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PRAYERS & GRATITUDE
Archbishop Gomez Blesses Plaques Honoring Dr. Dillon and Chapel’s Benefactors
Giving thanks to God “for Dr. Dillon and for all the kind and generous people who have built this school,” the Most Rev. José H. Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles, visited Thomas Aquinas College on April 15. The day marked both a solemn occasion and a joyous one — the fifth anniversary of the death of President Thomas E. Dillon, and the blessing of two bronze plaques and a Book of Gratitude that honor the benefactors of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel.
The morning began with Mass in the Chapel, for which Archbishop Gomez served as the principal celebrant and homilist. Afterward, the congregation reassembled in the Chapel’s loggia, where Archbishop Gomez blessed two new plaques, recently installed in recognition of the building’s major benefactors and those whom they chose to honor through their gifts. The Archbishop additionally blessed a new Book of Gratitude, which is now displayed just inside the Chapel’s main doors, listing the name of every donor to the Chapel project — some 3,200 in all.
His Excellency incensed the book and both plaques, ensconced in the loggia’s limestone north and south walls, then sprinkled them with holy water. In his blessing, he noted that, “the College has the great benefit of a worthy temple in which to offer prayers to Your divine majesty, ‘a chapel that teaches,’ and teaches the one thing necessary for man’s salvation: knowledge of God.”
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Archbishop Gomez’s Homily
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Archbishop Gomez blesses the plaques
Archbishop Gomez delivers his homily
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HONORING DR. DILLON
College Launches Memorial Scholarship Fund
On April 15, 2014 — the fifth anniversary of the death of Dr. Thomas E. Dillon — Thomas Aquinas College President Michael F. McLean announced the creation of a new scholarship fund, named in memory of the College’s late president. The Thomas E. Dillon Memorial Scholarship Fund will support the nearly 80 percent of Thomas Aquinas College students who require financial assistance.
“Everything Tom did for the College was for the sake of our students: to provide them with an education for the mind and the soul,” said Dr. McLean. “We can think of no more fitting way to honor him than to ensure that our present and future students can benefit from that same education.”
Among those present at the ceremony was Richard Grant, a good friend of Dr. Dillon and president of the Dan Murphy Foundation, which has made an extraordinary lead gift of $350,000 to inaugurate the Fund. The first $1 million raised in this fiscal year will cover the College’s remaining financial aid costs for the 2013-14 academic year, with any surplus funds directed into an endowment in Dr. Dillon’s name.
“Our hope is that the Tom Dillon Fund will provide not only for our current students, but also help to secure the College’s future,” explains Dr. McLean. Noting that there is little time left to raise the remaining funds before the end of the College’s fiscal year on June 30, Dr. McLean respectfully asks friends to contribute generously, and soon.
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Give to the Dillon Scholarship Fund
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Dr. Thomas E. Dillon
Dr. McLean and
Mr. Grant announce the creation of the Dillon Scholarship Fund
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REMEMBERING POPE SAINT jOHN PAUL II
Students, Alumni Celebrate Divine Mercy Canonizations
Over the course of the Easter Triduum, many Thomas Aquinas College students prayed about, read, and discussed the works of one the Church’s newest saints, Pope St. John Paul II. Led by College Chaplains Rev. Joseph Illo and Rev. Michael Chabarek, O.P., the retreat began with a presentation on the life of the late Holy Father, followed by studies of the Theology of the Body; the New Evangelization; the film Nine Days that Changed the World; and one of Karol Wojtyla’s plays. Conferences took place between the liturgies and rites of the Holy Triduum.
The following week, on the Feast of the Divine Mercy, Fr. Illo hosted a celebration of the canonizations of Pope St. John Paul II and Pope St. John XXIII. Students met in St. Ignatius of Loyola Hall, where they enjoyed ice cream and watched a recording of the previous night’s canonization ceremonies.
Meanwhile, a group of alumni in Denver marked the canonization with what Andrew Whaley (’05) described as, “an epic, all-day event.” Mr. Whaley is the owner of Calix Coffee, a consulting business, as well as the manager of the Tolle Lege Coffee Bar & Bookshop at the Augustine Institute in Greenwood Village, Colo. In that latter capacity he organized a tribute to the late Holy Father that began at noon on April 26, and then continued into the early morning of April 27 for the live broadcast of the canonization in Rome.
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Slideshow: The College and the Pope
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Pope St. John Paul II, painting by James Langley (’85))
“The Love that Saves,” by Maria Rangel (’99)
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The new saint with Dr. and Mrs. Dillon in 2003 |
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FAREWELL, FR. ILLO
Head Chaplain to Leave College, Found New Oratory
After an all-too-brief tenure as Thomas Aquinas College’s Head Chaplain, Rev. Joseph Illo will be departing this summer, with plans to establish a new oratory in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
At the invitation of His Excellency Salvatore J. Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco, Fr. Illo will become one of two priests at the city’s St. Mary, Star of the Sea, Church. “We will pastor a parish, of course, and support its school, and work on other pastoral initiatives as the Archbishop directs us,” Fr. Illo explains. “But none of our work will be effective if we don’t first ‘devote ourselves to the teaching of the Apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers’ (Acts 2).”
The priestly communal life that he intends to foster in San Francisco, Fr. Illo says, is modeled after the sort that he experienced over the last two years as a chaplain at the College. “Every day here, the three of us priests, with some students and teachers, pray the morning office together. I can’t describe the joy and energy with which these prayers fill me,” he says. “This is what we hope for in the Oratory: a common life of prayer, familiar discourse on the Word of God, and the continual exercise of fraternal charity.”
“We will keep Fr. Illo and his oratory in our prayers,” says Thomas Aquinas College President Michael F. McLean. “We consider ourselves blessed for his two years of service here, and we are grateful to God and to his diocese for sharing him with us. We pray that the Oratory thrives, and we have no doubt that, under Fr. Illo’s guidance, it will.”
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Fr. Illo’s Farewell Remarks to the College
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Rev. Joseph Illo
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VOCATIONS VISITS
Religious Communities Meet with Students
A pilgrim, working his way across the United States — and back — paid a visit to Thomas Aquinas College in early May.
On July 25, 2013, the Feast of St. James, Mark Byerly left Delaware to begin a journey of prayer, penance, and fasting on behalf of the Church and the world. He will not return until he has visited 150 shrines, one for each Hail Mary in the 15-decade Rosary. For his purposes, Mr. Byerly has defined “shrines” as “churches of perpetual adoration, any shrines of saints, basilicas, monasteries, and mission churches.” He has also included in his itinerary certain Catholic colleges that “represent the kind of renaissance that Catholic education needs.”
Mr. Byerly stayed two nights as a guest of the College, during which time he took his meals in St. Joseph Commons and attended Mass in Our lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel. The first campus on his route, Thomas Aquinas College was one of “a select few” schools that Mr. Byerly chose for his visit, institutions “that have been around for a while, that have made it through Vatican II, and have come out shining,” he says.
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Mark Byerly |
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