Academy of the Immaculate Conception - Pax Yearbook (Ferdinand, IN)

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ommencement A A Graduation Day June 4 at 2:30 the Senior Class entered the Convent Chapel for the last of its ceremonies. A very beautiful and inspiring address was given which will linger long in the thoughts of these graduates. After the Act of Consecration, the Seniors received their diplomas. Benediction with the Most Blessed Sacrament followed and the Hymn, Holy God, closed the Senior cere- monies for the class of 1939. Address by Father Cornelius Waldo, 0.S.B. If there is anything striking about Trinity Sunday, it is the emphasis placed on the teaching phase of Holy Mother Church's activities-an emphasis easily detected in the Gospel of today's Holy Mass. The question may well be asked on this your graduation day, What is the precise definition of Christian education? Verily, the proper function of any system of education, worthy of the name, is to bring about a change for the better in human kind. In short, it is simply a process of conversion, whereby rudeness yields to culture, the immature is replaced by the mature, and the individual is progressively freed from the domination of this lower nature and gains the mastery over himself, by reason of the fact, that his will becomes accustomed to deciding, not at the mere behest of immediate selfishness, but rather in strict accord with the dictation of a reason enlightened by Christian thought. The tiny babe, standing bewildered at the very threshold of life, is certainly not capable of caring for himself in human society, in spite of the fact that he is definitely a social being, the infant and the growing child learn to adjust themselves to the standards of the modern and complicated civilization in which they are forced to live. This implies that a complete revolution, deep and vital changes, must needs be wrought in the mind and heart of youth. You ask, what is educa- tion? The answer is simple, for the sum total of these drastic changes can be styled education in the strict sense of the word. Sooner or later in the life of every mortal there comes a perplexing question. Why does man exist? What is his nature, just what sort of a being is he? These are the questions upon which the very universe hinges, they are the first and last questions of life. Out of his own consciousness man must ask these questions. What is more, he must find an adequate answer, otherwise his life becomes sterile and fruitless. There is no answer sufficiently adequate, Catholicism maintains, except it be in the doctrine taught, revealed, and actually lived by that Man among men Who was in very truth a God Hinislelf, Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the wor . Even to the layman the implications of this particular view of life are indeed incalculably manifold. They do positively extend back- ward and forward through all time even to the gates of Eternityg in more or less detail they touch upon every aspect of life. What does it matter what a man believes, one hears day in and day out in this age of alleged pragmatic sanctions. There must needs be but one answer. It is the only thing does matter, unless essential lunacy is the very part and parcel of man's intellectual process. The stream of belief flows into the sea of action, determines and directs action, only by an act that abdicates reason can it be set aside. Man's entire scale of values is placed at stake. For the moment consider the answer to the first question under discussion as founded upon Catholic belief. Why does man exist? Man exists simply because God made him to know Him, to love Him, to serve Him on earth and to be happy with Him for all eternity in heaven. Every Catholic child learns this truth very early in life, and as life goes on, this thought takes on a much deeper and fuller meaning. It is only in the mind of the Creator that the secret of human destiny can be ascertained. Man exists pre- cisely because his Creator wants him to do so, and God wants man to exist for purposes that, even without aid, reason can faintly grasp, as did the great mind of Plato and Aristotle, but which the Almighty conde- scended to show us more completely through Divine Revelation, and in due time through His own Divine Son. Our Saviour established the Church to be as it were the living witness

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COIVIIVIENCEIVIENT to the truths so graciously presented by His Heavenly Father to man-yes, the Church was to be an infallible interpreter. Tender Mother that she is, the Bride of Christ on earth brings to the Catholic mind a deep knowledge of the Godhead. Not only does she present to man the dogmatic truths of her holy Faith, but, in the sphere of morals, she leads him on through the ways of virtue that a life of service born of heavenly love may inerit for him the happiness of an eternity of ove. The second question under consideration is, What is man, what is his nature? Once again, for the Catholic mind, the answer is not so difficult. Man is not a mere accident in the universe, the product of blind forces stirring the slime. He is far superior to any- thing in the animal kingdom, he is a little less than the angels. In short, he possesses a body, but the life principle in him is a spirit- ual immortal soul. Nor is it a mere fanciful thought that man has been made to the image and likeness of his God. Very likely, it is not altogether surprising to you that there are numerous men and women, totally different from you, living in the world you are to face on the morrow-men and women whose philosophy of life can not be defined as otherwise than wholly secular. They have long since arrived at the conclu- sion that man has no destiny beyond the tomb and that the reason for existence must be sought somewhere in the interim between the cradle and the grave. They admit readily enough that Christ lived centuries ago. How- ever they regard Him merely as an historical religious champion. In spite of the influence Christianity is bound to exert upon them, they refuse to solve the great questions of life by the tenets of the followers of Christ. Asceticism, they hold in disdain, and they look for happiness not in self-denial, but rather in its antithesis, self-indulgence. What a strict line of demarcation there is between the Catholic whose philosophy of life and philosophy of education are based upon self- conquest and the philosophies of those world- lings whose ideals are purely secular! The very idea of there being anything in common between these two camps is positively ridicu- lous. The two systems of education differ in content, method and aim. The one is purely of this world, the other cooperates with the grace of God to transform a child of the flesh into a child of the spirit. You may well be proud of the school you have been privileged to attend, the Academy which is your Alma Mater. A brief survey of the history of our glorious country reveals the fact, startling to many, that the private school and the Catholic school preceded the public school system, so prevalent in this our day. Sad to say, because of its attitude of neutrality in things religious, the public school has produced a generation educated, it is true, but not well rounded. Thorough edu- cation demands that religion be woven into the very warp and woof of the child's life. Christianity cannot be reduced to a mere rallying point for Sunday sentiment. Religion must needs be the very heart and soul of the discipline, curriculum, and atmosphere. If the growing child is to be thoroughly educated for time and eternity. Even such a mundane thing as the study of mathematics demands a religious touch. Between the covers of a modern textbook of mathematics, there is contained plenty of social and economic doc- trine which must be studied in the light of the teaching of Christ. A numerical figure is, after all, a social institution that really plays an important part in the thought and action of daily life. Hence, the contention that absolutely nothing in the educational field can be neglected, where the religious side is concerned, is not bizarre and pietistic. In all things the truth of Christ must be established. As the body must have food or it will perish, so, too, the mind must be sustained: its food is knowledge, its very life is truth. What is truth ? His pagan judge asked of Christ Himself, and there was no answer. Indeed, no answer was necessary, a few hours be- fore, while at supper with His followers, our Divine Saviour had said: My word is truth. He had also said to the multitude surrounding him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Obviously, we are not dealing here with truth in the scientific sense, of truth departmentalized. We are concerned with ultimate truth, and elemental reality. The working value and the practical success of the Christian principle in education have been amply demonstrated in each and every age of the glorious history of the Church, from the very time when the first followers of the saintly Benedict left the world yet dried up the swamps of a frontier Europe on their way to heaven, and either invented or preserved whatever they found to be worth while in a decaying civilization torn asunder by selfish men who cared not to concern themselves about anything beyond the mar-