St Bernards High School - Bernardian Yearbook (Fitchburg, MA)

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St. Bernard’s High School was but twelve years old when the hurricane of September 21, 1938, wreaked such havoc on the school campus. Its force was apparent when it tore up from its roots, a gigantic willow tree and left its huge trunk lying flat on the ground. The old willow tree was dead but in dying it continued to live in the little willow sapling which soon appeared and with the years grew into the present green and leafy tree pictured. We live in a very beautiful section of God’s world. Surrounding us are tree- covered hills with Mt. Wachusett towering solitary above them. The psalmist, centuries ago, gazing upon the lofty mountains, was inspired to utter the words of Psalm 120: I lift up my eyes toward the mountains; whence shall help come to me? My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” Like the psalmist, these hills, and all the visible world, should lift us up, as an escalator, to a recognition of the hand of God behind all creation and give Him credit and thanks for all His works. For a poet, such as Joyce Kilmer, a tree “looks at God all day, and lifts her leafy arms to pray.” One need not be poetical in order to realize that under the instruction of Jesus, the Divine Teacher, trees, flowers, birds, etc., became ever- present messengers of the invisible: “Look at the birds of the air: they do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of much more value than they?... See how the lilies of the field grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field... how much more you, O you of little faith.” Matt. 6, 26-20. If Jesus lived visibly in our midst today, a streamlined train, a jet plane, the Empire State building, etc., would not be to Him mere triumphs of science in which man takes all the credit to himself. He would see in them opportunities to pay tribute to God who gives to man his capacity for fine engineering. He would mount from them up to the infinite intelligence of the Designer of the universe. FITCHBURG PUBLIC LIBRARY FITCHBURG, MASS.

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