St Mary Preparatory High School - Eagle Yearbook (Orchard Lake, MI)

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i' E131 Friwis lmlfif' L ::giz..:--zz: 4 S,- fig?'seiissiiffisfti-ara if Seite? - ::f2f,s-Rupees 'smelt' ff. -5.123-if? iftiggi -fflsieisi-fgie-4143333 Q, .1-evffgsistlyn - news eff-ss fm.-Q sy- ti-gsssaffist -fi skfsissfgseii'2-fissile ' .ees -We mlm' ses A - -s .J t. fmsiigeflf 1 f CUSTOMS, CULTURE AND TRADITION The mark of an intelligent person is his knowledge of his personal relationship to the past and to the future, to the nation of which he is now a part and to the nation or nations from which de- scended his forefathers. Without such a knowledge he is unable to understand fully himself, his character, his environment, his place in the world at large. The current American interest in the past of its inhabitants, in the lands of their origin and their peoples, in the forbears of their friends and rela- tives-in-law is an encouraging sign of intellectual and cultural maturity. For almost two hundred years the foreign was frowned upon, despised and condemned. Per- haps it was the immigrant's natural and understandable inferiority and self-consciousness which prompted him to take this unreasonable view when in reality he should have despised and condemned only that in the foreign which was worthy of condemnation: ignorance, destitution, iniustice, and narrowmindedness. This tragic American bias against retaining anything foreign has in fact harmed America, for it has closed its eyes to and deprived it of so much that has beauty, wonder, and value. Civilization, culture, and tradition do not come into being out of nothing, they are the outgrowth of a dynamic process of evolution. Every immigrant coming to America forthe past one hundred and fifty years has brought with him his native culture, customs, and traditions. By retaining them in his daily life, he has given the land of his adoption an opportunity to adopt and incorporate into its own nascent and developing culture the best of that in his possession. It should not be possible, therefore, for any one culture to dictate to another, for any one culture to forbid to another to contribute something of its own, for any one culture to stand in the way and block the efforts made at enriching the great American endowment. These groups of immigrants make no demands from any other immigration, out ofthe goodness of their hearts, they want only to give something to them all, they want only the privilege of sharing with them, of being allowed to share with them what to them is true, good, and beautiful. lt is a logical consequence that with this promising reawakening of interest in the past each na- tional group should try to present to a modern world, which has in so many thoughtless and some- times lamentable ways broken ties with the old world, where the children in so many cases never hear the sound of the language in which their very own parents were lulled to sleep, an appreciation and insight into the lives and characters of their forbears. in

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he Church of Christ, the faithful depository of the teaching of Divine Wisdom, cannot and does not think of deprecating or disdaining the particular characteristics which each people, with iealous and intelligible pride, cherishes and retains as a precious heritage. Her aim is a supernatural union in all embracing love, deeply felt and practiced, and not the unity which is exclusively external and superficial and by that very fact weak. The Church hails with ioy and follows with her maternal blessing every method of guidance and care which aims at a wise and orderly evolution of particular forces and tendencies having their origin in the individual character ot each race, provided that they are not opposed to the duties incumbent on men from their unity of origin and common destiny. Pius XII Summi Pontificatus Man, as God wants him and the Church accepts him will never consider himself as firmly fixed in space and time if stripped of secure property and traditions. Herein the strong find the source of their ardent and fruitful vitality, and the weak, who are always the maiority, are protected against pusillanimity and apathy, against slipping from their dignity as men. The long experience of Church educators of people confirm it, accordingly she is careful in every way to ioin the religious life to national customs and is par- ticularly solicitous of those whom emigration or military service keeps far from their native land. Shipwreck of so many souls iusti- fies, alas, this maternal apprehension of the Church, and imposes the conclusion that the security of property and attachment to ancient traditions, which are indispensable to the healthy integrity of man, are also fundamental elements of human society. Men established in their inviolable integrity as images of God, men proud of their personal dignity and of their healthy free- dom, men, iustly