Students Celebrate St. Thomas Day with Solemnity & High Jinks

The next day began with a community Mass at 9:00 a.m. A line of student acolytes processed down the aisle to “Adoro Te Devote,” followed by the tutors in full regalia, the chaplains, and finally, the celebrant, the Most Rev. Willam Byrne, Bishop of Springfield.

In his homily, his Excellency reflected on G.K. Chesterton’s account of St. Thomas’s effect on Catholicism. “‘He had no motive except the desire to make it popular, for the salvation of the people,’” the Bishop said, quoting Chesterton. “St. Thomas felt that the whole of his people were slipping on the solid Catholic discipline, worn through by a thousand years of routine. The Faith needed to be shown under a new light, and dealt with from another angle.”

Bishop Byrne spoke of the “Aristotelian revolution” Aquinas brought about with his writings, reviving and strengthening Catholicism by employing ancient philosophy. “We have one aim, and that is to save souls,” he concluded, calling to action all TAC students and faculty, as students of St. Thomas. “The Aristotelian revolution continues in you. It is yours. Please pray that it flows through you for a world that needs it so desperately.” 

After Mass and brunch, students made their way to Dolben Auditorium for the St. Thomas Day lecture, this year given by Dr. Kevin White, associate professor of the Catholic University of America’s School of Philosophy and a member of the Leonine Commission. Titled “‘Joy and Woe are Woven Fine:’ St. Thomas on Pleasure, Pain, and Learning,” Dr. White’s lecture laid out the bearing of pain and pleasure on the intellectual life, pulling from Aquinas’s two treatises on pleasure to determine their roles in the contemplation of the truth.

“Pleasure and pain are significant to St. Thomas because of their importance in the life of the intellect,” he said. “Joy and woe are indeed woven fine in our lives, as pleasure and pain are mixed together, so pain is inescapable in our present life, and can even be beneficial. But we were not made for pain. Because of the orientation of our human nature toward contemplation, knowing, and being aware of the highest things, St. Thomas suggests, rather, that we were made for delight.”

In the afternoon, a small group of students and faculty gathered in Billings Hall to bless the newly finished St. Thomas Study Room. Featuring the original desk of the College’s founding president, Dr. Ronald P. McArthur, the study room was created to offer students a quiet, cozy environment to study in before classes. Students sang the “Asperges Me” as Head Chaplain Rev. Greg Markey led the blessing, anointing the room with holy water.

Later on, after a semi-formal All College Dinner, the community gathered in the Bl. Frassati Student Center for the annual match of Trivial-Quadrivial Pursuits, a madcap game of trivia and high jinks, based on the College’s integrated curriculum. Per tradition, the students split into three teams, Grammarians, Logicians, and Rhetoricians, aptly named after the arts of the Trivium. A panel of tutors sat at the front of the room, and the game began!

The Grammarians entered first, with a dramatic depiction of the Israelites’ idolization of the Golden Calf, featuring team captains Georgiana Egan (’24) as Moses and Paul Habsburg (‘24) as Aaron. Next, Luke Cecchi and Eamonn O’Reilly (‘24) led the Logicians onto the scene as members of the Godfather’s mafia family, capturing the tutors’ attention with a murder and bad New York accents. Finally, the Rhetoricians entered, dressed as Pompeiians, who enjoyed the fine life until a volcano of their teammates overwhelmed them in a chaotic and slapstick battle.

When all three teams made their entrances, the rules were laid out and the game began! Each team took turns answering questions from one of six categories, according to the disciplines of the TAC curriculum, and practicing their sophistry abilities. After two hours of frantic team powwows, tutor bribery, and boisterous objections, the Rhetoricians came out on top!