Fr. O’Hara’s Homily at the Convocation Mass of the Holy Spirit

Three Treasures of Monastic Life for TAC Students

 

by Rev. Joseph O’Hara, O.S.B. (’92)
Holy Family Monastery
Mass of the Holy Spirit
Convocation 2024
Thomas Aquinas College, New England

 

 

I feel so small as I stand here before you in this beautiful house of God, returning to my alma mater with the great honor to offer today this Mass of the Holy Spirit.

And I hope you also feel very small, both in the presence of the magnificence of the Holy Sacrifice which we are about to offer here upon the altar, and also in the presence of the grandeur of the work that is beginning now as we open this school year here at Thomas Aquinas College.

“The work of the College is to offer its students a unique and effective form of Catholic liberal education. It is a holy work, having as its aim to give you students in four years the ability to access the intellectual custom of the Church.”

The Holy Spirit is with us, bringing before our eyes the very sacrifice that Jesus made on Calvary, in which He spent Himself unto the last breath of His lungs, the last drop of His blood, to save us from sin and to model to us the way that we are to live and to die with Him so as to root out the sin and ignorance that plagues our own soul, our family, the Church, and the world. The love and healing mercy that animated His heart as He died for us on the Cross will soon be present here in this Chapel as the substance of the bread is converted into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ in my hands, there at the altar. His entrance makes us all very small. We should approach the altar today as if it were our first Mass, our last Mass, our only Mass.

This holy sacrifice is but a powerful and meaningful gateway into the yearlong mission this college will endeavor to accomplish here on this beautiful campus that seems — to this outsider — to have simply fallen out of the sky and taken root overnight in this fertile New England soil.

The Work of the College

Can we describe with any certainty the interior work that the Holy Spirit is here to accomplish in your midst this year? Certainly.

The work of the College is to offer its students a unique and effective form of Catholic liberal education. It is a holy work, having as its aim to give you students in four years the ability to access the intellectual custom of the Church. It is for this end that the College was established. This is a very holy work, one that the Holy Spirit most certainly enters, sustains, and brings to perfection. 

My confidence that the Holy Spirit is indeed active here in the work that the College is doing is based upon the following evidence: The fruits of past years — many vocations to the priesthood and religious life, many strong and holy families, and many graduates succeeding in all types of service and industry.

The curriculum and education type were determined explicitly to place all the resources of the College at the service of the Holy Spirit so as to educate.

It is not that the Holy Spirit is somehow obliged to operate within a given curriculum and educational style, but, rather, I know the Holy Spirit is working here because this college’s curriculum and conversation-based tutorial method was chosen so as to open the students up to the work that the Holy Spirit is wanting to accomplish in their souls. There is a method and order to educate in the Holy Spirit; the Church has refined that method; and this college has implemented that method; applying the gathered expertise of the Church’s 2,000-year history to the needs of the young people of our age and culture.

“I know the Holy Spirit is working here because this College’s curriculum and conversation-based tutorial method was chosen so as to open the students up to the work that the Holy Spirit is wanting to accomplish in their souls.” 

This education is difficult. Enumerating upon the difficulties encountered on the path to wisdom, the College’s founding president, Dr. Ronald McArthur, in his intellectual custom lecture states:

There are many reasons which explain why wisdom seems to be reserved for the few, and we all know some of the most obvious; there are a relatively few who have the opportunity to give themselves to the life of study; few who study with persevering effort the very difficult subjects they should learn; few who pray with constance for Divine help; few who attain the moral purity so conducive to the life of wisdom — that life which Aristotle without Revelation thought more divine than human.

More obstacles include bad will and disordered appetite, promoted by our deeply corrupted culture. Our culture drags us toward modernism and an overly psychological rather than philosophical approach to life. We bring our own misconceptions and perversions of our wills, stemming from our own sin, sin within our households, sin of the Church and of our nation.

Due to all these obstacles, we lack the freedom to objectively judge simply in terms of the evidence we encounter, which would help us arrive at wisdom.

