In Raphael’s The School of Athens, an assembly of ancient sages and philosophers is depicted engaged in the animate pursuit of truth. This famous painting aptly expresses the scope and purpose of an education in the liberal arts: a true feast of wisdom, made available through the laborious joy of study. This joy is at the heart of Thomas More College’s curriculum.

As part of the curriculum, current juniors are invited to reflect with greater seriousness on their last two years of intellectual formation, moving from the position of an observer to an actor. The first field for testing their early mastery of the curriculum is found in the Junior Project, a semester-long period of careful, extensive reading in a subject of the student’s particular interest. After selecting a topic, the student then prepares for a formal oral examination under the guidance of an appointed faculty member.

“I choose St. Augustine’s City of God as my topic,” says junior Lux Kamprath, “partly because I had read the work before in high school, but especially because I was inspired by what I saw while studying abroad during the Rome semester.”

At the end of each semester, the juniors are called upon to present their findings before a faculty panel. In the course of the examination, the student must not only demonstrate depth of insight into the particular readings completed, but breadth and eloquence as well. The aim of the examination is not only to show attentiveness to the texts considered, but also to integrate the knowledge gained from the various courses of previous years.

The student preparing for his Junior Project has a considerable amount of freedom in choosing a topic of inquiry. In past years, juniors have explored subjects as diverse as Bernini, Plato’s Symposium, Poetic Inspiration, G.K. Chesterton, and the Common Good. Typically, the focus is placed on a a major writer, idea, or body of literature. A particular author’s poems, a philosophical idea, a selection of political works, or the writings of a saint: the options available for consideration are wide-ranging and extensive.

“There were a lot of ways in which previous classes gave me the foundation for studying Boethius’s theory of proportion,” says junior Liam Mitchell. “I found that there was a lot of continuity between what we studied before and the works I read while preparing for my presentation, such as The Republic and Euclid’s Elements.”

Because the Junior Project is primarily directed at fostering the student’s ability to enter into a period of independent study, there is no grade offered, despite its being required for graduation. Instead, students receive the mark of Fail, Pass, or Pass with Honors. The final aim of such an exercise is to bring to a level of maturity and polish those skills of thinking, writing, and speaking that form the backbone of any liberal arts education.

Like the youthful scholars depicted in The School of Athens, the Junior Project gives students of Thomas More College the chance to engage more fully in the pursuit of truth: not only as observers, but as active participants. As the efforts of past Junior Projects testify, the labor of a semester-long period of reading and reflection leads, ultimately, to the joy that accompanies the acquisition of wisdom.

The Class of 2014 Junior Projects:

St. Augustine’s The City of God

Hilaire Belloc

On Fairy Stories

The Poem of the Cid

Aristotle: On Perception

Sigrid Undset’s Kristen Lavransdatter

The Poetry of Robert Frost

The Gospel Parables

The Poetry of Richard Crashaw

Boethius: On the Quadrivium

Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited

Aristotle’s Physics

Hippocrates

Virgil’s Aeneid

St. Francis of Assisi

Dante’s Purgatorio

The Poetry of John Keats

Last Tuesday saw the third and final performance of Cupid and Death, the spring semester’s theatrical performance at Thomas More College. Theater forms a longstanding part of student life at Thomas More. In past years the annual Shakespeare play was greeted with much excitement, and more recently students have collaborated to put together such classic dramas as Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. As part of the community life of the campus, drama serves as a way to artfully express the spirit of communitas that animates the College’s pursuit of truth. It offers, as Aristotle says in his Poetics, an imitation of human action for the consideration of the audience, and does so through words and gesture, song and spectacle. 

This semester’s production, however, was quite different from past years.

For one thing, the genre of Cupid and Death is unusual. It is a comedic masque, a narrative that alternates between song, dance, and dialogue. The form of the play is taken from the tradition of the Renaissance pageant, and is based largely on a work of the same name written by the Restoration-era dramatist James Shirley. This semester’s production followed an adaptation of the original by junior Jonathan Wanner, a native of North Dakota. Jonathan employed both classical and original pieces in Cupid and Death‘s musical arrangements, including John Bennet’s Weep O Mine Eyes.

