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

Page 6 text:

ALE His Holiness POPE PAUL VI FITCHP''’C Prcr'e aka FITUsucuUhso, M.aSS.

Page 5 text:

y) VOLUME XL BERNARDIAN Presented by the Senior Class St. Bernard’s High School Fitchburg, Massachusetts

Page 7 text:

On that final day of Vatican II, when Pope Paul was summing up four years of work that went into the Council, the last group to receive specific attention was Christian Youth: “Lastly, it is to you, young men and women of the world, that the Council wishes to address its final message. For it is you who are to receive the torch from the hands of your elders and to live in the world at the period of the most gigantic transformation ever realized in its history. It is you who are to form the society of tomorrow. You will either save yourselves or you will perish with it. The Church is anxious that this society which you are going to build up should respect the dignity, the liberty and the rights of individuals. These individuals are you. The Church is particularly anxious that this society should allow free expansion of her treasure, ever ancient and ever new, namely faith, and that your souls may be able to bask freely in its helpful light. She has confidence that you will know how to affirm your faith in life and in what gives meaning to life, that is to say, the certitude of the existence of a just and good God.” Though at times today our faith may seem to be weak and we are inclined to doubt, itis still God’s world and He is running it along His own lines. God has a place for me in this plan, and apart from this place in His plan I have no meaning. God is presenting to us today the same challenge, the same plea that echoed across Galilean hills two thousand years ago, when Christ first spoke of the poor, the hungry, and the sick. Because we are Christians, followers of Christ, we must feel a responsibility for the world. As never before, the hungry, and the sick, and the lonely are on our doorstep. We will pass them by and go about our business as usual, only at the peril of our souls, as did the rich man in the parable, who ignored the beggar at his doorstep. The commandment of love is the entire Christian moral code. John said that the Christian cannot prove his love of God except by his love of man. One who loves his neighbor will not violate the commandments. Matthew, 25:31-46, contains a parable of an assembly of all men before the Son of Man, who divides them into two groups. The sole question on which they are divided is the rendering of service to others—I was hungry and you gave me to eat; | was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in; I was sick and you visited me.