President O’Reilly’s Address at the 2022 Alumni Association Dinner

Looking Back … and Looking Ahead

by Paul J. O’Reilly, Ph.D. (’84)
President
Thomas Aquinas College
Alumni Association Dinner
June 25, 2022

 

I would like to begin by congratulating the formal reunion classes: the Class of 1997 for 25 years, the Class of 2002 for 20 years, and the Class of 2012 for 10 years. Though we can’t ignore the several members of the Class of 1982. Mother Teresa spoke at their graduation — 40 years! Thank you for coming.

Now you will discover this pretty quickly: All my good ideas come from someone else. And when I was thinking about what I would say tonight, I thought I would go back to the newsletters in 1997, 2002, and 2012 to take a look at the Senior Addresses. I found them very inspiring and also encouraging, because over that span of 25 years, the school is still the same, and you can tell that from the Senior Addresses.

So let me just borrow from the first class, 1997. Stan Grove was your Senior Address speaker, and he reminded us all of this (and I quote):

“We have just begun to understand the things we have read. We’ve only begun to benefit by what we have learned. To know the way things are with respect to God and man and everything else is not enough. We must live according to that knowledge.”

He also encouraged us to be humble and not to be complacent. “Humility,” he said, “acknowledges our true relation to God and the universe. It will be fostered by prayer, and also we must be close to nature.” He warned against complacency, and he encouraged gratitude: “For the inspiration we were given to go forth and be instrumental in some way is the work of the Holy Spirit: to renew the face of the earth.”

In 2002, it was Luke Rylander who was the Senior Class Speaker. Now, his first words may not have been a vote of confidence in his classmates (and I quote directly, Luke): “Well, we made it. We have finished somehow. All of us. I’m sure with God’s help — some more than others. And still others I think only by a miracle of God’s infinite mercy.”

That’s good stuff.

Though what he said later was more inspiring. He reminded us of this:

“The Apostles had been in close contact with Our Lord Jesus Christ, receiving three years of instruction, intellectual formation, and theology taught by Our Lord Himself. The Apostles had lived in community with each other, experiencing true camaraderie and friendship. They had learned the moral life, seeing the virtues lived out in the Son of God. They had partaken in the sacraments at their very institution. However, even after seeing the Passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Our Lord, they were fearful, doubtful, and untrusting of God. But then there was Pentecost: a day when through the action of the Holy Spirit and the power of God’s grace, their souls were converted, and the Apostles were changed forever into real followers of the Truth.”

Luke continues,

“The case is similar with Thomas Aquinas College in many ways. Each one of us graduates has a story about how we came to this college. Through no merit of our own, for a reason known only to God Himself, we have been chosen to partake of the great blessings and many goods, both natural and supernatural, physical and spiritual, that are found at the College. Ultimately, it is the free gift of God’s grace, using our natural foundation, that transforms the lives and hearts of ordinary people into those of true sons and daughters of God. This is what is so significant about Thomas Aquinas College, and that is why it is to God that we must be eternally grateful.”

Finally, in 2012, it was James Thompson — it was his turn — and if you ever get a chance to read his address, you’ve got to love it, because he gives it as an article in the Summa: He states a thesis, raises an objection, responds to the objection — good work! And so I quote:

“As Aristotle says, ‘In every community among those with a common end, there is not only justice but friendship as well.’ That is what brought us together as a class: this common striving for a good, and the common enjoyment of it. And the oneness that we have does not come simply from coming and going together to the same classrooms, or matriculating at and graduating from this school in the same years. What we have can be truly called a friendship.

“A true liberal education will touch every part of whatever life the one who possesses it chooses to live, and the way in which it will show itself the most is not in the greatness of mind, or even excellence of character of its possessor, but in the charity with which they live their lives. And what can be more free than to love all our fellow men, regardless of their place or character, with a love that overcomes all obstacles and unites inexorably, and yet without coercion? This is how we can ultimately be united: not only as a class or a school in our study of the true and good, but as children of the Self-Subsisting True and Good. This is how we can rise together and converge in eternity.”

