Books & Friendship

“There is no faster way to friendship than sharing the books you love,” writes Suzie Andres (’87) in her recent article, Books and Friendship with the Saints, in Catholic Exchange. “A friendship founded upon excellent books is bound to thrive.”

As a case in point, Mrs. Andres cites her own friendship with Thomas Aquinas College’s late founding president, Dr. Ronald P. McArthur. “This friendship started, as so many of his friendships did, with his sharing the Great Books that had such a profound effect on his life,” she recalls. “Ron McArthur had helped found a college; I needed to go to one. It was that simple, a match made in heaven through the medium of books.”

Fittingly, Mrs. Andres and Dr. McArthur’s last earthly encounters centered around a book on which the two collaborated, The Selected Sermons of Thomas Aquinas McGovern, S.J.:

“We’d both known (he, much longer than I) a wonderful Jesuit, Father Thomas Aquinas McGovern, who taught at Thomas Aquinas College for thirteen years, from the second semester of its founding to the second semester of my sophomore year. Father died suddenly of a heart attack in February of 1985. One day he was teaching my favorite class, the next morning he prayed at Mass ‘for all those who will die today,’ and that evening, he became one for whom he had enjoined us to pray.

“He left behind what amounted to three binders full of typed sermons, carefully polished gems of Catholic doctrine, pastoral guidance, and the love of Christ. From the time these were discovered, shortly after his death, Dr. McArthur hoped they could be made into a book.

“Twenty-nine years later, I had the privilege of bringing that book into being. It was certainly not a solo effort — many people helped bring that book into the world — but mine was the sweet joy of editing, the sincere joy of asking Dr. McArthur to write the foreword, the poignant joy of receiving that foreword from his family after he died (it was the last work he did and finished two days before his death).”

With Advent and preparations for the Christmas season now at hand, Mrs. Andres encourages — what else? — books as the perfect gift for friends old and new. “Don’t let the shiny things of this world distract you from the best we have to offer each other,” she writes. “Give a favorite book (or two or five or ten) and watch your friendships grow.”

And what better book to give than Mrs. Andres and Dr. McArthur’s own Selected Sermons of Thomas Aquinas McGovern, S.J.?