President McLean on Vocations at Thomas Aquinas College

By Michael F. McLean
President, Thomas Aquinas College

Note: The following text is adapted from a talk that Dr. McLean gave to the Orange County First Friday Friars Club on September 5, 2014.

Presently we have 378 students, our largest enrollment ever, from all across the country and many other countries as well, and over 2,000 alumni. Our school is coeducational. We have about 50 percent men and 50 percent women, and even though I am speaking about vocations today, we are not a seminary. Nevertheless, we now have 60 priests, 26 seminarians, and 44 consecrated men and women among our alumni. They are pastors, vocations directors, seminary professors, and monks and nuns. They include:

• 22 diocesan priests, serving 18 dioceses across the country
• 8 priests in religious orders in the U.S. and abroad
• A Superior General (Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter)
• 6 parish pastors
• Dean of a seminary (Our Lady of Guadalupe, Lincoln, Nebraska)
• 5 seminary professors
• A director of an Office of Worship (Archdiocese of Minneapolis/St. Paul)
• A superintendent of a diocesan high school
• A canon lawyer in training (Archdiocese of New York)
• A director of Hispanic Ministry (Archdiocese of Lincoln)
• A co-founder and subprior of a religious community (Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey)
• A head of campus ministry at a state university (Emporia State, Kansas)

Like all vocations, those of our alumni are the work of God, Who calls the grace-filled soul in the quiet of prayer and contemplation. But grace does build upon nature, and Thomas Aquinas College is certainly doing something right in fostering this impressive number of vocations.

I can point to three areas in which the College excels and which, in my judgment, are directly related to the number of our alumni who are pursuing religious vocations: the educational program, the moral life, and the spiritual life. (Parenthetically, I want to point out that even though I am focusing on vocations, our alumni have entered a wide variety of professions. We have graduates in business, in education, in medicine, in law, in engineering. I am focusing on vocations, but believe me, our graduates are doing all kinds of things to serve their country and their communities.)

Educational Program

Because Thomas Aquinas College’s mission is education, I am going to focus on a few elements of our educational program that I think are especially important. Of fundamental importance is the fact that the education at the College is Christ-centered. It helps students to think as adults with Christ and the Church, and to love as adults with Christ and the Church.

Now, “thinking with Christ and the Church” means, among other things, that our education fosters a robust sense of the harmony between faith and reason. In the words of St. Peter, our students are “always ready to give a reason for the hope” which is in them. It also means that our education instills a strong sense of the natural law, which St. Paul says in the Epistle to the Romans, “is written on our hearts,” and a deep appreciation of the fact that human laws should be framed, and our consciences formed, in harmony with the natural law. Finally, it means that our education gives our students a thoroughly Catholic understanding of human happiness, the good life, and moral and political virtue — the elements of the “understanding mind” sought by King Solomon in the First Book of Kings.

“Loving with Christ and the Church” means, among other things, that our education deepens our students’ sense of the order and beauty of the natural world, a sense encouraged by the study of mathematics and natural science at Thomas Aquinas College and by the sheer physical beauty of the College’s setting and architecture. It also means that our education encourages a strong attraction to good and noble things (and a strong aversion to those that are evil and base), an attraction which is strengthened by the study of the fine arts and great literature at the College. And finally, “loving with Christ and the Church” means that our education fosters fidelity to the two great commandments — love of God and love of neighbor — a fidelity which is the fruit of the study of Sacred Scripture and theology, which are at the center of the College’s curriculum.

Now there are two more points about our educational program that that I want to mention that make Thomas Aquinas College unique and which encourage religious vocations. First, we ask our students to read only the greatest works of our civilization. This ensures that the great thinkers are the real teachers in our classes; chief among those are the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.

Second, we conduct our classes as small-group discussions, which require our students to prepare seriously and to participate actively. So our classes are not the typical lecture-style classes you see at most colleges and universities. They are small classes between 15 and 17 students, and the discussions are led and facilitated by members of the faculty. Students are asked to prepare their readings carefully and to discuss the principal themes and issues that are contained within them. In this way, with this method, the students make the thought of the great figures in the Catholic intellectual tradition — figures such as St. Augustine, St. Thomas, John Henry Newman, and the popes of the Church — their own.

