St Marys Academy - Echo Yearbook (Hoosick Falls, NY)

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Principal's Letter To The Graduates Dear Graduates. We Have spoken to you about change, and abqut how it is essential for you to be able to have some control over the influences that are going to transform you from what you are into what you are going to be. We would like speak to you now about the importance of your remaining the same. If you feel that there are qualities of real value in your character, if you can see an appreciable worth in the ideals you have acquired up to the present time if there appears to you consid- erable merit in the goals you have set for yourself in the future, then you are well on your way to becoming a mature and responsible human being. Keep those qualities in your character intact, make sure you retain your ideals, and never give up striving for the goals you have set for yourself as long as they remain worthwhile. There are certain qualities that are found in every good person, qualities which lend a spirituality to our human nature, qualities which you should cherish as priceless gifts, qualities which you should pro- tect against the slow erosion of change. First and foremost of these is the awareness of God. the ever-pres- ent consciousness that you have been created by God. that you are preserved in existence by God. and that it is your intention and His that you will eventually be united to Him in perfect happiness for all eternity. This is why you were made. This is an unchanging goal. If you miss this, all else is empty froth. The good person has a well-developed ability to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, and the disposition to follow out the sug- gestions of this well-formed conscience. If you have a conviction that your sense of morality is a proper one. make sure that you do not allow it to be dulled by peer group pressure to a point where you are doing evil when you should be doing good. Even the good person, blessed with the disposition to do good, sometimes finds within himself, as Saint Paul did. the inclination to do evil. So you must occasionally look for help outside yourself. The greatest source of help, even greater than your friends, even greater than your parents, is the God. of whom, we have already said, you must always be aware. When you ask for his help, you are praying. Do not. for any reason, allow prayer to disappear from your lives. And finally, since you realize that change must come, and that somehow you must be able to control it. make sure that you have an active part in the changes that do occur. You should be a positive influence, an external grace, a spiritual helpmate for all of those whom you call friends. You should make every effort to help them to retain the qualities that you have found in them, that have made them good. Sometimes by just keeping them the good people that they are, you have changed their lives for the better, and this is what we really mean by Christian witness. May God bless you through life, may he allow those changes to occur in you that will be for your everlasting benefit, and may he give you the grace to retain all the virtues that make you holy and pleasing in His sight today. Sincerely in Christ Jesus. 2

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TUB-CHON N VMES ECHO ’80 St. Mary's Academy Hoosick Falls, New York

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