Encountering “the Lonely and Afflicted” – A Catholic Approach to Mental Health

In June and July, I had the opportunity to take a summer session course with Prof. Peter Fay titled “Christian Ethics and Mental Illness.” It was a revelatory experience – one that enriched my limited understanding of how Catholicism presents itself to stand for and with the afflicted.  

In Genesis 1:27, God created human beings in His image and likeness to be happy, whole, and life-giving. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus gently invites all who labor and are burdened to find rest in Him (Matthew 11:28-30). Similarly, in John’s Gospel, Jesus emphasizes the relationship He seeks with His followers (John 15:4-5). Grounded in God’s Word, Catholics must look to His example to welcome with love and openness all men and women who suffer from mental illness. 

Mental illness is a common and pervasive aspect of human life. Over the last decade – especially since the COVID-19 pandemic – we have seen an alarming increase in depression and suicidal tendencies. In 2023, the CDC estimates that forty-six thousand people died from mental illness. Most were young, most died unnecessarily, and many were among the most gifted that we as a society have. However, despite the ubiquity of mental illness, those who suffer often remain associated with shame and embarrassment, which can prevent people from seeking medical help. 

Indeed, the subject of mental illness tends to bring out a complex humanity. It is an unfortunate fact that public awareness lags behind extensive clinical and scientific progress. Although many respond with kindness and generosity, it too often hits a deep vein of fear and prejudice. The vitriol and irrationality of such people can be disturbing. It also advances the conceptualization of mental illness as a spiritual flaw or shortcoming in character. It is appalling to encounter such attitudes more associated with the Middle Ages than with the progressive twenty-first century. 

As followers of Christ, mental health stigma contradicts the theological foundation of the One True Church. Saint Augustine of Hippo – arguably the greatest genius among the Church Fathers – considers the gift of the human intellect in his book City of God. He writes: “What a wondrous thing it is that we have been given the ability to know our world, ourselves, and even, with the help of grace, our God.” He continues: “[Those with mental illness] say and do many incongruous things, things for the most part alien to their intentions and their characters, certainly contrary to their good intentions and characters; and when we think about their words and actions or see them with our eyes, we can scarcely – or possibly we cannot at all – restrain our tears if we consider their situation as it deserves to be considered” (Volume II, Book XXII). 

St. Augustine’s stance on mental illness – and that of Catholic tradition – is clear. He earnestly urges Christians to empathize with those who struggle with mental illness and recognize that their actions often arise from pain and confusion rather than malice or moral deficiency. All too often, lost years and relationships cannot be recovered. The damage done to oneself and others cannot be put right. A person’s desire and will to live gradually erodes into a loss of meaning. Mental illness is a heavy burden, and adding other burdens of shame and dismay onto it only makes it heavier. Rejecting a person because of prejudice is like rejecting the broken and bloody Jesus hanging on the Cross. Therefore, we are each called to love and advocate for the least among us, in all their pain and fragility – just as Christ took all human suffering on Himself. 

Fifteen hundred years later, Saint John Paul II makes a similar point. At an international conference for healthcare workers in 1996, the Pope expressed: “Whoever suffers from mental illness ‘always’ bears God’s image and likeness in himself, as does every human being.” Nothing – not a criticism, experience, or a person – can diminish a person’s God-given dignity. Mental illness readily conforms that person to Christ and gives him a share in His redeeming passion. 

Catholic and Orthodox Christians can look primarily to the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist – the source and summit of God’s radical love. The Sacrament, just like the Resurrection, can transform mental illness from an end to a beginning. The disarming simplicity of the Host is His promise to be with us “always, until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). 

As the Messiah, Jesus Christ restored meaning to people’s lives. He not only served as a profound teacher but also as a healer to those He encountered. His ministry was marked by healing deeds that transcended mere physical ailments – He addressed the deep emotional and spiritual wounds that too often accompany His beloved children. The Gospel of John challenges all disciples – past and present alike – to do the works Jesus did and “greater [works] than these” (John 14:12). As Catholics, we must ask ourselves what deeds we find ourselves engaged in. Do we restore those around us, or do we rob them of the love given to us by the Divine Physician? 

All this is to say that Prof. Fay’s course was a reminder of what the Church can and does do for those with mental illness and that the Church is called to do more. We are all – as Lord Byron put it – differently organized. We each move within the restraints of our mind and live up only partially to its possibilities. However, it must be noted that some face more hardships than others.

That being so, we are each called to extend our arms wider in openness. We must embrace that same sense of love and inclusion found in the Eucharist for those who suffer from mental illness. If we learn to wholeheartedly walk alongside those who suffer, we can then be models of Christ. No longer confining our ministry to the sick toward those with physical ailments uplifts those with invisible – albeit no less important – illnesses. It is not just His work to love. It is ours. 

Bibliography 

Augustine of Hippo. City of God. Translated by Henry Bettenson, Penguin Classics, 2004.

John Paul II. “International Conference for Healthcare Workers: Illnesses of the Mind.” 1996. 

https://www.ncpd.org/resources_and_toolkits/mental-illness-theological-framework 

Pope Francis. “Homily on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.” 2020.

“Mental Health.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and 

Human Services, 2024, www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/mental-health.htm.

“Mental Illness Statistics.” National Institute of Mental Health, 

www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness.

Autumn's Beginnings: My Wonderful Holy Cross Years

The Fenwick Review would like to thank Peter Fay , formerly of the Holy Cross Religious Studies Department, for asking us to be one of the media groups on campus to publish this letter :

I have always lived for summer.  Growing up, I couldn’t wait for the end of June to arrive, for with it came liberation from the exacting schedule of the school year.  The rituals of freedom awaited me: warmer weather, days spent at the pool, trips to the beach, endless baseball games, dinner outside, later bedtimes, and, of course, the joy that comes with crafting and consuming the perfect smore.  Autumn was the enemy: the return of structure and colder weather, the end of uninhibited fun, the grimaced awareness that life would soon sink back into greater restriction.  

As I’ve gotten older, my love for summer has remained, but something else has changed.  I no longer conceive of autumn as the enemy.  In fact, I’ve grown to love autumn.  I find the cooler weather a welcome relief from the heat; I love the fall foliage; and if I drank coffee, I’d like to think that I would thoroughly enjoy a pumpkin spice latte as much as anyone else does.  

But the greatest reason I’ve grown to love autumn has nothing to do with these typical cultural markers.  Instead, it has everything to do with the fact that, for those of us who work in higher education, autumn means the start of something new.  

