Bishop Buddy Scrapbook 1937 (2)

Valedictory-"This, Our Day''

CHIMES

to share infinite wisdom, infinite under- standing. They can spell God with the letters of the universe. They need only set them in the order of faith and hope and love. This in part is your answer. The power to penetrate and interpret these truths is one of the implications of your de- gree. The duty to do so is another. The Philistine world needs more than answers; it needs example. It can be con- quered like the ancient Goliath by youth, om-

nipotent in its sacramental strength. It can be healed by the holiness of youth and saved by its might. From a hundred Catholic colleges march out today the shining ranks of graduates, in- tellectually alert, spiritually saturate with God. They more than match the world in their di- vine audacity. They, too, will be as God. Let them prove the magnificence of their claims. Let them show their divine prerogatives. Let them do these things with all the might of the God Whom they serve. Where in the kingdoms of earth is a power that can resist them?

RosE:\,IARY D m,A:NEY '38.

The Valedictorian of the class of 1938 is of Saint ft-Iar.1/s College, Notre Dame, indeed! Ninth of her fa11iily to be educated here, she re- ceived her diploma just sixty years after her Grandmother's com- mencement. The golden cross with its inscription: " In Hoc Signo Vinces", which was then the symbol of graduation, is Rosemary's 11wst prized gift. Other graduates were her mother, three great-aunts and also four cousins- among these JJioth er Pauline and Sister Clarissa.

At Saint Mary's, the present dominates our lives. Tomorrow and yesterday seem to re- cede before the business and happiness of to- day. For four years we have studied and played with complete absorption in this our present life. However, during these four years we have been aware that the traditions of Saint Mary's have been giving richness of meaning to present experiences. Tonight for the last time we live in this glorious present at Saint Mary' s. Tomorrow will bring the completion of our college days. Then we, like our college, will have memories for measure. We will come to consider the time spent here as the happiest in our lives. Amid new surroundings and new associates we will look back to our teachers and our friends here, confident that none will ever replace them. Saint Mary's has endowed us, her grad- uates, generously. She has given the rich heritage of her past to be the personal pos- session of each of us. She has given us a president whose only interest has been our in- terest, deans of unusual understanding, and teachers distinguished for their ability and de- voted in their friendliness. She has given us the ideals of character and of womanhood that she has treasured through the years. In a word, she has trained both intellect and will. She has given us one another. And now to prove her trust in our loyalty and integrity she gives us her name to carry with us where- ever we go. Tomorrow we go out into the world as college graduates, but we go also as Christians; and like Christ we have Mary for a mother. (Concluded on page 130) 115

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY, SISTER MADELEVA, MEMBERS OF THE FACULTY, FELLOW STUDENTS, PAR- ENTS AND FRIENDS: A T a recent convocation we were reminded that a school has three tenses. When it is young, it lives in the future awaiting with confidence all that time will bring. It antici- pates and plans and hopes. It idealizes all of its ambitions and looks forward, however far, to their fulfillment. As it becomes firmly established, there fol- low years of quiet growth which are in them- selves absorbing and all-important. The fu- ture tense gradually merges into the present. Everything is translated into terms of the here and now. In this tense it reaches and realizes its maturity. The years go by. A certain stability char- acterizes the school, a richness of life and of experience. Repeated curricula, ceremonies, and pleasures become customs; customs be- come traditions; and the school looks with perspective to an accomplished history, which is its past. Our Saint Mary's has long since achieved the third of these tenses. The old-fashioned pictures in the back-numbers of the "Cour- ier," the dated crosses in the cemetery, the addition of buildings and shrines and gar- dens, all are evidences of the successive tenses in her life. Honors bestowed on her now are matched in her past even as they are assimi- lated and made one with it. Just as a school passes through three phases -future, present, and past-so do its stu- dents. High school found us looking forward to college days. We dreamed of the future and lived very much in it. J U NE, 1938

The Habit of Wisdom SISTER lVI. J\IADELEYA, C .s.c.

At the Cap and Gown ceremony of Saint Mary's College, Notre Dmn e, 1.'hursday, Ji1;ne 2, 1938, at 7:30 p. 111. , Sister J}l. J}f adeleva delivered this brief bid significant address.

E VERY year on Cap and Gown Night, I am reminded of these verses from the "Canticle of Canticles": "I am black but beautiful: therefore the king has loved me, and has brought me into his most intimate abode." The woman addressed by Solomon in this poem is the splendid queen from the South who came to him seeking wisdom. She has always stood in the interpretation of Scrip- tures for the Church, the beloved of Christ, who shares His life. The Scripture is capable of many interpretations; the more the better, so they be orthodox, Saint Augustine says. Tonight let us appropriate this text to this occasion. The quest of wisdom is a perfect quest. Its love is a dedicated love. It is an aesthetic practice. It is also an austere asceticism. The student is by profession a lover of wisdom.

The cap and gown is the habit of his profes- sion. It is a holy habit. It sets him apart from all the world as consecrated to a life of the mind, to a life of thought, to that great mar- riage of true minds, his owp. with God's. In so far as he achieves and discovers truth, he possesses God. Tonight the members of the class of 1939 are receiving the cap and gown. This is your investiture in the holy habit of wisdom, heav- enly and good. You are pledged to a life of disciplined beauty, to a life of intellectual activity, to a life of peculiar intimacy with God. The style and color of your regalia in- dicate the simplicity and profoundness of your quest. Clad in the robes of wisdom, you will be black but beautiful indeed. In them may God lead you into the secrets of His wisdom and His love.

JUNE, 1938

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