Copy
 
 
THOMAS AQUINAS COLLEGE E-LETTER
JUNE 2015
 
 
 
 
  Stay Connected  
 
Make a Gift MAKE A GIFT
SEND TO A FRIEND
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
YouTube YOUTUBE
The Thomas Aquinas College Amazon Gateway AMAZON GATEWAY
 
   
CAMPUS LIFE
MULTIMEDIA
 
     
Slideshow: Commencement 2015 Slideshow: Commencement 2015  
     
Slideshow: Baccalaureate Mass Slideshow: Baccalaureate Mass  
     
Text & Audio: Sr. Regina Marie’s Address Text & Audio:
Sr. Regina Marie’s Address
 
     
Text & Audio: Fr. Illo's Baccalaureate Mass Homily Text & Audio:
Baccalaureate Mass Homily
 
     
Text & Audio: The Senior Address Text & Audio:
The Senior Address
 
     
6.	Slideshow: The President’s Reception Slideshow:
The President’s Reception
 
     
7.	Slideshow: Tutor-Senior Bowling Slideshow:
Tutor-Senior Bowling
 
     
Slideshow: Alumni & Parents’ Taco Dinner Slideshow:
Alumni & Parents’
Taco Dinner
 
     
Text & Audio: Dr. McLean at the President’s Dinner Text & Audio:
Dr. McLean at the President’s Dinner
 
     
Slideshow: The President’s Dinner Slideshow:
The President’s Dinner
 
     
11.	Slideshow: Seniors Celebrates the Year’s End Slideshow:
Seniors Celebrate the Year’s End
 
     
Video: The Senior Boast Video:
The Senior
Boast
 
     
Order Commencement 2015 Photos & Portraits  
     
  UPCOMING EVENTS  
   
West Coast Meeting, Society for Aristotelian-Thomistic Studies
June 18-19
 
   
Conference on the Social Doctrine of the Church
June 19-21
 
   
Independence Day Observed
Office holiday
July 3
 
   
Independence Day
July 4
 
   
Summer Seminar #1
July 10-12
 
   
Summer Seminar #2
July 17-19
 
   
Summer Great Books Program for High School Students
July 19 - August 1
 
   
Napa Seminars: Sacraments, Grace & Free Will
July 30-31
 
   
Feast of the Assumption
Office Holiday
August 15
 
   
Freshman Orientation
August 20-23
 
   
Residence Halls Open for Freshmen
August 20
 
   
Welcome Barbeque for Freshmen and their Families
August 20 (5:30 p.m.)
 
   
Orientation for Parents of Freshmen
August 20 (6:30 p.m.)
 
   
Residence Halls Open for Returning Students
August 22
 
   
Convocation 2015
August 24
The Most Rev. Thomas Olmsted
Bishop of Phoenix, presiding
 
   
Feast of Bl. Mother Teresa
September 5
 
   
Columbus Day
Office Holiday
October 12
 
   
Anniversary of the Death of Founding President Ronald P. McArthur
October 17
 
   
Don Rags
October 20-22
 
   
IN MEMORIAM  
   
James J. O’Hara
December 25, 2004
Legacy Society member

Mary Ophelia O’Hara
February 17, 2015
 Legacy Society member

Billy Davis Shaneyfelt
May 13, 2015
Father of David (’81) and Samuel (’86); grandfather of Monica Conklin (’11)
 
 
 
 
COMMENCEMENT 2015
Sr. Regina Gorman, O.C.D, Offers Prayers and Wisdom for College’s Newest Graduates

On May 16, Thomas Aquinas College celebrated its 41st Commencement, honoring the 80 members of the Class of 2015. In keeping with His Holiness Pope Francis’s call for a Year of Consecrated Life, the College chose as its Commencement Speaker one of the preeminent women religious in the United States, Sr. Regina Marie Gorman, O.C.D. “You are to be congratulated and celebrated for your accomplishments,” Sr. Regina Marie told the graduates. “Truly, they are singular.”
 
In a heartfelt Commencement Address, the Vicar General of Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles urged graduates to continue “tapping back into the torrent of gifts you have received here in this oasis of grace in Santa Paula,” by “coming face to Face with God every day in the integrity of your own soul.” This call for preserving a robust, active faith continued throughout the day. “We all must maintain an intense interior life — the Mass, the Rosary, spiritual reading, regular confession, penance for our souls and the souls of all the world,” advised Rev. Joseph Illo, principal celebrant and homilist, in his homily at the Baccalaureate Mass. Added Joshua Brittain (’15) in his Senior Address at the Commencement ceremony, “To love rightly, we need both knowledge of the truth and goodness of soul.”
 
To assist the College’s newest alumni in their prayer lives, the members of the College’s Board of Governors have given each a subscription to Magnificat, the monthly devotional magazine. Thus members of the Class of 2015 leave the College well-formed and spiritually armed, embracing their chosen class motto, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20).

Full coverage: Commencement 2015
College Gives Highest Honor to Sr. Regina
Order photos and Class of 2015 portraits

 
 


Baccalaureate Mass
Baccalaureate Mass

Commencement Ceremony
Commencement Ceremony

Chairman of the Board of Governors R. Scott Turicchi presents Sr. Regina Marie the Saint Thomas Aquinas Medallion
Chairman of the Board of Governors R. Scott Turicchi presents Sr. Regina Marie the Saint Thomas Aquinas Medallion

 
 
SENIOR REFLECTIONS
Members of the Class of 2015 Take a Look Back ... and Forward

Two members of the Class of 2015, Rocky Brittain and Morgan Furore, spoke before the Thomas Aquinas College Board of Governors on May 15, discussing how they came to the College, their experience over these last four years, and their plans for life after graduation.
 
