College of the Holy Cross - Purple Patcher Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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iiliiiiiiii Q - W A Rev. John E. Brooks. S.J. S.T.D., Gregorian University President I Rev. Paul F. Harman. S.J. Rev. Raymond A. Schroth. S.J. S.T.L.. Weston College Ph.D.. The George Washington University Vice President Dean

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A SANCT46, R PM WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS Ol6'lO QWMPBQ? e'umW. -G Q COLLEGE OF THE HOLY CROSS is ,Jf?xa CE OF THE PRES l May l983 Dear Members of the Class of l983, Thornton Wilder concluded his most celebrated novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, with the haunting sentence: There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning. Re-reading that line takes me back in memory to September 4, l979 when I addressed you, the Class of l983, as part of Freshman Orientation. On that occasion I offered a few recollections on the value of a liberal arts education as it can be experienced at Holy Cross as well as some comments on the nature of a Jesuit undergraduate college. In brief, I said that the goal of your four years at Holy Cross was to learn to speak the heart's love with the mind's conviction. It would come as no surprise to me to learn that the memory of the entertainment provided by the visiting hypnotist burns brighter than your recollection of my address to you as freshmen. Permit me, now, one final return to my theme of four years ago. It is simply this. The beginning of all true wisdom is the love we have for one another as human beings. with patience, openness, good will, dis- cernment, and above all, with God's grace, I hope you have learned more than a little about love at Holy Cross. Let me say it more directly: if, at the end of four years, you have not learned to love, then you have learned nothing at all. Education is ultimately moral - and no matter how much you claim to have learned, it will come to nothing if you yourself have not emerged as a person capable of loving. I grant you that it is possible to love and still be illiterate. But if anyone ever tries to tell you that any sort of wisdom or literacy can be had at the price of love, turn your back and walk rapidly awayi It may take us a lifetime to appreciate it,but HLittle children, love one another,H is the first and last admonition we must all learn to heed. God's blessings follow you always! Sincerely, CRe John E. Brooks, s.J. '