Ursuline Academy - Yearbook (Cumberland, MD)

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BV Sw. ,fx ' ' THE 1940 uRsul.lNE Ufzitlufa fo Jlflafzy, wz Queen flowers unshlne and warmth is our Blessed Mother s festaltide Mary s Aww long day of gladness and joy and peace and purity and holiness, Our fWN'N' lady's feast of rejoicing as the Mother of the King and our own dearest Mother, to whom We owe Our Lord's coming and with Him all her own great love. From the first day of May to the end of the fair month of brightness and life and freshness, the Church and all her children send up a song of praise and glory, of gratitude and love, to the Virgin Mother of Christ. And justly sog for Mary never fails us if we but place our trust in her. She is our friend, our advocate before the throne of high Heaven. She always lends a Willing ear to our petitions and always obtains an answer if, in the wisdom of God, our petitions are for the good of our immortal souls. And that is why, during May- time, saint and sinner, the fervent and the indifferent, all feel a new impulse of devotion. Reverend A. Ryan said that the reason above all why we honor Mary is simply this: Mary is the Mother of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is God. Thus our love for her is only as a means of loving God. It does not rest or end in her. She is fairest of creatures-none mirroring the perfections of the Creator as she does-but still only a creature, only a wondrous reflection of the infinite beauty of God. She is bountiful, but only with what has been given to her, and if graces pour from her hands, it is because her Divine Son puts them there. She never took honor to herself. When Elizabeth praised her as Blessed among wornenj, at once she passed on the praise to God in her canticle Magnificat. We never pray to her to have mercy on us as we pray to God, but we beg her to pray for us that God may be moved to have mercy. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. The young pray to her for purity, and she goes to her Son and begs the gift for them. The sinner cries out: Refuge of sinners, pray for me, and she throws herself at her Son's feet and implores Him to have mercy and forgive. We light candles at her altar, and we place beautiful flowers there, but our hearts are ever in the Tabernacle, where her Divine Son hides His majesty, and We ask Mary, His Mother, to make us less unworthy to kneel there before the face of Jesus. All our lives we shall pray to Mary, and we shall meditate on her beauty, and the holiness of her Song and when the hour of death comes may each Ursuline girl close her eyes in death in the sweet embrace of her dear Mother and Heavenly Queen, whom she has loved so tenderly during her life time. .HE fairest month to the fairest Queen--The month of May, month of

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1.51 of Baaut VEN the thought of a beautiful object is always sweet and pleasing. There never was a created thing possessed of the elements of beauty that was not of some use to some one. What a display of surpassing K . . . A beauty is brought out in the varying colors of a summer sunset! Every tint seems to reiiect to us a beautiful thought. All the red and gold and purple seem to heighten the more somber shades and make a picture that, once seen, is never forgotten. And is not this all of use to us? It cheers our spirits. It lifts our minds into regions of higher thought. We feel less inclined to think of the common, while the deeper propensities of our nature are wrought upon, and surely it is always useful to us to have our better and deeper feelings touched. The genuine pleasure that can be drawn from the source of beauty in nature is enough to compensate for half the trials and sorrows we have to bear. It it could be shown to us that our trials and sorrows spring from a source of beauty, We would feel reconciled toward them. Beauty does not exist solely in forms visible to the eye. If such were the case, what a sea of sorrow and blackness this world would be to the blind- they who never can behold the golden sun or penetrate the heaven at midnight, or unfold the secrets that lie hidden in a rose. Yes, nature possesses other beauties, which they, too, can share. And one is the beauty of sound. The song of a bird or the murmur of a brook says just as much to the sightless as to those who can see. And all the delicate odors that pervade green nature are just as attainable to them as to those who have sight. Beauty seems to carry with it a mute language. When we hold a beautiful rose in our hand, it seems as if we might read its thoughts and tell its feelings. The flow of a river, that very poetry of motion, is another thing that seems to have life and language owing to its beauty. B What a dismal place home would be if no beauty existed there, even the smallest cottage may be made attractive if adorned outside by pretty lawns and flower gardens, and if inside the walls are decorated with pretty pictures and the room filled with modest, tasty furniture, and best of all, if the faces of the occupants of the cottage are sunny and smiling, for a smile, wherever it is, is only a sudden fiash of beauty, that has indeed a use, when it is re- flected across the darkened sky of a troubled heart. The use of beauty in every home is manifest to all. From the humblest cot- tage to the grandest mansion, beauty is the soul of attraction. Beauty and love go hand in hand. Beauty creates love, and love is impossible without it. How could We love if there was nothing beautiful? Truth, simplicity and virtue are all deep-hidden beauty and without them and that crowning decoration, that part of beauty that is visible to the eye, nothing lovable is left. What a great use beauty is in the sick-room. The life-giving effect of the pretty flowers brings a Hush of healthful color to the wan, wasted cheek. The perfume and out-of-door air that is carried upon the dainty petals hasten the recovery of the invalid. It is often said that beauty dies with the fading spring and summer, and is wafted away like 'Summer evening's latest sigh that shuts the roses.' But she is indestructible, and lives and blooms again as bright and fair as ever. And though beauty were only a momentary spark, her passing light would still benefit us. When her iniiuence is once felt, it never can be erased, but will live on, deeply engraved in our hearts-the brightest star of our existence. QA 'rl-IE 1940 if 5'-I uRsuuNE cw,

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fy, IHE 1940 uRsuLlNE aw C-Q, 51720 7,0118 Remember, O beautiful Mother, That none ever asked thee in vain To comfort, to cherish, to bless them, Or soothe their heart's desolate pain. O hear me, as humbly confiding In thee, my dear Mother, most blest, I place at thy feet my petitions, And ask thee for peace and for rest. In thy arms the pure Word Incarnate Did lovingly, trustingly, lie, While thy tender heart of a mother Was pierced by His tiniest cry. This remember, my Mother most holy And thy loving child let me be, Until in the radiant Heaven I dwell with thy Son and with thee. anis aw 6124 may Queen