College campuses are relatively quiet during the summer, but once the calendar flips to August, students slowly begin to trickle back onto campus.  First-year students wonder what this new adventure will entail.  Sophomores can’t wait to be reunited with friends who were total strangers a mere twelve months ago.  Juniors excitedly plan for internships and semesters abroad.  Seniors vow to savor every bit of their last ride.  Whether they realize it or not, all students are wondering: whom and what will this new year bring?  The class that changes my life?  The mentor who sees in me promise that I don’t yet fully see in myself?  The friends who will become my people?  A new love?  In August the campus brims with so much potential, teems with so much energy.  If you don’t believe me, go for a walk around campus the week before classes start.  Watch the sunset as the marching band’s drummers practice.  The rest of the world might associate autumn with endings, but, on the contrary, the start of the new academic year is an invigorating rush of energy, of possibility, of new life.  

I’ve been thinking about this paradox a lot the past few months, as this autumn in particular brings to my life even more newness than the fall usually does.  For the first time in several years, I am not at the College of the Holy Cross.  I have begun a new position in the Ethics Program at Villanova University.  This change is incredibly bittersweet for me.  It is sweet because it represents an exciting opportunity and the next step in my career, and I am happy to report that I am settling in very well at Villanova; it is bitter because I loved being at Holy Cross.  For five of the past six years, I had the unbelievable privilege, honor, duty, and blessing to be able to teach what I love – Christian ethics – at Holy Cross.  I offer this reflection to convey my gratitude and to offer some words of encouragement as the new academic year begins. 

Mindful of St. Ignatius’s belief that ingratitude is the greatest sin, I start with an expression of my gratitude.  I quickly realized during my first semester on campus that all of the love that the College engenders in its students and alumni is entirely well-deserved and more.  Holy Cross is an incredibly special place.  Especially deserving of my recognition are my colleagues in the Department of Religious Studies, who always welcomed me as one of their own; the Department Chairs under whom I worked (i.e. Drs. William Reiser, S.J., Mary M. Doyle Roche, and Caroline Johnson Hodge), who entrusted me with covering the Department’s existing Ethics offerings and with designing my own seminars; Presidents Rev. Philip L. Boroughs, S.J. and Vincent D. Rougeau, who have led the College with excellence, especially during these challenging years in higher education, our nation, our Church, and our world; Provosts Margaret Freije, Ann Marie Leshkowich, and Elliott Visconsi, who have ensured that Holy Cross is and remains a world-class institution for undergraduate education; countless other administrators and staff, without whom Holy Cross would grind to a halt; and Kathy Barrett, who, as Academic Administrative Coordinator for the Department of Religious Studies, saved my bacon time and again.

Equally deserving of my most sincere gratitude are my students.  Teaching is at its core an expression of the type of love that the Christian tradition refers to as agape, the giving of the self to the other.  As teachers we give ourselves to you, our students, and to our content in the hope that you too might discover in it the beauty, depth, and richness that we find in it.  In that giving we encounter not only a more educated student body but, in Christian terms, God’s very self, for “God is love” (1 John 4:8).  

When we love agapically, we take a risk.  We never know if our love will be warmly embraced, received with indifference, or rejected entirely.  Having taught hundreds of Holy Cross students, I can honestly say that everything I gave to you, you returned back to me.  This does not mean that you had to like or agree with everything I said – how boring would your education be if that were the case!  Instead, you considered it, wrestled with it, asked perceptive and challenging questions of it, developed your own insights, and learned and grew tremendously.  In this pattern of giving and receiving in turn, of love offered, accepted, and returned, we again gain not only a more educated student body or better relations between faculty and students.  Rather, we live in a way that is analogous to the pattern of relationships that Christian trinitarian theology claims is at the core of God’s very self.  Indeed, there is a sacredness, a holiness to the work that takes place in the classroom.    

This does not mean that religious conversion is the goal of the work done in the classroom but rather that Christian claims about what is ultimately good, meaningful, and worthwhile provide a basis for the teaching and learning to which the College is rightly committed.  To have a trinitarian relationship in any dimension of one’s life – whether with roommates, friends, parents, a spouse, one’s children – is a tremendous gift.  So don’t let anyone ever tell you that Christian trinitarian theology is irrelevant for your education or for questions regarding how to live life and to live it as well as possible – it just might be the most practical thing of all!  

Now some words of encouragement to you students.  I hope and trust that you fully appreciate how blessed you are to be educated at the premier Jesuit small liberal arts college in the entire world, just as I’ve always felt blessed to be able to contribute to its work too.  With this tremendous blessing comes immense responsibility, which includes especially responsibility to the College’s mission.  How fortunate are you to belong to an institution with such a rich mission statement and such a strong commitment to realizing it.  

If you’ve not already done so, I encourage you to read the College’ mission statement (available at: https://www.holycross.edu/about-us/mission-statement), to think seriously about how it does and ought to shape your education and your life long after you graduate, and to commit yourselves to striving to realize at least one particular dimension of it throughout this academic year.  Our world is desperately in need of people who are formed by the College’s Jesuit liberal arts heritage – that is, people who are educated in both mind and heart; who remain open to learning; who can listen more attentively, read more carefully, think more clearly, write more persuasively, and speak more eloquently; who can frame critical, charitable intellectual challenge as an invitation to growth toward a shared pursuit of greater truth rather than as an attack on one’s own self-worth or as proof that that pursuit is too messy to be worthwhile; who can admit the liabilities in one’s own preferred ways of thinking and living; who can find the assets in the ways of thinking and living that they typically oppose; and who can distinguish effective argumentation from its fallacious counterparts.  

Our world is similarly in desperate need of people who are shaped by the Catholic intellectual tradition that shapes the College’s mission and life.  How fortunate you are to belong to an institution whose heritage has roots that extend back across the millennia and throughout the world.  As any of my students can tell you, my encouragement here is not at all rooted in naivete about the Church’s failings, which an authentic, responsible, life-giving understanding of the tradition rightly indicts.  Moreover, I understand that many students do not enter Holy Cross excited to engage with the Catholic tradition.  

Nevertheless, critical, charitable engagement with the tradition – the core of which is love – is precisely what is needed today as the challenges of the twenty-first century continue to loom.  Whether you are a cradle Catholic who feels at home in the Church, a hardened skeptic, or anywhere in between, and no matter where you are in your own journey, I hope, trust, and expect that you will be pleasantly surprised – and, yes, helpfully challenged too – as you engage with the Catholic intellectual tradition at Holy Cross.  Your doing so is important for yourselves and for the tradition alike.  At its worst, the Church has many failings to answer for.  At its best, it offers so much good to our world.  Do not cede the tradition to those who distort it for their own personal gain.  Reclaim it.  