For another thing, the spectacle of the play is extremely varied. Allegorical and comedic characters flit, flop, and traipse across the stage. A brawny Cupid—complete with long golden locks—played by sophomore Vincent Deardurff is complemented by the grimaces of Death, played by junior Devin King. At one point, a jester and her trained monkey caper onto stage; at another, an elderly couple hobble down onto a bench, where they promptly begin warbling about love. Despair downs a bottle of wine, Nature is distraught, and a conniving Innkeeper exchanges Death and Cupid’s quivers, resulting in what becomes a disastrous—and hilarious—escapade.

Finally, the most unusual feature about Cupid and Death is its profundity, despite all its silliness. The exaggerations of many of its characters, the allegory involved, the use of intermittent polyphonic songs: all these elements seem to weigh against the show’s success, simply because they are not what one would expect of a comedy. On Sunday night’s performance, however, the actors received a standing ovation from their audience. Why?

Perhaps it was because the resolution of the play ended on a beautiful note with the performance of William Byrd’s Turn Unto God. Perhaps it was because the student actors, producers, and technicians involved put so much art, work, and effort into making it a successful, unified play. Or, perhaps, it was because Cupid and Death, like the education offered at Thomas More College, appeals to the whole person. It is both humorous and serious, appealing to the higher faculties of the human person, and expressing the profundity and festivity of a life lived with a view to the pursuit and attainment of truth. Whatever the case, it is certain that what this performance of Cupid and Death offered its audience was in accord with the spirit of the College’s patron: an expression of the Christian humanism exemplified by Saint Thomas More, a life lived joyfully in the truth.

On Saturday, April 20, a group of eight students from Thomas More College together with Mr. David Clayton, the College’s Artist-In-Residence, had the opportunity to sing at the nearby parish of  St Patrick’s in Nashua. The occasion was a special one: a Nuptial Mass offered in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

The Mass was for the wedding of Lindsay Patterson and Zenith Martello. The College was contacted by Mr. Michael Duffy, a former student of the College, who was serving at the Mass and requested if the choir would be willing to help out. Motivated solely by the love of singing and the desire to give glory to God by offering up their time and talents, the students sang a polyphonic Mass.

The Ordinary of the Mass featured the Missa Super by the Renaissance composer Blasius Amon, with the exception of the Gloria. This was sung in traditional Ambrosian chant, which pre-dates Gregorian Chant and is proper to the ancient liturgy of Milan. In addition, the student choir sang Panus Angelicus and William Byrd’s Ave Verum Corpus. The Propers were traditional plainchant.

Music forms a regular part of life at Thomas More College, whether as part of the Way of Beauty sequence offered freshman year, or in the College’s choir. Besides providing the music for the Sacred Liturgy offered in the College’s chapel, students have also have the chance to spread the evangelizing power of beauty in the larger community. Heeding the Psalmist’s dictum to “sing a new song to the Lord,” Thomas More students are frequently given the opportunity to witness to the truth of the human person as seen in the light of Christ, through the art of sacred music.

Spring 2013 marked the successful end of Thomas More College’s regular series of all-college readings, lectures, and performances known as Traditio. Following the Spring semester’s chosen theme of Journey or Pilgrimage, the final seminar offered students and faculty alike a chance to reflect on and discuss Hilaire Belloc’s well-loved classic, The Path to Rome.

April’s seminar on Belloc’s 1902 account of a walking pilgrimage from southern France to Rome was led by College Writer-In-Residence Joseph Pearce, President William Fahey, and guest lecturer, Father Scott Caton, Professor of History at Roberts Wesleyan College.

All students of the College stop during these ‘Traditio days’ to read a common text or consider a great work together.  On the assigned day, the whole College takes the morning to consider the work in very small groups of peers or with individual professors.  After Mass and lunch two professors lead a long seminar for the entire student body.  In the evening, the College supper is followed by a formal lecture—given at times by a fellow of the College, at times by a distinguished guest.In this feature of Collegiate life, the students are invited three times per semester to consider a great work of literature, an historical figure or event, or a work of art in greater depth than the Humanities curriculum allows.

