| Stay Connected |
|
|
| |
CAMPUS LIFE
MULTIMEDIA |
| |
|
 |
College Helps Launch Little League Season |
| |
|
 |
Slideshow:
The Class of 2016 “Rejuniorates” |
| |
|
 |
Lecture Audio: Lincoln & Democracy |
| |
|
 |
Slideshow: Midterm Campus Blood Drive |
| |
|
 |
Slideshow:
Open Mic
Night |
| |
|
 |
Slideshow:
Spring Schubertiade |
| |
|
 |
Slideshow: Class Volleyball Tournament |
| |
|
 |
Slideshow:
Norton Simon Museum |
| |
|
 |
Slideshow: Women’s Weekend Hike |
| |
|
 |
Slideshow:
Mardi Gras
Dance |
| |
|
 |
Slideshow: The 2015 Cookie Bake-Off |
| |
|
 |
Audio:
Dr. Decaen on the Burning Bush |
| |
|
 |
Slideshow: Renderings of
St. Cecilia Hall |
| |
|
 |
| |
|
| UPCOMING EVENTS |
| |
Memorial Mass for Edward N. Mills
March 20 (11:30 a.m.) |
| |
Student Performance: Shakespeare’s Othello
March 21 (7:30 p.m.) |
| |
Lecture: Dr. Mark Blitz
Claremont McKenna College
On Plato’s Political Philosophy
March 27 (7:30 p.m.) |
| |
Palm Sunday
March 29 |
| |
Holy Thursday
April 2 |
| |
Student Triduum Retreat
April 2-4 |
| |
Easter Recess
April 2-8 |
| |
Holy Saturday
April 4 |
| |
Easter Sunday
April 5 |
| |
Anniversary of the Death of College President Thomas E. Dillon
April 15 |
| |
Spring Concert: The Thomas Aquinas College Choir
April 17 (7:00 p.m.) |
| |
East Coast Alumni Dinner
April 18 |
| |
 |
| |
| IN MEMORIAM |
| |
Rose L. Perkins
June 16, 2014
Legacy Society member
Mary Therese Barr
January 24, 2015
Mother of Noreen Barr (’79); grandmother of Jack (’09), Molly (’11), Maggie (’13), Martin (’16), and Patrick McCann (’17)
William Quinn
February 12, 2015
Legacy Society member
Philomene Augustine Ragni
February 18, 2015
Son of Jorge Ragni (’91)
Charles E. Rice
February 25, 2015
Friend
Dr. John J. McAndrews
March 2, 2015
President’s Council member
M. Stanton Evans
March 3, 2015
Member of the Board of Visitors
Rev. Gerard George Steckler, S.J.
March 5, 2015
Chaplain, 1982 – 1993
Richard T. Walsh
March 5, 2015
Father of Cathy Walsh (’80), benefactor
David Halpin (’79)
March 6, 2015
Husband of Natalie (St. Arnault ’80) and father of Rose (’06) and Margaret Tannoury (’08)
|
 |
|
|
ST. CECILIA HALL
Fritz B. Burns Foundation Awards Grant for
New Lecture & Concert Hall
The Fritz B. Burns Foundation of Los Angeles has graciously awarded Thomas Aquinas College one of the largest grants in the College’s 44-year-history — $8.5 million for the construction of a new lecture and concert building, St. Cecilia Hall.
“We are profoundly grateful to the Fritz B. Burns Foundation, which has generously supported the College since our founding, for making what is, by far, its largest contribution to date,” says President Michael F. McLean. “We are also delighted to announce the construction of St. Cecilia Hall, which will be a blessing to our students and our friends for many years to come.”
Located on the southwest corner of the academic quadrangle, adjacent to St. Gladys Hall and Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel, St. Cecilia Hall will host the biweekly events that make up the College’s St. Vincent DePaul Lecture and Concert Series. “Thanks to the Foundation, we will soon have a facility worthy of the excellent speakers and musicians that we regularly bring to campus,” says Dr. McLean. “We look forward to making the new building a place of welcome, where friends and neighbors can come to experience a key part of the life of the College.”
Full story 
Designs and renderings
|
|
Front view
Rear view
View from the athletic fields
View from across the quadrangle
|
|
|
COMMENCEMENT 2015
Sr. Regina Marie Gorman, O.C.D., to Serve as Speaker; Rev. Joseph Illo to Offer Baccalaureate Mass
In keeping with His Holiness Pope Francis’s call for a Year of Consecrated Life, Thomas Aquinas College has selected as its 2015 Commencement Speaker one of the preeminent women religious in the United States, Sr. Regina Marie Gorman, O.C.D.