“This love of the intellectual life, and especially theology, has only been strengthened by the wonderful community here,” said Mr. Brittain. “Almost all of the good things in my life I have the College to thank for. My parents gave me my faith, but I made it my own within the walls of this chapel. I have found something that I am good at and that I love, and I will pursue that love further at Ave Maria University where, this fall, I will enter the master’s program in theology. It is here where I met my beautiful fiancée, Caitlin, whom I will marry next month.”
 
In her remarks, Miss Furore described how a conversation with a television producer on an airplane led her to see just how much the College has changed her. “We ended up talking about The Aeneid and The Odyssey and all of these great texts, and … toward the end of the trip, he began asking me about my faith, and about what my views were on controversial topics such as abortion. We realized pretty quickly that we didn’t see eye to eye, but … at the end of the flight he shook my hand and thanked me for taking the time to talk with him. He told me that I had given him hope.”
 
 

Rocky Brittain (’15)
Rocky Brittain (’15)

Morgan Furore (’15)
Morgan Furore (’15)
 
 
A NEW YORK PRIEST IN CALIFORNIA
Fr. Rutler Speaks at Two College Events

Residents of both Northern and Southern California recently had an opportunity to meet and listen to one of New York’s most renowned priests, Rev. George W. Rutler, S.T.D., who spoke at two separate events for Thomas Aquinas College.

The first gathering, a reception hosted by the College’s Bay Area Board of Regents, took place at the city’s Olympic Club at Lakeside on Wednesday, May 20. Fr. Rutler — pastor of the Church of St. Michael in Manhattan and host of a weekly television program on EWTN — discussed his latest book, Hints of Heaven, which draws on the teachings of Christ through His parables.

The next event took place some 375 miles to the south, at the College’s campus in Santa Paula, for a gathering of the members of the Santa Barbara Chapter of Legatus, the international organization of Catholic business executives. “The Legates enjoyed meeting Fr. Rutler and learning from his thoughtful consideration of Our Lord’s parables,” said Vice President Paul J. O’Reilly. “We are honored that he would travel all these miles — first across the country and then the length of the state — to come visit with us.”

Full story and slideshow
 
 
 
Fr. Rutler at San Francisco’s Olympic Club
Fr. Rutler at
San Francisco’s Olympic Club

Fr. Rutler and Msgr. Steven Otellini
Fr. Rutler and
Msgr. Steven Otellini


Rev. Joseph Fessio, S.J., Eva Muntean, and Fr. RutlerRev. Joseph Fessio, S.J., Eva Muntean, and Fr. Rutler
 
 
FAITH IN ACTION
Highlights from the College’s Alumni Blog

• This November the Vatican will host the World Congress on Catholic Education, and among its invited experts will be one of the preeminent advocates for Catholic liberal education in the United States, Michael Van Hecke (’86). Mr. Van Hecke is the headmaster of St. Augustine Academy in Ventura, California, president of the Catholic Schools Textbook Project, and president and founder of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education. “The aim of this Congress echoes everything I’ve strived for in my work,” he says. “The issues of this congress are the same issues I’ve been discussing with colleagues, superintendents, and bishops.”

• The Canadian Broadcast Corporation’s Ottawa Morning recently aired an episode about Elizabeth (Susanka) and Jeff Fennelly (both ’03) and their adopted son, Shawn. Now eight years old, Shawn is profoundly deaf and suffers from limited vision, cerebral palsy, and reflux disorder. Doctors once feared that he would never sit or stand on his own, or give and receive affection. Yet under the Fennellys’ care, he has thrived. Hear his story via the Faith in Action blog.

• A new musical album, Benedicta: Marian Chant from Norcia, features the voices of three alumni monks: Rev. Thomas Bolin, O.S.B. (’96); Br. Mary Evagrius Hayden, O.S.B. (’08); and Br. Philp Wilmeth (’13). The three graduates are members of an 18-member Benedictine community at Monastero San Benedetto, a 1,000-year-old monastery in Norcia, Italy. The album, drawn from the monks’ daily life of prayer, features 33 tracks of Gregorian chant, including traditional Marian antiphons such as “Regina Coeli” and “Ave Regina Coelorum.”

The Faith in Action Blog

 

Michael Van Hecke (’86)
Michael Van Hecke (’86)
 
Elizabeth (Susanka) and Jeff Fennelly (both ’03)
Elizabeth (Susanka) and Jeff Fennelly (both ’03)

Benedicta: Marian Chant from NorciaBenedicta: Marian Chant from Norcia
 

CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION 
City Journal Cites “Exemplary”
Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel


“The buildings that most Americans know best and cherish reflect the ideas and values of the classical tradition,” writes architect and author Allan Greenberg in City Journal, “and its revival is cause for celebration.”

As evidence of this revival, Mr. Greenberg cites the Thomas Aquinas College campus and, in particular, Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel. The Chapel “elegantly complements the surrounding Mission-style buildings [and] establishes a classical architectural presence that enriches the entire campus,” Mr. Greenberg writes. “The reaction to the church has been overwhelmingly positive. It has become the center of campus life for this Catholic college, a welcoming place in which to pray or ponder the mysteries and challenges of life.”


Excerpt: City Journal about the Chapel
Full story: “Architecture’s Classical Revival” 

 

Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel
Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel

City Journal
 
 
 
 
 
  Thomas Aquinas College