Nazareth Academy - Lanthorn Yearbook (Rochester, NY)

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REV. WILLIAM P. RYAN Instructor in Religion

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RT. REV. THOMAS F. HICKEY, D. D., Who through many years as prinripal and as instructor, and later through the larger influence of his high office, has been a constant and telling factor in the 'work of Nazareth Academy

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TWENTY-ow lfwawvmfasesw The Name of Nazareth ACRED is the name of Nazareth, intertwined forever with two other names, the sublimest ever honored on the lips of men and angels. .lt was a little flower, Nazareth of old, almost lost in a hollow of the hills of Lebanon, untrampled by a mighty nation's armies and unsung by its poets and its prophets, still it lived in lowly loveliness unto the coming of the memoried Spring of prophecy fulfilled, when there came forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a fiower rose up out of his root, and the spirit of the Lord was upon Him. Then the pale beauty of the valley violet was miracled into the radiant splendor of a rose, beautiful forever in the eyes of Christian generations, and benisoned forever in their loving, grateful souls. Jesus of Nazareth, men called Him whom the Almighty Father called His Beloved Son. Mary of Nazareth she was whom the Almighty Father honored with the motherhood of His Son Divine made man. It was in Nazareth that Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace with God and men. It was in Nazareth that Mary kept many wondrous words in her heart, the while she mothered the sublimest Youth that ever thrilled to ecstacy the flaming splendor of a mother's love. The Nazareth of old is gone, the one that fills its place today in Palestine, save for the Shrine that marks its holiest spot, is naught, but the name of Nazareth fills all the Christian earth, and eve-rywhere is redolent with sweetest fragrance breathed from Life's sublimest Youth and Youth's sublimest Mother. They nobly dared who chose for our Academy the name of Nazareth 5 but they were wise and happy in their choice, perhaps inspired. They had no vision of a golden jubilee to come, or of the many more than golden jubilees that wait upon the future, revealing the fullness of the fruiting of the dream they dreamed what time they builded upon faith and hope and love and prayer their little school. They were not in any even noblest sense mere earthly dreamers. From their youth they had a vision more sublime and more inspiring than any ever imaged or imagined by the noblest artistry of earth, a vision limned by God's own power and love upon the imperishable canvas of their souls, wherein they saw the purposes sublime of God for man, the dignity and worth of human life endowed with immortality and destined for eternal happiness with God, and the power of human life sublimed by faith and sanctified by goodness, a vision panoramic of the life of man in God, a manger-cradle lifted to a place of glory beside the throne of God, God's perfect beauty shining in the eyes of a little Child, a maid of earth called unto motherhood of God, a humble home of earth set down among celestial mansions in the Father's House, a wooden cross enthroned upon a golden dais in the central Holy of Holies, earth-shadows fleeing from the light forth-streaming from the face of God, temples erected on the hills of time and earth with towers mounting unto God's eternal Heaven, graces descending from God's heart of inexhaustible love and souls ascending ever unto coronation days of endless life. And when God called them to a consecrated service in the education of His children on the earth, they studied deep their vision, to learn how best to serve. Then flashed before their eyes a Child advancing in wisdom and in grace with God and men, a Mother lovlngly and wisely guarding the advance, a little hillside village that the Child and Mother called their home through many golden years. And when they built their school, they called it Nazareth. -Rev. W. P. Ryan. Nine