How might you begin to do that during your undergraduate years?  Start by taking courses in Religious Studies, which will help you to develop a clear, critical, adult, and perhaps even appreciative understanding the Catholic tradition and the other great religious traditions of our world.  You would never turn down the chance to learn about song-writing from Taylor Swift or about playing quarterback from Tom Brady; do not turn down the opportunity to learn from faculty who are similarly among the world’s foremost authorities in their field just because you think religion is disastrous or because you think your high school religion course already taught you everything you need to know about the topic.  

The more you appropriate the College’s mission by habituating yourselves in these virtues of the excellent thinker, the more you will be able to penetrate the beauty, depth, and richness of the content you study, and the better you will be able to harness your gifts in service to our world.  So much for you as persons, for the College, for Worcester, for our nation, for our Church, and for our world hinges upon the formation you undergo during your undergraduate years.  Do not waste them.  We educators have rightly high aspirations for you.  We want you to flourish, to become the people God calls you to become, to grow into your greatest and grandest possibilities for truth, love, and goodness, and to radiate all of these into our world.  Your doing so will enrich your own lives and the lives of countless others who were not able to attend a place like Holy Cross.  May their lives be better because you committed yourselves to the College’s vision for your education. 

To conclude, I’d like to tie together my New York roots with the New England sensibilities that will appeal many in the Holy Cross community.  Long before he led the New England Patriots to unprecedented success and cemented his legacy as one of the greatest head coaches in the history of the National Football League, Bill Belichick was an assistant coach and defensive coordinator of my beloved New York Giants.  2009 was the last year the Giants would play in Giants Stadium – the stadium in which Coach Belichick burst onto the scene as a coaching force to be reckoned with – before it was demolished.  It was also the year that N.F.L. Films put a microphone on then-Patriots Head Coach Belichick for the entire season as part of its A Football Life documentary.  During his last visit to Giants Stadium, N.F.L. Films had Coach Belichick revisit the Giants’ locker room, coaches’ rooms, and offices to reflect upon his professional journey across the decades.  When asked to consider where he began as a lowly assistant coach in relation to where he was as a five-time Super Bowl winner at the time, Coach Belichick said, “I was just trying to establish my coaching career, be a good coach, win some games.  We won a lot of them here.  This is a great organization.  It’s hard not to get choked up about it.  […].  Oh I loved it here, I loved it here.”

I am certainly not Coach Belichick, nor have I risen in my field to the level of success that he has attained in his.  But I would like to think that on some deep level I can understand and appreciate exactly what he meant.  What Giants Stadium means to Bill Belichick, the College of the Holy Cross will always mean to me.  It’s the place that gave me my start.  The first institution of higher education that entrusted me as the instructor of record in one of its courses.  The place where I tried to show that I could do an adequate enough job teaching ethics.  I have had to root against Coach Belichick for longer than I care to remember, but I agree wholeheartedly with him on this point (and, certainly, he stays awake late at night hoping that Fay agrees with him!): it’s impossible to avoid tearing up when reflecting upon those who have launched you, for you never forget your first love.  

Thank you for helping to make my years at Holy Cross so meaningful, beautiful, and amazing, and please rest assured that the College of the Holy Cross will always hold a very special place in my heart.  I have certainly taken and will continue to hold a piece of it and of all of you with me as I begin at Villanova and beyond, and perhaps each of you and the entire Holy Cross family will take a piece of me with you as you continue in your journey at and beyond Mount Saint James.  My Holy Cross email address will be disabled on September 1, 2024.  Please feel free to keep in touch as you see fit – my Villanova email address (peter.fay@villanova.edu) is already active should you wish you to write.  

From the very bottom of my heart, I thank you, I miss you, I love you, I cannot wait to see all of the good that awaits you going forward, and I will be rooting for your continued flourishing from afar as I make my way a little further down the road.  This autumn and beyond, my hope and prayer for you is this: may the season’s new beginnings bring all of us into fuller, deeper life, and may the entire Holy Cross family enter ever more fully into the radiantly sunlit future that awaits it.

Yours gratefully,

Peter K. Fay

Department of Religious Studies 2018-2024

Charity, Queen of Dialogue

Last year, Holy Cross began a long-awaited dialogue about dialogue. Through social media spats, abrupt confrontations, and general tension on campus, the student body demonstrated that it was struggling to come together and engage in constructive discussion about its opposing worldviews. This is the sort of problem that does not befit a liberal arts college, a place whose purpose is the exchange of ideas. In order to remind students of this purpose, the administration had to ask itself, how can Holy Cross foster dialogue? And, are there some subjects that do not merit dialogue?

True to its liberal arts tradition, the College proposed a structured medium for students to voice their views on controversial issues. The administration, in conjunction with the newly founded group SPEECH (Students Promoting Empathy, Expression, and Civic Harmony), began a series called “Dialogue Dinners,” two-hour events during which students could come together and discuss current issues over a meal. These dinners offered students a casual, friendly setting to alleviate the tension of disagreement, but also enforced structure and civility through rules and the presence of administrators and student peer educators. 

One of the rules of the Dialogue Dinners comes directly from the Presupposition of St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises: “Be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it. If one cannot interpret it favorably, one should ask how the other means it.” Ignatius’ advice calls for patience and cordiality, two necessary qualities of any decent conversation. They certainly have their place at a Dialogue Dinner.

Though the rest of the advice of the Presupposition was not included in the rules of the Dialogue Dinners, it is equally valuable. Still referring to the statements of one’s neighbor, St. Ignatius continues, “If he cannot save it, let him inquire how he means it; and if he means it badly, let him correct him with charity. If that is not enough, let him seek all the suitable means to bring him to mean it well, and save himself.” Notice the key principle here: charity.

St. Ignatius established these guidelines at the beginning of his Spiritual Exercises as a framework for the relationship between the spiritual director and the retreatant, the former of whom is essential to the growing prayer life and discernment of the retreatant. This quote from the Presupposition shows that spiritual direction is impossible without charity, the queen of virtues which Christians also call “love.” For, as Ignatius points out, love seeks understanding. Charity enables the spiritual director and the retreatant to truly listen to and understand one another. Charity disposes of presumptions and self-righteousness. Only with charity can the two engage in constructive dialogue. St. Paul said, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13, ESV). No matter how learned the spiritual director may be, his advice bears no fruit without love for God and the retreatant. The same can be said for the retreatant’s reception of his advice.

Although the Presupposition was originally intended for this pairing, its content can easily be extended beyond the Spiritual Exercises to the rest of us undergoing daily life. Should we not also desire to nourish each other’s souls, knowing one another as fellow beloveds of God? Is this not what we owe one another as neighbors, or in Holy Cross language, as “men and women for and with others”?