While these moments are an outgrowth of the Humanities cycle and always remain rooted in them, in Traditio students are expected to reflect upon and communicate to others the learning they have received in their previous classes and conversations.

This past Friday, attention was given over to a consideration of the life and work of Hilaire Belloc, a leading writer of the English Catholic Revival of the early twentieth century. Belloc, well-known for his humorous Cautionary Tales For Children, was by turns politician, satirist, poet, and adventurer. He is perhaps most well known for his friendship with G.K. Chesterton, as well as for his zesty defense of all things Catholic. A short poem of his sums up his vision:

Where the Catholic Sun doth Shine

There’s cheer and laughter and good red wine

At least, I’ve always heard that’s so

Benedicamus Domino!

The seminar opened with an introductory lecture given by Father Caton, who led those present through the course of Belloc’s journey in The Path To Rome. After an hour of discussion between Mr. Pearce, President Fahey, and Father Caton, the floor was turned over to the students, who were invited to share their observations and to ask any pertinent questions. Following a break for supper, the seminar resumed with a session of open, Socratic-style discussion that centered on the theme of pilgrimage, often with quite lively debate drawing from numerous examples in literature and experience. The seminar proved to be very successful, offering students objects for further consideration during their last few weeks of class.

The readings and works considered during theTraditio seminars follow certain themes of universal human interest: such as Faith, Suffering, Nature, Love, Pilgrimage, Peace & War, Sacrifice, and Friendship.  The lectures, seminars, and conversation of the Traditio sequence present to each and every student an opportunity to enter into the Catholic tradition and see that the reality of Christian culture provides a response not only to the “deepest longings of Humanity,” but to the questions that rise up in every human heart.

Editor’s Note: Easter lingers in the month of April…New life, new birth, new adventures. Here’s one from a student’s experience of Quebec: just one of the many opportunities available at Thomas More College.

Traveling, says Hugh of St. Victor in his Didascalicon, is ideal for the student. It provides a different kind of education than formal study: first-hand experience of the world. Study is enriched by traveling; traveling is supplemented by study. These two kinds of education—study and experience—conspire together to form the whole person.

Neither, however, is for the pusillanimous. One should be careful of traveling if one is accustomed to view the wide world from the comfortable confines of an armchair. Like some fabulous wind, the traveler is picked up and hurled along, only to be deposited blinking and breathless in some corner of the world you’ve only seen in a picture.

Now, I’ll grant you that Quebec is not too far from Thomas More College. A good day’s drive will take you through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, through the northernmost of Vermont’s downs and dales, and past a friendly French-speaking border patrolman. Only a few hours, eh? Yet even a short distance is enough to instill in the adventurous a freshness of sight, attentiveness to the world. When enriched by a lively sense of wonder, one learns how to see again.

Of course, when I and three other Thomas More students decided to spend a few days of our Easter Break in Quebec City, none of this was immediately on our minds. I, for one, was looking forward to a baguette and a bottle of Bordeaux.

What we actually experienced, however, quite exceeded such modest expectations.

Quebec City stands on a formidable grouping of cliffs, capped by a fortress built by the first French explorers in the seventeenth century. The rough plains of Quebec were baptized by the Catholic settlers led, initially, by the missionary exploits of Jesuit priests such as Saint Isaac Jogues and Jean de Brébeuf. Despite the loss of Quebec to the English in the French and Indian War of 1759, the French Catholic heritage of the region remained largely unscathed.

Our first day in Quebec City, we four Thomas More students—three juniors and a sophomore—explored the Plains of Abraham, visited several grand old French-Canadian churches, frequented a small bakery in search of café and croissants, and capped the day off in a local pub. Being Easter week, we feasted in good fashion, toasting Our Risen Lord. The only cause of chagrin was the weather. Winter lasts longer up north.