The vicar general of the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles, Sr. Regina Marie has graciously accepted President Michael F. McLean’s invitation to serve as this year’s speaker. Sr. Regina Marie is the former chair of the board of directors for the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR), a national organization of religious communities that is faithful to the Holy Father and the magisterium.
The May 16 Commencement exercises will begin, as is the College’s custom, with a Baccalaureate Mass for graduates and their families. Serving as the principal celebrant will be a dear friend of Thomas Aquinas College, Rev. Joseph Illo, who was a chaplain at the College from 2012 to 2014, and is now the pastor of San Francisco’s Star of the Sea Parish.
Full story
|
|
Sr. Regina Marie Gorman, O.C.D.
Rev. Joseph Illo
|
|
|
FAITH IN ACTION
Highlights from the College’s Alumni Blog
• Please pray for alumna Jillian Cooke (’04), who, by God’s grace, will soon be making her perpetual profession of vows with the Father Kolbe Missionaries of the Immaculata. “From the seeds planted at TAC,” she recently wrote in a note to College President Michael F. McLean, “the Lord has worked wonders in my life.” Miss Cooke is a consecrated member of the Fr. Kolbe Missionaries, a worldwide secular institute of pontifical right. Her perpetual vows will take place on March 21 at St. Christopher Church in West Covina, California.
• “If McDonald’s told its employees that it was unacceptable to diss its fast food as gross, disgusting, or unhealthy at either McDonald’s or in a public setting,” asks alumna journalist Katrina Trinko (’09), “would it elicit a heated reaction from lawmakers?” The answer: “Probably not.” Yet for myriad reasons, when the Most Rev. Salvatore J. Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco and the College’s 2008 Convocation Speaker, made a similar demand of the teachers in his schools, several California politicians called for an investigation. In a new column at the Daily Signal, Miss Trinko — the online magazine’s managing editor — examines the criticism and complaints, and finds them wanting.
• David O’Reilly (’87) is the subject of a featured article in Good Fruit Grower magazine, which declares that the alumnus vintner “has perfected the art of producing high quality wines and matching them with stories that resonate.” The article describes how, through this combination of superior craftsmanship and creative storytelling, Mr. O’Reilly, owner of the Owen Roe winery in Washington’s Yakima Valley, has achieved great success in the competitive wine industry. It also notes that he graduated from Thomas Aquinas College, where “he studied the great minds of Aristotle and Plato,” and “left believing he could do anything.”
The Faith in Action Blog
|
|
Jillian Cooke (’04)
Katrina Trinko (’09)
David O’Reilly (’87)
|
|
|
WHY WE STUDY ...
The Beauty, Majesty, and Awe of God’s Revelation
By Dr. Brian T. Kelly (’88)
At the beginning of the school year, President McLean spoke to the students, and especially the freshmen, about why we study Sacred Scripture. He pointed out that theology as a science depends on God’s revealed word for its very starting points. The Bible is an important source of the revelation necessary for the science of Sacred Theology. Dr. McLean also told the students that reading the Scriptures carefully would stir up in them a sense of wonder about theological matters. Today I want to supplement Dr. McLean’s comments by talking about how we read the Bible.
During the Freshman Year we read nearly all of the Bible, omitting only the two books of Chronicles, in our normal discussion mode. In order to accomplish this feat, we have to proceed with some haste, but we are not aiming to plumb the depths of each individual text. If we were to read just the Gospel of John, for example, at the pace that that text merits, we could spend the whole year or longer. Our goal, however, is more modest: to make an intelligent first reading of Sacred Scripture, familiarizing students with its length and breadth, so that they can formally begin the study of Sacred Theology in their Sophomore Year.
Continue reading
The Complete “Why We Study” Series
|
|
Dr. Brian T. Kelly
 Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam |
|
|
SUMMER SEMINARS 2015
“Choice and Moral Responsibility”
The College continues in its efforts to share the blessing of its intellectual and spiritual life with friends old and new, near and far.
Several weeks ago it hosted a seminar, “On Human Dignity & Religious Freedom,” for some 32 Catholic executives and their spouses at the Legatus Summit in Naples, Florida. Members of the international organization of Catholic business executives considered questions of religious liberty and freedom of conscience, guided by the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae.
Then, in early March, the College welcomed Knights and Dames of Malta from the greater Los Angeles area to campus for a day of reflection on a Lenten theme, “Faith and Suffering.” Rev. Msgr. Salvatore Pilato, superintendent for Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, led the day’s events, which consisted of presentations and discussions in St. Gladys Hall, as well the Rosary, Stations of the Cross, Mass, and Benediction in Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel.
“It was great to introduce so many of my fellow Legates and Knights to different facets of the life of the College,” says President Michael F. McLean. “We look forward to many more such events in the future.”
|
|
Legatus seminar
Order of Malta visit |
|
|
