Dr. O’Reilly’s 2025 Matriculation Address

Audio / podcast

Dr. Paul J. O’Reilly
President, Thomas Aquinas College
 

As you begin here at Thomas Aquinas College, I want to speak briefly about what you should expect from the College: how the formation you receive here over the next four years will change you; that is, what kind of person you will become. You will discover that there is so much that the College has to offer you if you devote yourself to the program. What’s truly at stake is the formation of a certain kind of soul, a soul so formed that you will become someone who understands and loves the truth, lives well with others, and has the desire and capacity to improve the community you live in.

A number of years ago, the Thomas Aquinas College faculty considered what are the virtues we expect our students to acquire by the time they graduate. It is good to reflect on this, because you best achieve what TAC has to offer if you are aware from the beginning. Let me start with a few words about the moral virtues that typify a Thomas Aquinas College graduate. 

There are four moral virtues you should expect to acquire. The moral virtues: love of the intellectual life, confidence that one can come to know the truth, humility to recognize that you need help along the path to wisdom, and love for the common good. 

Note: You do not become virtuous by chance, but by habitual practice.

1. You must cultivate a love of the intellectual life — a love born from wonder. Plato says philosophy begins in wonder, and here, in a world filled with noise and distraction, you are invited to wonder about the highest things: truth in all its various aspects.
2. You will need confidence: confidence that the truth can be known. This is not naïve optimism. It’s a conviction grounded in the reality that we are made for truth and that, especially under the light of the teaching Church and in the company of your fellow students, you can make real progress toward it.
3. You will need humility — perhaps more than you expect — humility to admit what you don’t yet know, to accept correction, to ask for help. Humility to learn from the great thinkers with reverence, and above all, humility to let reality, not opinion, be your measure. As St. Thomas teaches, we must conform our minds to what is, not try to bend truth to our will.
4. And finally, you must come to love the common good. This means not just studying for yourself but living and learning for others — for your family, your country, and your Church. Your education is not for private self-improvement but for generous service.

Now, alongside these moral habits, you will cultivate intellectual virtues. These are intellectual virtues broadly speaking: the habits of mind that help you seek and understand what is true. 

1. You will begin to see the distinctions among the disciplines: the difference between mathematics and natural science, between history and poetry, and between philosophy and theology. Each subject has its proper mode, its principles, its kind of precision. 
2. But you will also discover the unity of the disciplines — how all the disciplines illuminate one another and how theology, because it proceeds from divine revelation, rightly stands as the Queen of the Sciences. 
3. Also, you will come to understand that the order of the disciplines reflects the profound order of the world: that there is a relationship between the non-living and the various kinds of natural living beings; further, that there is a kind of life that transcends the material world.
4. And as you gain these intellectual virtues, you will develop the ability to converse fruitfully and charitably with others. You will practice this every day in class. Discussion is not just a method here — it is part of the goal. Learning to speak clearly, to listen carefully, to disagree honorably is essential to liberal education.

Now, all of this — this pursuit of truth — requires discipline, effort, and perseverance. “Men do not create truth; they discover it. Nature loves to hide.” She reveals herself not to the arrogant or the passive, but to those who are docile and industrious: those willing to meet her on her terms.

You will also discover that philosophers often don’t disagree simply about what is true or false but about what comes first: what comes first in being or in knowledge. And it is in wrestling with these foundational matters that your mind will be shaped most profoundly.

But make no mistake: You are the primary agent in your education. No one here will pour knowledge into your soul. Your tutors will guide, question, and propose, but it’s your task to think, to wrestle, to discover. If you fail to see for yourself, you fail to learn.

So how should you prepare to inculcate these virtues while you are here at TAC?

Let me suggest four things:

1. Prepare for class: read and participate, and therefore plan ahead.)
2. Avoid distraction, especially smartphones.
3. Cultivate friendships. Friendship is a way to virtue because good friends encourage what is best for you. So, here that means friends who encourage preparation for class and help with the avoidance of distractions, among other things.
4. Develop a deep spiritual life, as grace builds on and perfects nature.

So, take heart. You are beginning something noble and difficult, and in the end, you will receive an education for a lifetime. With wonder, humility, confidence, and charity you will grow into the kind of person who seeks truth, loves what is good, and is capable of giving to others what has been received.

May God bless you.

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