St. Ignatius understood the essential role of charity for fruitful dialogue. This idea from our familiar Ignatian tradition takes its roots all the way back to the moment of creation, and is fulfilled by Christ in the New Covenant.

The Gospel of John paints creation as a dialogue between God and His creatures. The first chapter of John explains how Christ was present at the beginning of time, not yet enfleshed but as the “Word,” through Whom “all things were made” (1:3). Creation was made through the “Word,” which in the Greek also translates to “reason” or “logic.” John shows that God’s creation of the world was an act of reason, and that creation was brought about by the speech of God.

The original Greek makes clear that the act of creation was a dialogue. John 1:3, which begins “All things were made through Him,” tells us that the world was made “dia autou,” with the pronoun autou referring to the Logos, the Word. The preposition dia and the noun Logos form the Greek word “dialogos,” where we get our word for “dialogue.” Through his clever wielding of language, John reveals that creation is a dialogue between itself and its Creator.

Christ further exemplifies His life-giving nature as the Word in the miracles He performs during His ministry. In the three cases where he brings people back to life, He uses the power of speech. He famously brings Lazarus back to life when He commands him, “Lazarus, come out!” (John 11:43). He commands the twelve-year-old daughter of the synagogue leader back to life with the words, “‘Talitha cumi,’ which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you, arise.’” (Mark 5:41). Finally, He revives the son of the Naim widow with the command “Young man, I say to you, arise” (Luke 7:14). In each of these instances, Christ revives His creatures through speech. Through the miracles He performs during His ministry, Christ continues His creative act as Logos, culminating in His death and resurrection, by which human beings are constantly being redeemed and brought into new life.

Christ’s crucifixion fulfills creation, since it is by this act that man is able to do what he was made for; namely, enter into an eternal relationship with God. Man was made and given his purpose at the moment of His creation, when God breathed His own life into him – not only biological life, but life in the Spirit, as indicated in the Greek by the word “zoe” (Genesis 2:7) as opposed to “bios.” Man was uniquely made to be like God and to be one with Him. The Fall ruptured this relationship, but Christ’s willing sacrifice revives it and welcomes us back to life in the Spirit. St. Athanasius, a fourth century Church Father, understood creation and salvation as consistent events: “There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation; for the One Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting the salvation of the world through the same Word Who made it at the first” [1]. The Logos gave man life in the beginning, and He renews this life through His death and resurrection.

Why did Christ give up His life for humanity? St. John says that it was out of love. “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 8-10). Love is at the essence of God and therefore the essence of the Logos. It was because of love that God formed man from clay and later sent His Son to die for him.

John continues, relaying a social message about how we ought to love one another: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 11-12). As John says, Christians are called to love others in a way that parallels God’s love for man.

This poses a heavy demand. God’s love permits no exceptions. Christ’s sacrifice was for every member of the human race. This is a radical truth which dissolves divisions and calls us to love through difference and in difference. According to St. Paul, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). All people have a shared identity in Christ, in their purpose as human beings. 

Creation was a dialogue, with love at its center. Considering the nature of this first dialogue, what can we say of the dialogue at Holy Cross?

Holy Cross’ mission statement is rooted in dialogue. The following is a short excerpt: “Because the search for meaning and value is at the heart of the intellectual life, critical examination of fundamental religious and philosophical questions is integral to liberal arts education. Dialogue about these questions among people from diverse academic disciplines and religious traditions requires everyone to acknowledge and respect differences.” Though in secular language, this quote somewhat mirrors Paul’s advice to the Galatians. Our calling to be one in Christ demands respect in spite of differences. Since we are called to love one another as God loves His creation, dialogue is incomplete without love.

As the Gospels show, Christ’s speech gives life. In being made like God, destined for relationship with Him, we are given the ability to co-create, materially, spiritually, and intellectually. We participate in the perpetual dia Logos between God and man. Knowing the crucial role God has for us in His creation, we ought to do our best to ensure that our speech is also life-giving.

Endnotes 

[1] Athanasius, On the Incarnation, (St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, 1982), 26. 

Some Considerations on the Rosary

The Most Holy Rosary is, in some sense, the unofficial official prayer of the Church. Though technically speaking, the Divine Office (in addition to the sacred liturgy itself) is the official public prayer of the Church, the Rosary is by far the most well known and most practiced devotion in the West. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that this act of piety has the unique privilege of being celebrated with its own feast day in the Roman Rite. While it is not the only devotion to ever be granted such an honor, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary (which has changed names several times since its institution by St. Pius V after the victory of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571) is the only one of such feasts to be universally inscribed on the traditional liturgical calendar. And indeed, it continues to be so within its inclusion on the calendar of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite as an obligatory memorial. This great feast is celebrated on October 7th, and the entire month of October is dedicated to the Rosary. For this reason, it seems fitting to consider this most beloved of Catholic devotions.

The structure of the Rosary should be familiar to most Catholics. Its recitation consists of “decades”; that is, sets of ten recitations of the Angelical Salutation, a prayer more commonly referred to as the Hail Mary. Between each set the Lord’s Prayer is prayed, more commonly referred to as the Our Father. Given the amount of time that is taken to invoke the Blessed Virgin Mary, one could easily conclude that the Rosary is a Marian devotion. And of course, it is a Marian devotion, and chief among them. However, the Rosary is a devotion primarily oriented not toward the Lord’s mother, but toward the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Of course, this could be said of every act of devotion since all prayer is ultimately oriented toward God. However, what is intended here is not a simple fact regarding the nature of prayer, but a commentary on the true virtue of the Rosary. Whereas other forms of prayer, such as the Angelical Salutation itself, are primarily oriented toward the Blessed Mother in so far as they are simply petitions or acts of love made to her, the Rosary’s main focus is not vocal prayer at all, but meditation. What is the most integral part of the Rosary is also at times the most forgotten: the pious meditation on the mysteries that accompany it. 

The “mysteries” of the Rosary refer to particular events in the life of Christ that are especially fruitful for meditation given their significance in the Gospel. Each of the mysteries is assigned to a decade of the Rosary. Traditionally they are fifteen in number; however, St. John Paul II added five new mysteries, collectively called the Luminous Mysteries, to be recited in addition to the original Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries [1]. Nowadays, the Rosary is typically prayed as one set of mysteries at a time, with the particular set changing according to the day of the week. The original number of fifteen mysteries, which correspond to a total of fifteen decades, is not accidental. The devotion most likely arose from a modification of the Psalter, the collection of all one hundred and fifty psalms found in Scripture. The Psalter was traditionally recited in its entirety every week by the monks, but it soon became an object of attraction to the lay faithful as well. Of course, reciting all of the Psalms in a single week is nearly impossible for the average person given the amount of time required as well as the necessity of literacy (which was not nearly as common in the era when the Rosary began to develop). So the Church, ever mindful of the barriers that life in this world burdens upon the poor and always concerned with the accessibility of the full arsenal of her prayer, naturally developed the simplified version of the Psalter that is known today as “Our Lady’s Psalter:” the Most Holy Rosary. Rather than having to learn to read or memorize an entire collection of texts, the faithful would only have to make use of the most common prayers which were known and memorized by all the baptized and be familiar with the most central mysteries of the Gospel in order to participate in this prayer of the Church. 

