St Basil High School - Basilite Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

Page 14 text:

To The Graduates Of 1954 What else can I say in addressing you, who have the honor of graduating in the Marian Year, than to recom end you to the benign care of our Heavenly Mother and to exhort you to r main forever faithful to her? You should consider yourselves singularly privileged in being the Graduates of this blessed 19545 you should look upon it as a distinction. If you adhere to our Blessed Lady, you will have an advocate for time and eternity. In Mary you can find all help and consolation, all guidance and direction, all strength and grace which you will ever need in life. In every probl m that presents itself she will show her- self as a Mother, in every temptation and danger she will prove to be your safety and protection. She knows how to help, and there is not a single phase in your life into which she does not fit. It pleases me to know that you have dedicated your Year Book to Mary, the Star of the Sea. Perhaps we inhabitants of the inland do not realize, as do the mariners, what is implied in this beautiful title. We are not accustomed to gaze upon the stars as the sea-faring people: but still we should have no difficulties in understanding the importance of the stars to those who are tossed upon the boundless main. We can make ourselves realize, however, that we are traversing a sea, the sea of life. Our destiny is the shore of Eternity and--a hard truth it is-- there is no turning back upon the course. Steadily and surely we are moving along over the sea which, at times, is calm and serene, and at other times stormy and furious, but like a dependent sailor we need the guiding star. To us, this is Mary, An old refrain repeats Stellam, Voca Mariam, which means St. Bernard says so beautifully: which in giving forth its light, forth her Son without stain to her lessens not its brightness, so the her virgin1ty.' Look, dear Graduates, to very sight of the Star be to you a the Star of the Sea. o'er and o'er these words: Respice 'Look to the Star, call upon Mary!' 'Fitly is Mary compared to a star, suffers no waning, since she brought virginity. As the ray of the star Son of Mary detracted in no way from this Star, call upon Mary! Let the reminder as well as an inducement to remain true to her. When assailed with temptations and sorely tried: Look to the Star, call upon Mary! When perplexed and wearied with the difficulties that beset life: Look to the Star: call upon Mary! When vexed by doubts or clouded with sadness: Look to the Star, call upon Mary! When reviled and persecuted, when misrepresented and misunder- stood, in sickness and in suffering, ln grief and in sorrow: Look to the Starg call upon Mary! But also in joys and gladness do not forget your guiding Star, and finally as life slowly begins to ebb, and the tide starts going out forever, and when you realize that you are bidding Adieu to the things of the world: Look to the Starg call upon Mary! My dear Graduates, hold fast to Mary and never let a day of your life pass by without a little prayer to her. By your fidelity to her you may expect that she will be your stand-by 'now and at the hour of death'. I beg to conclude with the following thought from the pen of the noted Father Faber: 'Thou, Mary, art my hope and life The starlight of this earthly str1fe.' Sincerely yours in Christ, 'hwy WV

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