During our time there, the remark was made more than once how European the city was. All of us had had the chance to go to Rome through the College’s semester abroad, and we couldn’t help but notice the similarities between Quebec City and other cities we had seen in Italy and elsewhere. Its cobblestoned streets, well-proportioned architecture, and beautiful churches provoked a number of conversations—perhaps the best part of traveling in good company—about the significance of a city, the place of the Catholic Faith in influencing culture, and the difficulties of modernity. Of course, these were only some of the subjects we discussed—often over a glass of wine and a pipe—while in Quebec. There was plenty of laughter, light banter, and traded wit as well.

While traveling about the city, we visited several grand old churches. Though there are an abundance of parishes in Quebec City, the number of practicing Catholics has sunk dramatically since the 1970’s. Nevertheless, the parishes that we visited showed signs of a once-flourishing Catholic culture.

The dramatic embellishment of the baroque Cathedral of Notre Dame in the heart of the old city, in particular, was a tribute to nearly four centuries of deep Catholic devotion. Here and there, one could discern specifically French-Canadian devotions: to the Sacred Heart, to Saint Therese and Saint Jean-Marie Vianney, and to the Holy Family.

We also saw signs of hope in the midst of a rampant secularization. After attending a Latin Mass early one morning, offered by a priest of the Fraternity of Saint Peter, we drove out of the city to visit the shrine of St. Anne-de-Beaupre. This shrine was built in the 1920’s next to one of the oldest Catholic churches in America, and is dominated by n huge Romanesque basilica.

We entered the Church through the main portals. It was dark where we stood, dwarfed by the enormous vault. Overhead, shafts of light through the clerestory windows illuminated the vast length of the basilica. We signed ourselves with from the holy water fonts, and in the solemn interplay of light and shadow we made our way slowly towards the sanctuary. Affixed to the pillars there were a multitude of crutches, rosaries, and photographs left as tokens of thanksgiving to God for miraculous healings. As we knelt before a reliquary believed to contain the arm of Saint Anne, we remembered the intentions of those who had asked us to pray for them.

Though it did not conclude our Quebec sojourn, visiting the shrine of Saint Anne was a climactic point in our visit, because it provided a chance of spiritual renewal during our Easter vacation. Although the architectural features of the city were impressive, they were still overshadowed by the spires and domes of the churches there. The shrine of Saint Anne shows the fruition of Catholic culture in Quebec: all the inclinations towards the production of beautiful things, all the tendencies of those arts that enrich life, were put to the service of God. The natural is crowned by the supernatural or, as Saint Thomas says, gratia elevat naturam.

As we drove away from Quebec City towards New Hampshire, we took the opportunity to reflect upon our experiences there. Like our Rome semester, our time in Quebec allowed us to engage in observation of the world: upon human action, upon the significance of art and culture, and upon the pursuit of the good life. Still imbued with the joy of the Easter season, and pleasantly satisfied with our adventure, we looked forward with high expectations to the remaining few weeks of the semester as we made our way back to Thomas More College.

The sort of formation acquired in a liberal arts education is, more often than not, centered on a familiarity with the word. As Saint John reminds us, and as is proclaimed at the end of Mass, “In Principio Erat Verbum.” The four-year acquaintance with the tradition of belles-letters that a Thomas More student gains is hardly a dull exercise in composition, taken from an equally dull textbook. Rather, individual development in the art of writing takes the characteristics of an apprenticeship, and the masters one learns under represent the great tradition of English letters. Johnson, Swift, Belloc, Twain, and Hopkins: these are only some of the essayists that students read and imitate in the course of their education in formal writing.

The art of formal composition that a student receives at Thomas More College is one that can be carried on after graduation, often in new ways. Just as the best steel is also the most pliant, so too is an education in formal writing the most adaptable. A good writer—grounded in the art of logic—is able to adapt himself to any kind of audience.