Among the mysteries are the Annunciation of Our Lady, her Assumption into Heaven, the Nativity of Our Lord, his Crucifixion and Death, his Resurrection, his Institution of the Most Holy Eucharist, etc. Each of these mysteries finds its origin in Sacred Scripture, and all have lengthy narratives associated with them with the exceptions of only the Assumption and the Coronation of Our Lady as Queen of Heaven. It is for this reason that the Rosary has colloquially been referred to as “the Bible on a string.” In this way, the Rosary is a sort of lectio divina, the ancient method of the prayerful reading of Scripture made accessible to a universal audience. Although the reading of Sacred Scripture ought to always constitute a central part in the Christian’s devotional life, it is the case that the Rosary presents a summary of the Gospel in a manner that is simple, accessible, and easy for all people. Indeed, the Rosary is truly the prayer of the masses. Whereas some devotions are better suited to the more or less educated, others to the devout or the lukewarm, and others to children or adults, the Rosary is a prayer that is both easy and efficacious to all people who approach it in faith. Just as the stained glass windows, pictures, frescos, and statues that adorn medieval churches served to teach the central truths of the Christian religion and the lives of the saints to a mostly illiterate population, so can the Rosary serve to instruct those who either cannot or do not regularly read Sacred Scripture about the mysteries of the Gospel. And what is more, this instruction is done by means of meditation in union with the prayers of the mother of Jesus herself. So, if praying the Rosary is a method of instruction, then the question is raised: who is the instructor? 

Really there are two instructors of those who pray the Rosary: the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother. It is fitting to recall the intimate union that the Holy Spirit and Mary share as spiritual spouses, and the Rosary can help to do so. At the Annunciation, the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and in doing so caused the Incarnation of Christ in her womb. So the two are called “spiritual spouses”; “spouses” because the one effected the conception of Christ in the other, and “spiritual” because the virginity of Mary remained intact and she remained truly conjugally married to her most chaste spouse, St. Joseph. As also demonstrated by the Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit once again came to sow seed to blossom into good fruit. Descending upon the Apostles in the presence of Mary, the Holy Spirit officially began the Church on that day. From these examples can be drawn this maxim concerning the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Virgin Mary: wherever the one is, so is the other. And when both are at work, holy fruit is born. So as the Spirit of Truth, who teaches all truth, reveals the secrets hidden in the mysteries of the Rosary, his blessed spouse hears the prayers of her devotees and prays for their sanctification as she reveals more and more of her Divine Son.

There is much more that can be said about this beautiful devotion. For those who are interested in beginning to pray it or mastering it, consider this simple course of action: firstly, memorize the prayers that constitute the Rosary. Secondly, become familiar with the mysteries by reading their respective passages from Scripture. Thirdly, begin to pray the Rosary according to a guide or with someone else who knows how to pray it. Fourthly, intimately meditate on the mysteries as you pray. And finally, pray the Rosary regularly, even every day. I must admit my own hypocrisy in this regard: while I recommend to everyone to pray the Rosary every single day, I myself hardly ever do so. Although I cannot say that I am someone who never skips a day, I can wholeheartedly say that even the regular recitation of the Rosary has completely revolutionized my life. In a time when so many are imprisoned by habitual sin, a prayer like the Rosary is the perfect remedy. Habitual prayer conquers habitual sin. So as we hail our Holy Queen while still in this valley of tears, and as we meditate upon the mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary, may we imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Endnotes: 

[1] Pope John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Apostolic Letter, October 16, 2002. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/2002/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20021016_rosarium-virginis-mariae.html. 

Thoughts on Our Jesuit Inheritance, Part I

Two summers ago, there was a display of lamppost banners around the Hoval, each one advertising a value related to Holy Cross’ Jesuit identity. At the top of each banner was the phrase: “Jesuit Heritage.” It did not say “Jesuit values,”  “Jesuit mission,” or “Jesuit identity.” The word heritage may mean a few different things, but it certainly suggests something received from the past [1]. It may or may not refer to something still living. A man may speak of his “Catholic Heritage,” but this does not guarantee that you will see him at Mass next Sunday. The question, then, is whether this inheritance continues as a living identity, a decorative heirloom, or something in between. Is Holy Cross “Jesuit,” or merely “raised Jesuit?”

The word “Jesuit” is often thrown around at Holy Cross, but there is not a clear understanding of what it means, especially as it relates to our college. If you asked a member of our community a hundred or even fifty years ago what made Holy Cross a Jesuit college, they probably would have looked at you strangely and replied, “Why, the Jesuits, of course!” Today the answer is not so obvious. One needs only to walk from Loyola to Ciampi, then to the new Jesuit residence to get a visual impression of the decline in the number of actual Jesuits who live at Holy Cross. The average student interacts with Jesuits rarely, if at all. We no longer have a Jesuit president, and few Jesuits remain in administration. There are only a handful of Jesuit professors, mostly in Religious Studies. And perhaps most surprisingly, only one out of our dozen chaplains is a Jesuit. This should not be surprising, considering our Church’s vocation shortage, but it makes the answer to our question much less obvious. Our “Jesuit-ness” is no longer incarnate in the collared figures who walk around our campus. It is now more abstract; we cannot point to it. We must recognize first, then, that it is unclear what makes a college “Jesuit” if not Jesuits, and that we are at risk of losing whatever that is.

What does Holy Cross herself have to say? The “Jesuit, Catholic Tradition” section of our website [2] identifies three ways “we honor the Jesuit legacy” (again, suggesting the past). They are: “humanistic studies,” “solidarity with the poor and disenfranchised,” and “a diverse community of participants.” These are good and desirable things. They surely do flow from the Jesuit charism and tradition. But they cannot be what makes Holy Cross Jesuit; non-Jesuit colleges are just as capable of these things. Do we do them better? Maybe. But they are exterior. They are what we do, not who we are. They are, in soteriological language, Holy Cross’ “works.” Just as we are not saved by works [3], we are likewise not “made Jesuit” by them either. Holy Cross is made Jesuit by its faith, none other than the Catholic Faith, expressed through the particular Jesuit charism.  

