your way as you
attempt to live out your adopted motto, Totus Tuus.
May He be with you always."
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Summer 2004
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