An education like ours, which increases our students’ knowledge and love of God and which deepens their personal relationships with Christ, provides very fertile ground for God’s call to the priesthood and religious life. In my opinion, there is no shortage of religious vocations in this sense. God is calling men and women to the priesthood and religious life. He is calling as many as He ever has. The challenge we face in our culture and in our time is to find the kind of silence and quiet that young people need to hear that call and to have the kind of preparation and depth of faith that will enable them to respond to that call. And I think we have those at Thomas Aquinas College.

Moral Life

Now, unfortunately, what far too many schools have forgotten is that a seriously Catholic education is impossible without the support of a genuinely Catholic moral life. You cannot be trying to teach virtue and human happiness in the classrooms if your residence halls are occasions of sin and immorality. It does not work.

Accordingly, the College has a set of rules and guidelines for campus life that encourage the formation of Christian virtue and help minimize the occasions of sin.

For instance, we have single-sex residence halls with no visitation between them — none at all. We also have a dress code that fosters modesty and respect for one another. There are curfews, too — one for weeknights and another for weekends. These rules, and others like them, help our students to live ordered lives that befit their Catholic calling and are conducive to progress in the intellectual life.

This is not to say, however, that our students’ lives are dull or dreary. In fact, there is a great camaraderie among them. They participate in acting troupes that put on Shakespearean plays and Gilbert & Sullivan productions; several choral groups perform a wide variety of music — from sacred music and operatic highlights to spirituals and ballads; instrumentalists provide wonderful recitals each semester; and there are dances throughout the year, some formal, some informal, but all featuring ballroom dancing.

Our location is a great blessing as well. Situated in the foothills of the Topatopa Mountains and at the entrance of the Los Padres National Forest, we are surrounded by beauty. There are many opportunities for hiking, and our enviable beaches are just a short drive away. In addition, we offer a busy schedule of intramural sports throughout the year.

This is the wholesome environment in which our students spend four years of their lives. They think about the highest things, they develop deep friendships, and they encourage each other to live virtuously. The result is that they have the inner quietude to hear God’s call to the priesthood and religious life.

Spiritual Life

In all of this, the College encourages students to establish a strong sacramental and prayer life so that, if God calls, they will hear His voice and be generous in their response. Our four chaplains celebrate Mass four times each day, and they hear confessions before and after each. We have a tradition of excellent liturgical music, Gregorian chant and polyphony. Adoration is offered daily, and the Rosary is recited in the evening in our chapel. Each night at curfew students gather in their residence halls to make the consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Their regular participation in these and other devotions instills in them the habits conducive to vocations and to a lifetime of Christian living.

Our daily Masses and other devotions take place, thanks be to God, in a magnificent chapel marked by beauty, permanence, grandeur, and tradition. Adorned with original statues, sacred artwork, and Biblical inscriptions, Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel is a church that teaches. Its cruciform shape is a reminder of the Sacrifice that takes place during every Mass. Its seven arches symbolize the seven sacraments, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven dolors of the Blessed Mother, her seven joys, and the three theological and four cardinal virtues. Through its every detail and its very design the building invites our students to contemplate the greatest truths of the Faith. Moreover, it is named for Our Lady, our model in all things because of her unique relationship with the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, the study of which is the culmination of the College’s curriculum.

All of this makes a deep and lasting impression on the souls of our students, inspires them to pray fervently to know their vocation, and disposes them to respond enthusiastically to God’s call.

Power of Example

One final thought: good example is essential to the work of forming good moral and spiritual habits. It is hard to overestimate the effect that fidelity to the Church’s teachings by our Board, administration, and faculty members has on our students. Just as inspiring for them is the joy with which our governors, tutors, and staff members live out their own vocations to the lay or married state.