It may seem obvious to some, but the Jesuits (the Society of Jesus) are a religious order within the Catholic Church. As a clarifying note, this means that “Jesuit” has a narrow meaning that does not apply to us students or the wider college community, despite the applicability of broader categories like “Jesuit charism.” More importantly, this means that Jesuits exist in the context of the Catholic Faith, and any identity that is not properly Catholic cannot, by definition, be a Jesuit identity. This means that when Holy Cross departs from the Catholic Church (not only in explicit matters of faith but also in ethical matters), it separates itself that much from its Jesuit identity. This is not to say that non-Catholics are or should be unwelcome at Holy Cross, but merely that any institution whose core is not Catholic cannot be Jesuit. With this in mind, I do not think it is controversial to say that Holy Cross largely departs from the Catholic Church on matters of faith in thought and practice, and a still larger portion departs on ethical matters. Insofar as this is the case, Holy Cross can only pretend to be authentically Jesuit. The name “Holy Cross” is not enough, our statues of saints are not enough, and the fact that many of our students grew up going to Catholic school is not enough when we are not Christians. As long as we are not Christians, our Jesuit heritage remains merely that, heritage.

But is that it? Shall we use the Jesuits rolling in their graves in our cemetery to power the PAC? Shall we Catholics be content complaining as Holy Cross becomes increasingly “progressive,” increasingly secular, and thus less Jesuit? Shall we be cynics, satisfied with our laughter when our friends and family ask, “So is your school, like, really religious?” A pessimist may say yes, but pessimism is not Christian. Any Fenwick Review writer could write a long and provocative article about all the ways Holy Cross fails to be authentically Catholic and thus fails to be Jesuit. Maybe that is necessary. But it is not enough. What we need is to identify where Holy Cross lives out its Jesuit Charism well, and work to strengthen these points. We need to claim our Jesuit inheritance. We must participate in and promote the sacramental life of the Church at Holy Cross. We must adopt authentic Ignatian modes of prayer. We must preach the Gospel. We must pursue academic excellence, and scholarship which seeks truth and advances the cause of faith, rather than subversion. We Catholics must live in such a way that reveals the fruits of the Jesuit charism so that Holy Cross will see what it means to be authentically “Jesuit.”

Endnotes

[1] The OED defines Heritage as “the condition or state transmitted from ancestors.” Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “heritage (n.), sense 4,” June 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/5778821977.

[2] “Jesuit, Catholic Tradition,” College of the Holy Cross, accessed November 5, 2024, https://www.holycross.edu/about-us/jesuit-catholic-tradition. 

[3] According to the Council of Trent, session six, canon 1: “If any one saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.”

“The Main Thing is to be Moved” : Lessons from Rodin and Rilke

Go to the Limits of Your Longing

God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

-Rainier Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God.

In the poem above, Rainier Maria Rilke offers incredibly powerful advice on how to live a life in Christ. Simultaneously simplistic and endlessly complicated, Rilke’s message is both inspirational and solemn: Live, do not be afraid. Be impactful, find meaning, seek truth. Persevere, experience boldly but stray not from the path. Seek greatness. Walk with the Lord in all you do.

The first pictured Rodin sculpture, which is nestled in Holy Cross’ Memorial Plaza, is outstanding in a similar way. It depicts Eustache de Saint-Pierre,  (as found in The Burghers of Calais, Rodin's best-known public monument) who was the oldest of the six burghers and the first to volunteer to be sacrificed to save his native city. The weight of this situation can be clearly felt, even today. The precise way the light hits it, the telling physicality of the figure, the depth of emotion, and the seriousness it exudes invite the viewer to adopt a contemplative attitude in a similar way that Rilke does.

The second pictured Rodin sculpture is active yet serene, depicting a youthful sprite. It is different from the somber Eustache de Saint-Pierre, but is equally enigmatic nonetheless. This is the genius of Rodin, able to portray a vast range of figures, perspectives, and emotions with the most careful technique and attention to detail. When observing his work, one is forced to pause, to think, to reflect, and to look beyond the present moment. Rilke incites this beautiful disruption in us as well, through the layers of meaning that lie beyond the surface of his words. 

It is not a well known fact that sculptor Auguste Rodin and poet Rainier Maria Rilke crossed paths numerous times during their lives. Their story, though, is one worth telling: it serves as a reminder for all of us at Holy Cross that we must orient ourselves to virtuous ends. Patience, strength, dedication, faith, purpose. These are traits that Rodin and Rilke embodied, and they are traits that should define us all. Moreover, Rilke and Rodin both embraced the apprenticeship model to develop their talents. They humbly grounded themselves in the greatness which came before them, acknowledging that this turn to the past is not only a worthy, but necessary endeavor. This is the lesson which I fear is missing from the classrooms of Holy Cross and from the hearts of Holy Cross students. 

But it is the precise mentality from which Rilke began. Before his poetic career took off, Rilke traveled to Paris in search of inspiration and became Rodin’s secretary. Immediately drawn to the great sculptor, Rilke was willing to take any opportunity to observe Rodin’s masterful artistry. After days, Rilke was deeply and seriously inspired by Rodin. After years, Rilke was able to craft a beautiful and poignant monograph of Rodin’s art and Rodin’s life. Rilke also dedicated the second volume of his breakthrough collection New Poems (1908) to his mentor, without whom, he acknowledged, the work would not exist. 

What Rilke took away from Rodin changed his life. Rodin taught him to see the beauty and terror of the world at the same time and demonstrated the importance of committing fully to one's craft in pursuit of perfection. For these reasons, Rodin left an indelible mark on Rilke, who, in turn, opened his eyes, heart, and mind and allowed them to be molded. Their relationship moved from one of master and pupil to one of equals. Both were visionaries in their own right. 

Rilke’s monograph of Rodin includes a similar story of inspiration from Rodin’s youth. Rodin was influenced by legends such as Dante, Baudelaire, and Michelangelo, names which are notably inscribed into the walls of Dinand’s reading room. Rilke recounted:

 “After having read the works of these two poets they remained always near him, his thoughts went from them and yet returned to them again. At the time when his art took form and prepared itself for expression, when life as it presented itself before him had little significance, Rodin dwelt in the books of the poets and gleaned from the past. Later, when as a creator he again touched those realms, their forms rose like memories in his own life, aching and real, and entered into his work as though into a home.” 

These great men left an indelible mark on Rodin, so that he could leave an indelible mark on Rilke. Thus is the cyclical and generational- amazing- tide of influence. This is the kind of mark that a liberal education should make on each of us. It is the mark that Holy Cross should leave on us- the kind of experience that we should seek. To cite Rilke’s above poem once again, we should feel inspired–almost terrified–at the necessary pursuit of truth. Objective truth, rooted in objective goodness. 

