St Sebastians School - Arrow Yearbook (Newton, MA)

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OUR LADY OF ST. SEBASTIANS

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REVEREND DONALD G. Cuffonu Formerly of Latin Department REVEREND M. JOSEPH DESMOND I:0f7ll61 l.1' of English Department Died October 4, 1944

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fi-' .SQJQIQ 2-6-D FORTITUDE N the early ages of Faith, there were more soldier saints than saints from any other profession. The natural bravery which attracted them to a career of battles and wars was excellent material for God's grace to work on in sublimating them from earthly war- riors into spiritual campaigners who would not be content with less than an eternal kingdom. To effect such a transformation in their outlook on life, the philosopheris stone used by the Divine Alchem- ist was the virtue of Fortitude, infused into their souls as a gift of the Holy Ghost. As a consequence of their possession of it, great soldier saints like Sebastian could endure all things, knowing that there was no limit to their strength as long as Christ was with them. To prepare us to face the spiritually apathetic world of our day, we have been trained at St. Sebastian's under a rigorous regimen designed to develop in us both natural bravery and supernatural Fortitude. The heights of classical culture were given to us to scale, and we found that the only ladder at our command was a slow, pain- ful ascent on rungs of language forms and scientific formulae. For a true understanding of life itself, we were made to realize that it is an enduring warfare and that to cope with it successfully we must draw Fortitude from the Sacraments and use it as the sole effective weapon against the attacks of the world, the flesh and the devil. In view of the fact that Fortitude so aptly expresses the spirit and aims of St. Sebastian's School, we have chosen it to keynote this record of our School life. 'ax fx S f 1