Family Structure

Christ’s aim was that we be one as He and the Father are one, as the Son is one with His father. The way the Holy Spirit unites us together as one within the Church is modeled from the family. Any organization in which people are united in the pursuit of true human excellence will have semblance to the family structure — husband/wife, parent and children, children with each other. Institutions established for education according to the mind of the Church and at the service of the Holy Spirit will always have a family character. It is within family that we learn to operate as a team and learn to cooperate, striving at once for the common good of the community and well-being and independence of the individual. 

Evidence of the primacy of family in all social interaction is found in the 4th Commandment, the first that regulates our dealings with other human beings. If we do not have in our hearts honor for our parents, we will not function constructively in any holy organization.

The primacy of family is also seen in that, when asked how we are to pray, Jesus instructs us to approach God as members of His family, as children addressing their father – “Our Father.” Further evidence of the centrality of family life is that the finished work of the spiritual life, according to St. Paul, is to be able from the depths of our being to cry, “Abba, Father.”

We ought to nurture and guard the family character of the College, which promotes the working of the Holy Spirit, Who inspires the obedience, the subjection, the service, and mutual growth characterized by family. 

“There is a method and order to educate in the Holy Spirit; the Church has refined that method; and this college has implemented that method.”

The fathers at this college are those who are now in a sense wed to the community, dedicated to preserve and promote it even at great personal sacrifice. These are the administrators led by Dr. O’Reilly, the tutors, and support staff. The grandfathers are the founders, headed by Dr. McArthur. I think anyone who had the opportunity to know and learn under Dr. McArthur will readily concede his fatherly character in the life of this college. I would often, in addressing him in conversations, slip up and accidentally address him as “Fr. McArthur,” and I don’t think I am alone in doing so, so evident was his fatherly character.

So, preserve the family character, resisting individualism which is inspired by selfishness. Respect and honor those who are holding the place of father in the College now, be they male or female! Love and respect their bride – namely this educational facility, erected knowing how education is to be done, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, out of the heart and mind of the Church. As children, trust the institution as it is given to you, confident from your own observations that she is carrying out a true and authentic mission of Christ in the Church today. You see the College as alma mater, as sweet and loving mother, offering you a safe haven — a home and household — within which you can grow in wisdom and holiness.

There is an important art to being a member of family. Sadly, in our culture, our family competency is low. With the high divorce rate, many demands drawing parents and children out of the home, the political currents undermining and redefining family, we are less and less competent at actually being members of a family, a nurturing and respectful family.

Thus weak, we need to beg from God to fill in our deficiencies, and to help us to appreciate and benefit from the families that in God’s providence we find ourselves — our physical family, our ecclesial family, our college family. This requires respect for our superiors but also an awareness that those who hold the place of father in our community can and do sometimes fail. We cannot immediately cut and run, but must do what we can to remedy the problem. We might have to let God provide the fatherly presence and love in some other way, through some other person, or even Himself. An important aspect of family life is the ability to have community-wide, ecclesial-wide, school-wide, examinations of conscience where all members are humble enough to acknowledge errors no matter who might discover them.

Cloister 

Let us consider cloister. The reason we build walls is not to lock us in, but to keep the world and its errors and temptations out. The College has a culture that is edifying and beautiful. Guard and promote it by cutting ties to the turbulent and chaotic world and its many evil currents. Be particularly on guard in the use of the phone. Do not only comply with the College’s rules on cell phone and internet usage, but make even cleaner breaks. 

Another application of the cloister may be made to those things that touch upon the heart of what the College is attempting to help you accomplish within the four years you have here. Guard the tools of study, using them well and not frivolously.

“Institutions established for education according to the mind of the Church and at the service of the Holy Spirit will always have a family character.” 

TAC is a conversation-based education, in which conversation with peers and tutors is used to dislodge the student from partial truths and preconceptions. Conversation and the art of demonstration and persuasion that it employs are powerful tools. Keep a close cloister on your heart as you employ them. Guard the wonder, charity, and compassion that ought to direct these powerful tools.

