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EASTWARD BOUND!
Hundreds Attend Thomas Aquinas College New England Reception
Friends from all points along the Eastern seaboard — from Quebec to Florida — recently gathered on Thomas Aquinas College’s newly acquired property in Northfield, Massachusetts, for a chance to learn about the College’s unique program of Catholic liberal education and to meet members of the faculty.
“When we set up this reception not more than three weeks ago, we expected that 100-150 people might come, and we would have been quite happy with that number,” says Director of Admissions Jon Daly. “With less than a week to go before the event, our numbers topped 300 — and from all over! We had folks representing 21 states and 2 Canadian provinces.”
In May the National Christian Foundation gifted the College with the onetime campus of a preparatory school in Northfield. By God’s grace, and contingent upon the approval of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, the College hopes to establish a New England branch campus on the site, welcoming its first class of freshmen in the fall of 2018. The July 1 reception offered a chance for members of the local community, interested families, alumni of the College, and benefactors, both old and new, to get a glimpse of what the future may hold for the campus; to tour the grounds; to meet with tutors; and to ask questions.
Continue reading 
Dean John Goyette’s remarks
Vice President Paul O’Reilly’s remarks
Dr. Tom Kaiser’s remarks
American Spectator: TAC Goes Bi-Coastal
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71 ALUMNI PRIESTS!
Four More Graduates Ordained
By God’s grace, Thomas Aquinas College can now claim four more alumni priests!
On May 27, His Eminence Joseph Cardinal Tobin, C.Ss.R., Archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, ordained Rev. Patrick Seo (’06) at Newark’s Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart. The next morning Fr. Seo offered his first Mass at the Dominican Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary in Summit, New Jersey.
Four weeks later, on June 24, the Most Rev. Timothy Freyer, Auxiliary Bishop of Orange, California, ordained Rev. Miguel (Gaspar’08) Batres, O.Praem., at Mission San Juan Capistrano. Fr. Miguel is a Norbertine monk at St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, California.
That same day the Most Rev. Paul J. Bradley, Bishop of Kalamazoo, Michigan, ordained Rev. Jeffrey Hanley (’13) and Rev. Maximilian Nightingale (’13) at St. Augustine Cathedral. Kalamazoo natives and Class of 2013 classmates, Fr. Hanley and Fr. Nightingale both entered the seminary shortly after their graduation and have studied at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.
“John the Baptist had a calling that was indeed profound and important,” Bishop Bradley told Fr. Hanley and Fr. Nightingale in his ordination homily. “But He only prepared the way for Jesus. As an ordained priest, you will be one who is entrusted with that great mission of being Christ for others — an alter Christus — to allow those to whom you are sent to know Jesus’ love and mercy, wherever that mission sends you, and no matter what the circumstances are.”
With these four ordinations, the College now has 71 priests among its alumni. Thanks be to God!
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Rev. Patrick Seo (’06)
Rev. Miguel Batres (Gaspar ’08), O.Praem.
Rev. Jeffrey Hanley (’13)
Rev. Maximilian Nightingale (’13) |
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WORDS OF WISDOM
President McLean and Mr. Baer’s Graduation Advice to High School Seniors
“You must remember that each of you is called by God to some particular work and to some particular station in life,” Thomas Aquinas College President Michael F. McLean recently told graduates at Trivium School in Lancaster, Massachusetts, where he served as the commencement speaker. “As Catholics, you measure yourself not so much by the nature of that work or the dignity of that station; not so much by the honors you receive or by the college you attend. Rather, you measure yourself by the fact that you answered the call and responded to God’s will as He made it known to you in your particular circumstances.”
Meanwhile, another member of the teaching faculty, John Baer, gave the commencement address to the 2017 graduates of the Ojai Catholic Home Study Association. “A good school can help you make a very good beginning in better knowledge of God, but only a beginning," he said. “Your learning about and loving God cannot take summers off or end with a diploma. It is for every day, for the rest of your life.”
Full text of Dr. McLean’s Address
Full text of Mr. Baer’s Address
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President Michael F. McLean
John Baer
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FAITH IN ACTION
Highlights from the College’s Alumni Blog
• The latest issue of Ad Veritatem, the publication of the St. Thomas More Society of Orange County, California, features an interview with alumnus attorney Sean Murray (’97), a partner at Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP. “Attorneys are often under pressure by colleagues and clients to do things that are morally ambiguous or worse,” he advises young lawyers. “I’d recommend letting colleagues and clients know right away that you are Catholic and doing your best to live according to a moral and ethical code. That can be communicated without being preachy, often with a few casual remarks. If someone knows you are trying your best to do what’s right, they won’t expect you to do otherwise.”
• A seminarian for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Michael Masteller (’13) is in the Eternal City as part of The Rome Experience, a six-week summer program run under the auspices of the Bishops Advisory Board that allows seminarians from throughout the U.S. to “pray and study in the heart of the Catholic Church, beside the Chair of St. Peter, and at the tombs of the saints and martyrs.” As part of the program, Mr. Masteller recently won a foot race along the arms of St. Peter’s Square and had dinner with a longtime friend of the College, His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke, patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the College’s 2010 Commencement Speaker.
• Writing for First Things, Pater Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist. (’06), has a thoughtful reflection about former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who died last month. “In order to understand Kohl’s characteristic blend of German patriotism and passionate support for European integration, it is important to note which German province he came from,” writes Pater Edmund, a Cistercian monk at Stift Heiligenkreuz in Vienna, Austria. Chancellor Kohl came from the left bank of the Rhine, notes Pater Edmund, which “unlike much of the right bank … remained Catholic after the Reformation.” Indeed, Pater Edmund concludes of Chancellor Kohl, “perhaps he was the last of those Rhenish-Catholic statesmen who still embodied something of the old spirit of Latin Christendom.”
Faith in Action blog
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Sean Murray (’97)
Michael Masteller (’13) with Raymond Cardinal Burke
Pater Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist. (’06) |
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