So I shamelessly took the words of others because they were better than mine. They’re excellent reflections of what we have achieved here at Thomas Aquinas College. And I can tell you now, transitioning a little bit, the state of the College is good. Our campus in New England is growing and prospering, and we have no one more to thank than Tom Kaiser and John Goyette — our deans who worked together to make sure that the campus in New England would thrive, but not at the expense of the California campus.

We have two projects here on the California campus that we have to complete: We are going to build a new Commons — it’s about time — and I can tell you, it will have air conditioning, 12 months a year! We will also build a guest residence, which will be up where the trailers are now. And the New England campus has all the buildings we need, but it doesn’t have a central dining commons, so we will actually knock down one contemporary building and build a commons. So that’s what we’ll be working on in the next few years.

I thought I would end by giving you a little advice. This is a little too late for you, but it might help you with your kids. I have to say, when I was looking at the newsletters to see what the Senior Addresses might help me with, I was reading Senior Thesis titles, and we need to do some work on those.

Now listen, I’m not going to blame anyone. I wrote a Ph.D. thesis, and every time — every time — someone asks me about it, I try to avoid the subject. “Is that a bug? What do you see on there?” Because the title was, “The Scandal of Induction.” And I thought that was kind of cute at the time, but even in my own household with my own mother, she said, “What does that mean? Are you talking about a kind of cooking?”

“No ...”

“Well, what is induction?”

“Well, you know, uh, how you know that something is universal, like, ‘every whole is greater than its part’ – like, the whole pizza is greater than a slice.”

“You don’t know that?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know it! But there’s a process by which you know it!”

“What?”

“Well, the whole house is greater than the door.”

“You don’t know that?”

* snorts *

So, I am the last to criticize. But I want you to know this — and this is really for your children: Those thesis titles are published in the newsletter that goes out to the wider world. And every subtitle in the world is not going to make up for the title itself. At TAC, some seniors want to be a little naughty, just a little cheeky. They got this naughty title, and then they try to make up for it in the subtitle. My experience is: People don’t read subtitles!

Now, I’ve got a few, just to be concrete, but they’re taken from the Classes of 1997, 2002, and 2012.

• Let’s start with this — now, again, just imagine Grandma’s reading this — “Sympathy for the Devil?” Now, you’ve got a question mark. But she doesn’t see the question mark! She says, “What the heck is going on at that college?”
• Now, no names need to be attached. But what’s with, “Death Happens”? I mean, that seems like someone ought to call 9-1-1! What is happening at this college?
• How about “The End of Medicine”? Doesn’t that look like it’s a kind of claim about homeopathic strategies or something like that? People don’t know “the end” means “purpose!” Come on! Get over it! You’re in the world now. You know this!
• “Contraception and the Quest for Self-Discovery” — what are we thinking? I know there’s a subtitle there, but no one reads subtitles!
• Now this is more pious, but it’s still going to be confusing: “Whether the Planets are Moved by Angels.” Now I get it. It’s a question, it really is. But ...
• “Evil, Be Thou My Good.” You’re not helping the College here.
• “Are We All Created to be Miserable?” Really? That’s the best we got?
• “Plato’s Symposium and the Philosophy of Eros” — now, it’s not going to help anyone to say “Go read Plato’s Symposium; you’ll understand” — they won’t.
• “Love God and Despise Man” — what is that, some feminist thing? What is that? What is that?
• Even worse — well, funny, but ... “A Good Man is Hard to Find” – no one reads Flannery O’Connor! They don’t get that!
• “The Disobedience Was Good” — no, it’s not.
• And one of my favorites: “The Hazards of the Heated Room.” An early discourse in global warming, maybe?

So I wanted to leave you with some practical, concrete suggestions that may not be timely for you, but really will improve the lives of your children. Thank you, and God bless you.