Recently, two of the College’s alumni have had the opportunity to carry on the tradition of letters with the Saint Austin Review, an international periodical of Catholic thought, literature, and cultural commentary. Co-edited by the College’s Writer-In-Residence, Mr. Joseph Pearce, the Review publishes a bi-monthly issue with contributions by authors as wide-ranging as Pope Benedict XVI, Dr. Thomas Howard, Fr. Aidan Nichols, and many others.

In addition to the formal periodical, the Saint Austin Review’s website also features the Ink Desk, a daily commentary on a range of topics relating to the cultural revival of the Catholic Faith in our time. Contributing to the Ink Desk are Hannah O’Connor, class of ’11, and Michael Lichens, class of ’09. The topics explored in this commentary are varied, serving as a meeting ground of minds similarly engaged in promoting a culture of life, love, beauty, and truth as seen in light of the Incarnation. Whether the focus is on contemporary movements dedicated to such a revival, a review of recent Catholic  literature, or simply a running commentary on topics of particular interest, the virtuosity of penmanship regularly encountered in the Ink Desk is a fitting challenge to the skill of composition that a liberal art education provides.

“The man that hath no music in him,” says Lorenzo in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, “is fit for treason, spoils, and strategems.” Shakespeare, echoing many an ancient sage, saw music as an important component in the good life. This does not mean any kind of music, but more particularly the sort that elevates the better aspirations of the human person.

Traditionally, music was also included as part of the curriculum of a liberal education. In fact, the words muse and museum are drawn from the nine Greek goddesses of the arts.

Aristotle devotes considerable time in his Politics to the role of music in community life, noting its role in forming the content of the imagination. Music was a public thing, to be enjoyed as one of the arts that grace life. Not for Aristotle was the self-enclosed world of the iPod.

At Thomas More College, music forms a regular feature of campus life. In addition to the opportunities provided by the College’s choir, the Saint Gregory Music Guild, and the plainchant component of the Way of Beauty sequence, many students are themselves talented musicians.

Over the past few years, the College has been blessed to have several redoubtable composers acting as choirmaster. In addition to musical direction given by the College’s Artist-In-Residence, Mr. David Clayton, the choir has been led by Dr. Thomas Larson and Mr. Paul Jernberg. While all students during their freshman year learn the rudiments of plainchant in the Way of Beauty program, a further chance to improve proficiency in both plainchant and polyphonic musical settings is available through the weekend workshops offered several times during the academic year. Students learn to master Mass settings and motets by great composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Palestrina, as well as more recent compositions.

As well as singing for the Masses regularly offered on campus, students have been given the chance to contribute to the larger community through the evangelizing power of beauty. More recent opportunities have included the chanting of Vespers at a Veteran’s hospital in nearby Manchester and singing for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass offered at a local parish.

In addition to the important place that Sacred Music affords in the life of Thomas More College, it is easy to find not a few students devoting time to other sorts of music. The most prevalent, at least recently, has been folk music: songs drawn from Ireland, sea shanties, the British Isles, and the American South.

Folk music has proved quite popular on campus—the more so lately, owing to the presence of Saint Gregory the Great Academy over the last semester. Part of the Academy’s curriculum is an education in both sacred and folk music, and for the past year, the young men of the Academy have both sung at campus Masses and started up impromptu music sessions.

Many Thomas More students will join in as well, some sporting guitars, mandolins, fiddles, and drums. At the College’s banquets held on important feast days, singing and instrumental accompaniment often goes on late into the night. The poetic earthiness of folk music and its communal character complements the small nature of Thomas More College, not to mention that it provides a healthy balance to the sustained sublimity of Gregorian chant and Sacred Polyphony.

In the pursuit of the good life, there are certain things that facilitate the human aspiration towards goodness, beauty, and truth. These are, if you will, the sacramentals of life, the products of genuine culture given credence by custom and—in many cases—blessed by the Church. They make the work of going through the straits of life manageable by providing opportunities refreshment and merriment: and they affirm a future object of hope. Within any sound community, these things will be found, among which music plays a central part. At Thomas More College, young people are offered a formation that is not only intellectual, but attending to the whole needs of the person. Music fulfills just such a role.