Also, guard the bonds of friendship that you will foster here, the merciful love churning in your heart, inspiring you to include others in your pursuit of wisdom and inclining you generously to share with them the fruits of your own studies and discoveries. Within the cloister of your heart, occupied with the demands of study and the joys of contemplating lofty truths, you will readily embrace the disciplines of virtue, uprooting sinful passions and trampling underfoot the temptations thrown at you by the devil, the flesh, and the world.

The Mass

The third and most important safeguard of the work that the Holy Spirit desires is to make the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the center of your day. The first step in doing so is to go to Mass and go there in the state of grace, ready to receive Holy Communion. I know your chaplains will often throughout the year be attempting to persuade you to come daily to Mass. Listen to them! 

The goal is to shape the entire day with the powerful entrance into our lives that Our Merciful Savior makes at Mass. Extend the Mass by bringing the hopes and challenges of the day into the Mass, and by bringing the Mass into those struggles and opportunities.

There are five key actions in the Mass, each of which can and should impact your whole day. At Mass, you say, “I am sorry” (penitential rite), you listen (the liturgy of the word), you offer yourself to God (the Offertory), you are united to God (the Consecration and Communion), and you are sent (the dismissal).

The act of saying “I’m sorry,” if it is sincere, brings into the Mass the events of the past day. At the close of each day, do a quick examination of conscience. Feel the sorrow and express the resolve to amend your behavior and efforts. That pre-pillow examine is an effective preparation for bringing your whole day in the “I am sorry” that you publicly make at Mass. Let this daily public confession at Mass lead you to monthly, if not weekly, Confession.

“I listen” — the great scientist Louis Pasteur said that “the prepared eye sees.” Many saw the very things he looked at, but were unable to see what he saw, for his scientific method and experimentation prepared his eye to see what others missed. Throughout the day, prepare your heart to hear the message God desires to speak to you at Mass. It might mean showing up 10 minutes early, it might mean investing a few minutes in the morning to quickly glance at the readings of the day.

“I offer” — this is the easy one. Bring your whole day to the altar, laying upon the altar all the difficulties in study and in friendships that you experience in that day, as well as the joys, uniting them with Jesus as He offers Himself to the Father at Calvary.

“Fall to your knees as you begin class and begin studies, exposing to Our Lord your ignorance and needs, begging His merciful help.”

“I am united with God” — This is at the Consecration, united to God as He enters our midst as the Sacrificial Lamb and gives Himself to us as food. Draw from that union as you begin any good work, asking His aid, and enter that union again when completing each work, thanking Him for His assistance.

The guiding principle of the College is to follow the mind and method of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Thomas studied and taught in the shadows of Calvary. It was the Holy Eucharist, offered upon the altar, that placed him there at the foot of the Cross with Our Lady.

Before opening a book to study or picking up his pen to write, St. Thomas fell to his knees, laying his weakness and inabilities at the foot of Our Crucified Lord, begging His merciful help and companionship. You likewise fall to your knees as you begin class and begin studies, exposing to Our Lord your ignorance and needs, begging His merciful help. As you do this you are indeed turning your heart and mind toward Calvary. It is but a small step to likewise be making a felt connection to the Consecration. Throughout the day, as you begin studies, let your approach to Calvary always be through the altar. 

Scheduling in some time, no matter how short, for Adoration helps to extend the Consecration and Communion throughout the day.

“I am sent” — Extend that commission given at the end of Mass throughout the day, by finding in it motivation when discouraged and overwhelmed; finding in it generosity to notice the struggling classmate and to offer him or her encouragement and assistance; finding courage to go forth into the world, bearing with you the victim Who was sent.

I share with you three treasures of monastic life: family structure, cloister, and the centrality of the Mass. Use these tools well this school year and give the Holy Spirit free rein to accomplish His wonders here at this school of authentic Catholic liberal education. Be united in family; maintain the cloister of the campus against the invasion of the world by phone and internet, and maintain the cloister of your heart to safeguard that wonder and merciful love that is to animate all your studies; and frame your day around the Altar, around the merciful love Jesus pours upon us there.