• “When I was about 5, I asked my mom when she was going to teach me about Jesus and Mary,” recalls Rev. Joshua Mayer (’03). “She was kind of surprised.” Although his parents were not practicing Catholics, Josh had a longing to learn about the Faith, for which he credits the influence of some devout cousins. His mother responded by bringing him to several local churches, after which, he concluded, the Catholic one suited him best. He was baptized at the age of 6, largely on his own initiative. Yet if Fr. Mayer was precocious at the age of 5, he was “immature,” he admits, in his teenage and young-adult years. Continue reading

• Within the last 18 months, Rev. Jacob (Joseph ’06) Hsieh, O.Praem., has had the honor of singing at the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and at the Papal Easter Vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica. Neither accomplishment, however, could give the sort of joy he experienced on June 27, when he received the Sacrament of Holy Orders at the hands of the Most Rev. Kevin William Vann, Bishop of Orange, at the Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano. “The grandeur of the experience was overwhelming,” he recalls. “I remember thinking, ‘I can’t believe that I am going to be a priest.’ Then, to have my confreres, my brother priests, come to me at the kiss of peace was very moving.” Continue reading

SECOND-TIME FRESHMEN 
One in Four Members of the Class of 2019 Studied Elsewhere Before Thomas Aquinas

There are more than 83,000 students on Arizona State University’s 640-acre urban campus, making the odds of a chance encounter with an old friend slim, at best. Yet one day this past summer, when Moises Gomez was visiting the university with his sister, he ran into one of his classmates from Thomas Aquinas College’s 2012 High School Summer Program, Joseph Zwemke. The two friends greeted, then discussed some exciting news.

Just an hour before, Joe had received word that the College had accepted his application to transfer from ASU in the fall. This development followed Moises’ own decision to transfer to the College from a prominent Catholic university. Despite having initially enrolled in other schools, the two friends would be reunited in the Thomas Aquinas College Class of 2019.

Moises and Joe are not alone among members of this year’s Freshman Class, nearly a quarter of whom have already completed some undergraduate work at other schools. Whether foregoing lucrative scholarships or the opportunity to play intercollegiate sports, these “second-time freshmen” have made significant sacrifices to pursue what they now regard as a far greater good — the gift of a Catholic liberal education.

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FAITH IN ACTION BLOG
Focus on Alumni Journalists

Faith in Action, the College’s alumni blog, has recently featured profiles of three alumni journalists:

• Christina (Andres ’82) Deardurff, a homeschooling mother of 10, has joined the staff of Inside the Vatican as an editorial assistant at the magazine’s U.S. office in Front Royal, Virginia. Before taking a leave from writing and editing to raise her children, Mrs. Deardurff served as an editor and contributor to Child and Family Review. Among her recent works is a story about the newly proclaimed Jubilee Year of Mercy, in which, Mrs. Deardurff writes, “The Pope himself opens the door in St. Peter’s Basilica,” in a symbolic gesture that “reflects the exclusion of Adam and Eve — and of the whole human family — from the Garden of Eden due to sin, and the readmittance into grace of the penitent of heart.”
 
• Joseph O’Brien (’93) is the managing editor of the Adoremus Bulletin. Published by the Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy, the journal is dedicated to the authentic renewal of the Sacred Liturgy according to the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. After earning a master’s degree in English at the University of Dallas, Mr. O’Brien taught high school and middle school before becoming a writer for The Catholic Times, the diocesan newspaper of La Crosse, Wisconsin, in 1999. “It’s no secret that the liturgy around the country needs a lot of work, and our hope with Adoremus is to be able to give priests and other readers a good understanding of what the Church is,” he says. “The Liturgy brings Heaven to earth, and being part of that is a real joy.”
 
• Lauretta Brown (’13) is commemorating two significant anniversaries in her nascent journalism career. It was a little over a year ago that she became a fulltime reporter at the Cybercast News Service (CNS) — and shortly thereafter that she unsettled House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi with a frank question about abortion. Just weeks into her job at CNS, Miss Brown went to Mrs. Pelosi’s weekly press briefing to query the California Congresswoman about her opposition to the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Eschewing the distracting political angles, Miss Brown cut to the chase, asking, “Is an unborn child 20 weeks into pregnancy a human being?” Mrs. Pelosi “was dumbfounded, offended,” Miss Brown recalls. “She would not answer.” A video of that dramatic exchange is available via the College’s website.