As soon as Easter Break rolled around, students packed their bags and finalized traveling arrangements, grateful for a chance to rest from the busy and often demanding nature of their studies. After a long march of Lenten discipline, too, many were eagerly looking forward to celebrating the Paschal Triduum with family and friends.

Alison Welton, class of 2016, was especially looking forward to the celebration of  Easter, because this was the moment in which she would be received into full communion with the Catholic Church.

Over the years, Thomas More College has witnessed a number of students enter the Church, many influenced by the College’s dedication to the pursuit of truth in light of the Gospel. The dissatisfaction of many young people today with the apathy and purposelessness of the surrounding culture spurs them on to ask the most fundamental questions: who am I? what is truth? who is God?  The College joyfully proclaims that the answer to the human desire for truth is found in the person of Jesus Christ.

This joyful proclamation is infectious: it cannot be contained. The person who has found truth—perhaps by unlooked-for paths—cannot help but share it. This is especially the case with the wide array of energetic, passionate, hope-filled young people that are pursuing truth at Thomas More College. They are a motley bunch, to be sure. Some have tattoos. Many have scapulars—that wonderful gift from Our Lady.  All of them, having journeyed to Thomas More College by whatever path, are bound by a common love and thirst for the truth that gives true freedom.

Alison—her Confirmation name is Clare—had already read a good deal about Catholic belief and practice, such as George Weigel’s Letters to a Young Catholic, as well as the works of G.K. Chesterton and J.R.R. Tolkien.  Although she had already made the decision to enter the Church, she discovered that the lively embodiment of Catholic culture found at the College gave her a new window into understanding what the Catholic Faith is all about.

“I knew it was going to be the life I lived, but being at Thomas More College, with the people, in the classes, at Mass, being shown Catholicism in such richness, seeing it being lived out in people’s lives, is stuff you don’t find in books,” she said.

During her first semester at Thomas More College, Clare continued instruction in the Faith at the local parish of  St. Patrick’s. When Easter break rolled around, she then joined thirty-one other RCIA candidates at the Vigil Mass at St. Isidore’s Parish in Kansas.  She had been emotional during the few days leading up to the Easter liturgy  but on the day itself, time seemed to go by at a different pace.  She got up to receive the Eucharist for the first time with a smile on her face. Before she knew it, she was back in the pew kneeling next to her uncle, a recent convert who is also her sponsor into the Church.

“Scapulars and Tattoos” not only aptly captures the variety of the student body at Thomas More College. It encompasses all people on their path to the Church and growth in their faith, the whole colorful pageant of Pilgrims making their way towards the Heavenly Jerusalem. Chesterton captured the pursuit of Divine truth best in the following poem…

THE CONVERT

AFTER one moment when I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright,
And I came out where the old road shone white,
I walked the ways and heard what all men said,
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
Being not unlovable but strange and light;
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
But softly, as men smile about the dead.

The sages have a hundred maps to give
That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle reason out through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

~G.K. Chesterton

The College would like to offer its grateful thanksgiving for the reception of Alison and all other candidates—including two alumni from the class of 2012—into the one fold of the Catholic Church this Easter 2013.

“I came as a guest, and you received Me” (Matt. 25:35).

Saint Benedict’s Abbey, a community of Benedictine monks near Still River, Massachusetts, graciously extended an invitation to the students of Thomas More College to spend the Paschal Triduum in retreat at the Abbey. The College and Saint Benedict’s Abbey have had a long-standing relationship, and in the past few years the Abbey has hosted a number of evening retreats for Thomas More students. In addition, priests from the Abbey offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass every Monday in the College’s chapel.

In response this invitation, eight students from Thomas More made their way to the Abbey in time for the Holy Thursday liturgy. The ancient traditions of the Benedictine Office—the recitation of the Psalms and other liturgical texts—and the Mass, preserved throughout the centuries, make the Benedictines the liturgical order par excellence.