Like the Rodin sculpture, many important things are overlooked and undervalued by this campus. We overlook our history, as made evident by the thoughtlessness with which we pass our campus’s art and architecture everyday. We overlook the liberal tradition, and with it the radical principles of the American Founding which gave birth to us and our freedoms. Lastly, we overlook the centrality of our Creator, without whom none of this would exist. 

But this is the age in which we live: utilitarian and ideological, rapidly changing and swaying with the tides of popular and fleeting beliefs and moral codes. The superficiality of Holy Cross is reflective of the superficiality of the American culture which surrounds it. This is the student body we have become, but it’s not the student body we have to be. 

To mitigate this problematic contemporary tendency towards easy, seemingly obvious short term solutions and understandings, one must dive into the richness of history and those who came before. It is only within this context that we can make sense of reality, yet this crucial fact has been largely forgotten. Following Rilke’s advice, we must take life more seriously. We must seek to fulfill our unique purposes. We must stand firm, and focused, in the face of a culture that values change, a culture that is inconsistent and shallow. 

Holy Cross physically embodies a time of the past, and for this we are lucky. The campus serves as a reminder of the school’s roots. Our roots. Great wisdom is undeniably preserved here, so long as it continues to be recognized, and sought, instead of rejected. Yet, figures from history are being erased and discarded at alarming rates. Names are wiped off the slates of time, here at Holy Cross, and around the country. Rodin sculptures are carelessly glanced over, Rilke’s words fall on deaf ears. If we can no longer look to history for answers in which to ground our humanity, where can we turn?

 It is clear that the vast majority of American society is turning the wrong way. Holy Cross should turn back and look to the past. We all stand on the shoulders of those who came before. We must acknowledge that there is truth to glean from history and tradition.

As highlighted in Rachel Corbett’s book, You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin, Rilke offers advice for how to find meaning; 

“Search for the reason that bids you to write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart. Then ask yourself, would you die if it were denied you to write. This above all — ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: must I write? If the heart utters a clear, I must, then build your life according to this necessity, but be prepared to surrender to the imperative forever, for art is not a choice, but an immutable 
disposition of the soul.”

So notice it all, the art around you. Think about what came before, think about what exists now. Take it all in, reflect on your own talents in the context of that which came before, and then turn that passion outwards. What kind of art are you meant to make? What gives your life meaning? Who do you draw inspiration from? 

This is a deep, reflective exercise. One that requires a liberal education and awareness of the important things; religion, philosophy, and history as mentioned before. Holy Cross must do better to inspire these contemplations. 

During a time when people seek instant gratification, immediate pleasures, coddling, and exceptions, this task of the pursuit of meaning becomes even harder, almost unorthodox. Now, moral relativism rules the day, and with this, so does complacency, mediocrity, and a system of judgment which changes with the tide of popularity. What does it mean to be great in the modern age? 

According to Rilke and Rodin, to be great is to be focused, to better oneself and to grow in likeness to the image of God, and to take oneself and one's life seriously. Liberal education is the means through which this greatness can be cultivated. As Holy Cross students, we all have this special opportunity. It is our job to make the most of it. 

So I end where I began: In the words of Rodin, “The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.” This is how we become the people we are meant to be, how we find ourselves, and figure out our unique contributions to the world. The first step in this journey is to find inspiration in what is all around us. 

References 

“Go to the Limits of Your Longing” Rainier Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, 2005.

“Auguste Rodin” by Rainer Maria Rilke 1903, translated by Jessie Lemont and Hans Trausil, 1919. 

You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin, Rachel Corbett, 2016. 

Thanksgiving for Summorum Pontificum Almost 17 years Later

           In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI signed a groundbreaking motu proprio which affirmed the right of all Latin rite priests to offer the sacraments according to the books in place before the second Vatican Council, restoring a liturgical unity within the Latin church and reconciling her to the principles of liturgical continuity. What comes to most peoples’ minds will be the liberty given to offer the old Mass (the 1962 Missale Romanum or Usus Antiquior), but it must also be noted that Summorum Pontificum (SP) gifted the Church all the traditional sacrament books (which includes all the traditional forms of the sacraments, breviaries, etc.) that were in use prior to the Second Vatican Council. Even other traditional Latin rites (e.g. the traditional Dominican, Carmelite, or Ambrosian rites) have since experienced their own revivals in the aftermath of SP. The heart of the Holy Father’s philosophical justification was articulated in his letter accompanying SP in which he wrote: 

What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.  It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.

As we see in  many of his liturgical writings and reflections, this principle of valuing what came before as sacred permeates Pope Benedict’s understanding of liturgy and the Church itself. Even in his pre-papal memoirs, “Milestones: Memoirs: 1927-1977”, then-cardinal Ratzinger, reflecting on his first hand-missal, writes of the Church’s sacred Liturgy: 

It was becoming more and more clear to me that here I was encountering a reality that no one had simply thought up, a reality that no official authority or great individual had created. This mysterious fabric of text and actions had grown from the faith of the Church over the centuries. It bore the whole weight of history within itself, and yet, at the same time, it was much more than the product of human history. Every century had left its mark upon it. The introductory notes informed us about what came from the early Church, what from the Middle Ages, and what from modern times. Not everything was logical. Things sometimes got complicated, and it was not always easy to find one's way. But precisely this is what made the whole edifice wonderful, like one's own home.

It is precisely this organic development which gives, and continues to give the liturgy her unity, beauty, and depth. Liturgy is not something static, but ever slowly developing and shaping the Church. Likewise, Liturgy, properly understood, is not the product committee or community, but rather of centuries of tradition and development. By reading the same readings and by praying the same orations over centuries it bridges Catholics of the past and the present. This unity of prayer between Catholics over history is both a beautiful and fitting characteristic of our traditional liturgy. It is what marks us as truly “Catholic;” that is, universal. 

           Because of the principles outlined in SP and its accompanying letter, Tradition was no longer to be relegated to a few isolated chapels and banished from diocesean life. Instead, it could be a part of the heart of the Church’s worship. SP served to normalize tradition, welcoming it back into the mainstream of Catholic life. What the Church regarded as sacred and great was once again recognized as “sacred and great for us too.”

           Benedict also had the foresight to see how the Church’s youth would be attracted to what were her normative liturgical rites for over 500 years. He wrote in his letter accompanying SP: “It has clearly been demonstrated that young persons too have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist, particularly suited to them.” Here I hear the Pope speaking about young people like myself who, until encountering the traditional liturgy, experienced a great deal of difficulty participating in and praying the Holy Mass. I can say from my own experience that I find the older liturgical books to be more accessible and that they communicate to me more clearly, both verbally and non verbally, this Fons et apex (Source and Summit) of Christian life. I’m not claiming that every young person prefers the traditional rite, but from my own experience I have noticed that there is both greater interest in and greater tolerance for the traditional rite among the youth. Despite the prejudices of some septuagenarians, I am certain that, under God’s providence, this trove of liturgical treasures opened up by Summorum Pontificum will survive for generations to come.

