The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1921-11-05
DELIVERED BY REV.
J. r. WOLF IN ST. THOMAS
CHAPEL ON OCCASION OF HOME.
COMING CELEBRATION AT ST.
THOMAS COLLEGE, ST. PAUL,
MIMI, OCTOBER 20.

"And Jesus said to them: Where is
your faith ?'-Luke 8, 25.
Among the joys of this "home-com-
ing" there must assuredly be the one
which springs from what Ecclesias
ticus q, 49, calls the righteousness of
knowledge, or fear of the Lord
Righteousness of knowledge" he
says, shall keep and justify the
heart; it shall give joy and gladness."
To implant, develop, and defend this
quality of knowledge is just what
gives our Alma Mater the reason for
her existence. Take away that quality
from her work and it would be, super
naturally, lifeless and without joy.
Today, therefore, we, her alumni,
gathered around her like devoted sons
around a providential mother, besides
renewing and rejoicing in many happy
associations of old, make it one of our
chiefest joys to respond to what was
ever and always her dominant inter
est, or rather anxiety, concerning us.
By our presence within these sacred
walls, we bear witness to, more ma
tured and increasingly loyal recogni-
ton of the greatest thing she had in
view for us in all our relations to her.
1t may be, too, that under Gods
mercy some of us come back not I'M
like prodigals to her forgiving arms.
If so, perhaps we shall add to our con-
sciouness not the least of her claims
upon our hearts that she feels and
has ever felt her solicitude laid upon
her like sacred duty. Shall we not
also take away more endearing
memory of her for her showing so pal
pably that she will yearn over us, in
the one great overawing matter of our
souls welfare, as long as we live?
Know ThyseIf
In this place, then, in the living
presence of Him in whose cause all
this housing and equipment of our AL
ma Mater was planned, built, and
brought to it's present issue and pro-
portions, it is fitting that we should
0ivest our joy of it's merely human
elements, and fix our thoughts on what
SIOA = 10 III IL VI tuC LlF1AC AO udy .
natural circumstances of retrospect
and of forecast of the future, of
which such retrospect is the germ and
the prophecy, recommend an earnest,
specially directed scrutiny of our in.
most being. Like the Divine Master,
after He had stilled the tempest on
the lake, speaking to His disciples,
Alma Mater may demand of us:
"Where is your faith? Has it grown
like the mustard seed? Is it in truth
and reality your victory which over
cometh the world?"
Summing up one important, desired,
and indeed required, effect of the teach
ing and discipline to which we were
here subjected, think we may say we
were first taught to know ourselves,
tian teaching. For every breath that
falls from teaching lips in St. Thomas
is directly or indirectly animated by
Him, the King, the soul and divinity
of Emmanuel, God with us.
We might have used the words of a
French poet Ode MusseD, but even in
your youthful ignorance of the sub
Unity of Christian humility, we should
have attached a far different mean
ing to them:
"There exists but one being that I
can wholly and constantly know; one
being about whom my judgment may
somewhat trust itself to be clear, and
despise him-that being is myself"
The revered founder of this institu-
ton, Archbishop Ireland, of happy
memory, it's first president, Bishop
lO'Gorman, lately deceased, and many
others of that Gay who worked and
prayed for our success, might have ex-
pressed themselves in some such
terms, but it would not have been in
shamed pride and vexation of soul. 1t
would have been with the glory of
Gods truth suffusing their faces while
upturned in prayer.
We could agree with Juvenal (Sat.
KID in way expressing the best
sentiment of the poets and philoso-
pliers of profane antiquity
"'Know myself came down from
heaven
To be impressed upon our hearts"
We could appreciate Porphyry, the
Neo-Platonic philosopher of the third
century, speaking of the same aphor-
ism:
Know thyself'-a brief saying
truly, but so great in content that only
Jove himself could know it,
We might have voiced approval had
we been told out of Persius (Sat "a
62):
Dwell within yourself, and you shall
know how poorly furnished in mind
you are''
And his denial that any of his cor
rupt times did such indwelling within
themselves might have struck us with
Unusual force:
There is none to do so no, there is
| none. We have eyes only for the
pocket-books of those who get ahead
of u.s.
Purified Ideals.
Happily for us, this glimmer of Di-
vine wisdom out of pagandom became
a resplendent light in the practical
teaching of our Alma Mater. We were
ever held to the consciousness that we
could best know ourselves and our
value in the transcendent fact that a
Man-God had purchased us with the
price of His blood. We were shown
/ the Way of looking into ourselves