At Saint Benedict’s Abbey, the solemn, beautiful tones of Gregorian chant fill the chapel with its simple benches, whitewashed walls, and wooden statues, dark with age and the use that comes from being well-loved. The Paschal Triduum, stretching from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday, in which the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the Lord are commemorated and made present in the august Sacrifice of the Altar, is the summit of the whole liturgical year.

Needless to say, the liturgy at the Abbey during these few days is exceptionally beautiful.

Although it would be hard to determine what the most beautiful of the liturgies offered during the Triduum at Saint Benedict’s is, there is one service that stands out as unique: the Office of Tenebrae. Taken from the Latin word for “shadows”, Tenebrae commemorates the darkness that came at the time of Christ’s death on the Cross, as well as his entombment. The central feature of Tenebrae is the chanting of the Psalms and other Scriptural passages while gradually extinguishing a fourteen-branch candlestick known as a hearse. The service is noticeably mournful: one of the key texts chanted are the Lamentations of Jeremiah, surely one of the most moving pieces of poetry ever composed.

Tenebrae is also a final Lenten penance, particularly for the Thomas More students who came to the Abbey. Why? Because it is held at 2:30 in the morning.

As well as attending the Triduum liturgies, the students also had plenty of time for silent prayer and reflection as they awaited the approach of the Easter Vigil. Advantage was also taken of the trails running next to the Abbey that led through the beautiful New England countryside. The hospitality of the monks was especially generous. Following the ancient dictum of Saint Benedict that “all guests are to be received as Christ”, they made sure that their guests were comfortable and well taken care of. The five young men that came from the College were even able to join the the monks for meals in the monastery, as well being allowed the privilege of assisting at Holy Mass as altar servers. They were joined by the Mitchell brothers, long-standing friends of the Abbey, one of whom, Liam, is currently a junior at Thomas More College. In addition to the students from Thomas More, the Abbey’s guesthouses hosted a number of families, some of whom got to know the students.

Following the rigors of Good Friday and the meditative silence of Holy Saturday,the time for the long-awaited Easter Vigil finally came. Gathered around the Paschal fire, the guests observed as Father Abbot Xavier blessed the new fire and inscribed the symbols of Christ’s Resurrection—Alpha and Omega—onto the Paschal candle.  During the long procession leading to the chapel, all present stopped and knelt three times as  ”Lumen Christi” was proclaimed.

Finally, the Vigil Mass, the most ancient of all the Church’s liturgies, began. In the dark chapel the light of many candles flickered. When the last reading was finished, Father Abbot intoned the Gloria, all the lights were lit, bells were rung, the altar was prepared, and the servers brought out flowers to place on it. The sudden joy of Easter was overwhelming. “Christ is risen!” “He is truly risen, alleluia!”

After the Vigil Mass, the monks held festivities for their guests. The long discipline of the Lenten discipline gave way to feasting, and after making merry with the other guests, the students from Thomas More made a quiet exit to one of the retreat houses, where they opened a celebratory bottle of champagne and, exhausted, sat around on various sofas and armchairs trading puns and light humor. The joy of the night before was revisited on Easter Sunday: Mass was attended, followed by more feasting. All in all, the students found that their stay at the Abbey was a thoroughly blessed one.  Thank you, Saint Benedict Abbey, for such a gracious invitation and such generous hospitality!

One morning in class, we were told by Dr. Connell (rather ruefully) that for many students the best part of the entire Rome semester is the trip to Poland. Dr. Connell also says things like “the way up is the way down” and “you must lose yourself to find yourself” and “cats are metaphysical.” In regard to all of these sentiments, I initially had no idea what he meant and I was not inclined to take them seriously. In any case, the week we planned to have our Poland adventure was a bad time to leave the city. The Papal Conclave was set to begin and no one could say when the white smoke would rise. Rome revolved around the Vatican, pulling our semester into orbit; St. Peter’s, just a bus ride away, had become the center of the world. Conclave aside, there was also the prospect of a full week in the Eternal City to spend as you wished among the statues, the saints, the cobble stone streets, the brilliant Tiber sunsets, the churches, the piazzas– why would you squander all that by being anywhere else? Largely for these reasons, the majority of our class made the sound and reasonable decision to stay in Rome for spring break; only eight of us were crazy enough to leave.

