Regent & Grads Appear on EWTN’s “Life on the Rock”

On a recent episode of EWTN’s Life on the Rock, the show’s young viewers heard some music and words of wisdom from several members of the Thomas Aquinas College community. Appearing on the show was the Hope and Justin Band, named for Thomas Aquinas College Regent Justin Schneir and his wife, Hope. Backing up Mr. and Mrs. Schneir were three recent graduates of the College: Sean Wood (’13) on the fiddle, Daniel Bagdazian (’13) on the bass guitar, and Gabriel Bagdazian (’14) on the keyboard. (Band appears at the 8:40 mark in the video below.)

In the episode Mr. and Mrs. Schneir described how their band came into being when various friends — including several students of the College — would visit their Camarillo home for Tuesday-night jam sessions. From thence sprung the music that, the band’s members hope, will evangelize audiences with its simple focus on the true, the good, and the beautiful.

Toward the end of the show, the hosts interviewed Mr. Wood, who discussed how he wrote about this theme of evangelization through the arts for his Senior Thesis at the College. “My thesis was basically how an encounter with beauty can lead us to God, tracing the thought from Plato up to Thomas Aquinas, to John Paul II and von Balthasar,” he said. “Those encounters really open our heart to become receptive to God’s love. And I think they’re really necessary in order for a true conversion, and in order to really see the Faith as something not merely worth following, but worth giving your life for.”

Music that is “authentically human,” Mr. Wood continued, can show us “what the human condition is, and see that we are made for so much more.”