jealous of their equality with their fellows in all that touches the most essential bases of man's dignity, men firmly attached to their land and traditions-men in a word, characterized by this four-fold element. Continuity in time had always appeared essential to life in society, and it seemed that this could not be conceived if men were isolated from the past, present, and future. Now this is precisely the disturbing phenomenon of which we are today witnesses. Too often of the past hardly anything is any longer known, or, at most, -55 33, is sufficient to guess at its hazy outlines in the accumulatipp f if ruins. The present is, for many, only the dis- ordered rush bf aif g nt, which carries men like drift on its head- long course to thgiiyqk night of a future in which they will lose themselves with tli?gr?am that bears them on. 5 fi Pius xu ifiaidaress to the College of Cardinals 5311215-iggbruary, 1946. People arefb instructed in the truths of faith and brought to appreciate the ioys of religion far more effectively by the annual celebratiorggff . Xe sacred mysteries than by even the weighti- est pronouncemejiijtfgjg the teaching Church. For such pronounce- ments reach onlptf iafew, and these generally the more learned, whereas all the fa are stirred and taught by the celebration of the feasts, prono?t5g ments speak only once, celebrations speak annually, and as continuously, pronouncements affect the mind primarily, ceigiigsltions have a salutary influence on the mind and heart, i.e. on-itlffx hole man. Since man is composed of body and soul, he has of being moved and stimulated by the ex- ternal solemnitiesibfg,fstivals. And such is the variety and beauty of the sacred rites, will drink more deeply of divine truths, will assimilate them s very fiesh and blood, and will make them a source of strengt?iQVa?,L progress in his spiritual life. Primas The ritual of Church services, the sacred symbols, the tradi- tional religious exercises, the church architecture and decorations, and the parish societies, all contribute a great deal to the conserva- tion of the traditional values of the ethnic group. The group's religion and its culture complement each other most completely . . . each working to reinforce and to preserve the other. S. J. Nuesse and T. J. Horte, eds. The Sociology ofthe Parish ln looking after the interests of the rural community, rural leaders will not underestimate the racial and cultural history of the people of the community, but will rather seek to preserve what is best in their traditions, so as to inspire love of family, loyalty to country, and devotion to Christ's Church. National Catholic Rural Life Conference Manifesto on Rural Life . . lt is a matter of appreciating what there may be of Old World culture in the soul of even the poorest and most ignorant im- migrant who has found his way to the United States. It is to be re- gretted that many immigrants conform so quickly and completely in all respects to American standards and become genuinely ashamed of their heritage. The man with two cultural homes is much less to be feared than the man who has none at all. Carl Wittke, Ph.D. We Who Built America The notion that every problem can be studied without the background of tradition must condemn men to a chronic childish- ness. No man, no generation is capable of rediscovering all the truths men need. The men of any generation, as Bernard of Chartres puts it, are like dwarfs seated on the shoulders of giants. In develop- ing knowledge men must collaborate with their ancestors. Other- wise they must begin, not where their ancestors arrived, but where the ancestors began. Walter Lippman Address in Philadelphia, December 29, 1940 These heritages-these traditions and memories-are very real and tenacious, and cannot be brushed aside lightly without sad results. Americanization movements have been inclined to set the heritages aside and make abrupt breaks with the past. This has brought disorganization. 'To require that he fthe immigrantj forget the home of his birth is neither necessary nor desirable. Memory may enrich the present while it sanctifies the past. Destroy it, and we have by that much less a man.' W. C. Smith Americans in the Making Working counter to the welfare associations, and materially slowing up the process of assimilation are the American anti-alien groups .... Paradoxical as it may seem, the most valuable aid in the transition stage is the promotion of the exactly opposite program from that desired by ardent patriots, namely, the stimulation of in- terest and enthusiasm for Old World cultural traditions. This furnishes a social bond to hold the rudderless until the transition is com plete. There is no danger that it will become divisive because participation in the dominant American system is inescapable. Clara A. Hardin The Second Generation lt is a high privilege to bear witness to the debt which this country owes to men of Polish blood. Gratefully we acknowledge