I can’t say exactly why I decided to go to Poland; maybe because it had become a Thomas More tradition, maybe because when you have the chance to explore Europe you should explore as much as you can, maybe I was feeling light-headed after a long tour and I didn’t think it through. I knew next to nothing about Poland, other than it was the home of both Pope John Paul II and pierogi. The morning that we left, I was not particularly excited. In fact, I was exhausted because our small group of pilgrims had risen early, thinking it best to begin our journey in St. Peter’s Basilica to pray before the altar of John Paul II and ask for his intercession, especially that we make it back in time for the conclave.

The scheduled eight-o-clock Mass was going to be said in French, except the French priest was late. In fact, the French priest never arrived. In his stead an American priest celebrated, and gave a homily about the life of Karol Wojtyla before he became Pope. When Mass was over the priest gave us relics of JPII as blessing for our journey. By the time our flight rolled around excitement bubbled among us; we knew something special was in store.

If we had at that time realized just how special our pilgrimage would be, I think we all would have been too anxious to get on the plane. If we had known the number of times we would be lost without directions, we never would have left– but then we never would have experienced the relief of serendipitously bumping into a friend of our host family who recognized us and showed us where to go, or the kindness of the quiet little man with a moustache (who spoke no English) who brought us to the train platform that would take us to Niepokalanow, St. Maximilian Kolbe’s famous Marian city. If we had known the number of times we would walk into a church and find not one person who spoke English, we probably would have called it off. Then, of course, we never would have been taken to the rectory by the parish priest, who gave us tea, pastries, and holy cards (all the sustenance needed for student pilgrims) and called an English-speaking nun to give us a tour of the parish museum. If we had known it would snow heavily during our visit to Auschwitz, we would have just cried. When it did snow heavily, we did cry heavily; we also prayed, ran to catch our bus, and made it back to Krakow in time for Mass.

That Mass was the last celebration we would attend in Poland. It was the Tuesday that the conclave began, and we had met with friends of our host family (we called them Peter and Ola because Polish names are impossible to pronounce) right outside the Dominican church fifteen minutes before the celebration would start. Of course, by that point we were fairly familiar with beautiful churches, both in Rome and in Poland, but we were in no way prepared for what we would see inside. The church was absolutely bursting with people; the pews, the side and center aisles, the stairs to the choir loft were all packed, and in the entire congregation I spotted maybe three people obviously older than thirty. We were surrounded with young people hardly older than we were; when we sang, music soared right up to the starry blue ceiling. When we knelt, it was like a wave crashing down to the tile floor. When we faced each other for the sign of peace, it was a meeting of friends, a true and communal celebration of faith.

The next morning we landed in Rome just as the smoke lifted for the morning vote. We crammed around one cell phone to tune in to Vatican radio, intently listening for the color of the smoke (I was, admittedly, praying that it would be black, and we would have time to drop our luggage before we ran to St Peter’s). We all sighed when we heard black smoke, but decided that evening to meet in the square. By a miracle, every one of our class, all fifteen of us, made it in time to see the white smoke from the Sistine Chapel; we rushed forward toward “the” window, the cardinal-red balcony window, waiting to hear the words “Habemus Papam,” to greet our new Holy Father.

Two things happened as a result of our pilgrimage to Poland. The first was the habit of incessantly imitating the Polish accent, which our eight-person Polski Family, as we now call ourselves, have found next to impossible to break. The second and most important was a deep and powerful realization of what it means to say that the faith is alive. We saw it all throughout our pilgrimage, but perhaps we saw it best when we returned to St. Peter’s square to wait with a million other Catholics, staring expectantly at a chimney, waiting for the sign that the Church is alive. Our Rome semester has itself become a pilgrimage, a long one, a difficult one, a historical one, and a beautiful one, something I only realized when I returned from Poland. There is only a short time left, and now, with our class reunited and with the intercession of Our Lady and our litany of saints both Roman and Polish, we pray that we live it fully.