References: 

Ratzinger, Joseph. Milestones: Memoirs: 1927-1977. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998. 

The Crisis of Meaning at Holy Cross

I have been a student here at Holy Cross for four years. I have lived and breathed this campus for four years of my life. I have been immersed in various classes, social groups, campus events, and way too many Thirsty Thursdays at Weagle. Even after all this immersion, I still do not know what it truly means to be a Holy Cross student. 

However, I do know that I have been inundated with a lot of slogans that tell me what it means to be a Holy Cross student. According to these slogans, a Holy Cross student must be “a man or woman for and with others,” who always seeks “magis” and “cura personalis” above all else. By themselves, these slogans are pretty good. Who is opposed to being a “man or woman for and with others?” Are we going to be men and women for ourselves? Or cura personalis? Are we really just going to care for one aspect of ourselves to the detriment of the rest? Nonsense. The vast majority of people, even those outside Jesuit-sponsored institutions, intuitively understand that these things are good and important. 

These slogans allow Holy Cross to escape from answering the big question of “what does it mean to be a member of this community.” The administration uses these amorphous statements as a substitute for answering the tough questions posed at the beginning of our mission statement. These questions, which you might have glanced at in Montserrat (which, by far, is one of the most misguided programs at Holy Cross), are very good. In order to live the good life, we must figure out “how to find meaning in life and history” and “what are our obligations to one another.” It is impossible to live a truly human life without answering these questions.

The sad fact is that Holy Cross has made these questions, which lie at the heart of the College’s current mission statement, impossible to answer. They have made them impossible to answer because, above all else, Holy Cross has made the institutional decision to become a corporate institution. 

You might be asking what is the difference between a corporate institution and an educational institution. Well, for starters, a corporate institution seeks above all else the minimization of conflict, the maximization of the endowment, and the growth of the administrative bureaucracy. Can anybody with a straight face tell me that these goals are not the main goals of our administration? 

An educational institution does not seek these things. These goals, while sometimes important for the survival of the institution, are not the telos of an educational institution. To Holy Cross, these three corporate prongs are our final end. We have no greater end. Our end is not “in hoc signo vinces” or “ad maiorem Dei gloriam,” but rather it is “make sure that we soothe the concerns of alumni (whether they are progressive or conservative; old or young; white or non-white) enough that they are still willing to remember us, and the endowment, in their will.”

This corporate model has inevitably hurt the student body because it has produced an administration that is fundamentally incapable of giving students anything more than amorphous, relatively subjective, and undefinable slogans. For example, can anybody really define for me what it means to be “a man or woman for and with others?” Or, does it just mean whatever I want it to be? 

The scariest consequence of the administration’s corporate approach to institutional management is that they have entrusted these questions to people who fundamentally disagree with the mission of our college: the progressive academic.

Our faculty, composed mostly of very kind and overly generous people, is also stacked with dangerous ideologues. The faculty, by and large, has proposed solutions to these fundamental questions, but many of these solutions are inhuman and drastically opposed to the traditional mission of our college. Their solutions are not grounded in claims of Truth, but rather you will hear plenty of variants of “the truth is whatever you want it to be,” “objective truth does not exist,” or “just live your (undefined, subjective, and constantly transforming) truth, babe” from them. 

By grounding their answers in these morally relativistic terms, they have fundamentally destroyed the student body’s ability to answer these questions. Every man, woman, and child who labored to answer these questions in generations past would have been unable to answer them without resting them on solid, morally secure foundations. However, the progressive academics have intentionally destroyed this capacity in order to fulfill their ideological goal–the transformation, and thus destruction, of the liberal arts and humanities.

The modern academic is not a traditional academic, rather they are ideological conquistadores intent on colonizing the liberal arts and humanities in an attempt to “decolonize” and deconstruct them. In their opinion, one does not become a “man or woman for and with others” through living lives of charity and faith; rather, one only becomes a “man and woman for and with others” through actively working to dismantle “systems of oppression” and “recentering” social structures both on and off campus (ideas that would have been very foreign to Ignatius, Fenwick, and Arrupe).

The question remains: what can we, people who are opposed to this ideological colonization and believe that the administration is weak-kneed, do about this institutionally existential crisis? 

The answer is honestly not much. Holy Cross has made the active decision to become an Amherst College with a pretty chapel. No amount of complaining, arguing, or writing op-eds in The Fenwick Review will change this fact. As a result, somebody has to lay out a plan for institutional recapture, and the good thing is that, unlike the progressive academic, we do not have to start from scratch. The plan for institutional recapture has been laid out since 1843.

The plan is evident in our campus’ architecture. Holy Cross was built by men who believed in the good, true, and beautiful. And so, they built a campus that corresponded to all that is good, true, and beautiful. There is no greater example of such a building than Dinand Library. Dinand, an intentionally imposing neoclassical structure, tells that our mission is “ut cognoscant te solum deum verum et quem misisti Iesum Christum.” Institutionally, we exist in order for students to be able to “know you, the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you sent.” That is our mission. 

Holy Cross also knew that one can only truly know Christ and live this mission through the liberal arts and humanities. One can only truly be immersed within this tradition by studying “religio, philosophia, ars, literae, historia, scientia, medicina, jus.” These disciplines “nourish youth [and] delight old age.” They make us human. They answer these fundamental questions posed in our current mission statement. The works, conquests, and ideas of men such as Aquinas, Benedict, Bellarmine, Columbus, Copernicus, Dante, à Kempis, and Justinian (whose names are all prominently featured in the Main Reading Room) are examples of individuals (and there are many more, including modern, female, and non-Western figures) who show us what it means to be truly human and Christian. These figures have engaged in the Great Conversation through studying and participating in the triumphs and failings of our civilization, the liberal arts, and the Church. They are the models that our administration and faculty should point us toward.

Holy Cross, like much of our world, is in a crisis of meaning. We are unable and unwilling to answer the fundamental questions posed by our very institution because our current corporate administration acts primarily out of fear. As a result, they leave these human questions to the province of ideologues whose intent seems to be the destruction of the institution itself. However, this story does not have to end with Ignatius wishing that the cannonball hit his head instead of his leg, rather Holy Cross can go “ad fontes.” Holy Cross can return to the sources of her heritage, her very self, as evidenced through her very campus. There, she will find the answers that she poses to herself; there, she will be able to tell her students what it truly means to be a member of this college.