Thoughts on Our Jesuit Inheritance, Part I

Two summers ago, there was a display of lamppost banners around the Hoval, each one advertising a value related to Holy Cross’ Jesuit identity. At the top of each banner was the phrase: “Jesuit Heritage.” It did not say “Jesuit values,”  “Jesuit mission,” or “Jesuit identity.” The word heritage may mean a few different things, but it certainly suggests something received from the past [1]. It may or may not refer to something still living. A man may speak of his “Catholic Heritage,” but this does not guarantee that you will see him at Mass next Sunday. The question, then, is whether this inheritance continues as a living identity, a decorative heirloom, or something in between. Is Holy Cross “Jesuit,” or merely “raised Jesuit?”

The word “Jesuit” is often thrown around at Holy Cross, but there is not a clear understanding of what it means, especially as it relates to our college. If you asked a member of our community a hundred or even fifty years ago what made Holy Cross a Jesuit college, they probably would have looked at you strangely and replied, “Why, the Jesuits, of course!” Today the answer is not so obvious. One needs only to walk from Loyola to Ciampi, then to the new Jesuit residence to get a visual impression of the decline in the number of actual Jesuits who live at Holy Cross. The average student interacts with Jesuits rarely, if at all. We no longer have a Jesuit president, and few Jesuits remain in administration. There are only a handful of Jesuit professors, mostly in Religious Studies. And perhaps most surprisingly, only one out of our dozen chaplains is a Jesuit. This should not be surprising, considering our Church’s vocation shortage, but it makes the answer to our question much less obvious. Our “Jesuit-ness” is no longer incarnate in the collared figures who walk around our campus. It is now more abstract; we cannot point to it. We must recognize first, then, that it is unclear what makes a college “Jesuit” if not Jesuits, and that we are at risk of losing whatever that is.

What does Holy Cross herself have to say? The “Jesuit, Catholic Tradition” section of our website [2] identifies three ways “we honor the Jesuit legacy” (again, suggesting the past). They are: “humanistic studies,” “solidarity with the poor and disenfranchised,” and “a diverse community of participants.” These are good and desirable things. They surely do flow from the Jesuit charism and tradition. But they cannot be what makes Holy Cross Jesuit; non-Jesuit colleges are just as capable of these things. Do we do them better? Maybe. But they are exterior. They are what we do, not who we are. They are, in soteriological language, Holy Cross’ “works.” Just as we are not saved by works [3], we are likewise not “made Jesuit” by them either. Holy Cross is made Jesuit by its faith, none other than the Catholic Faith, expressed through the particular Jesuit charism.  

It may seem obvious to some, but the Jesuits (the Society of Jesus) are a religious order within the Catholic Church. As a clarifying note, this means that “Jesuit” has a narrow meaning that does not apply to us students or the wider college community, despite the applicability of broader categories like “Jesuit charism.” More importantly, this means that Jesuits exist in the context of the Catholic Faith, and any identity that is not properly Catholic cannot, by definition, be a Jesuit identity. This means that when Holy Cross departs from the Catholic Church (not only in explicit matters of faith but also in ethical matters), it separates itself that much from its Jesuit identity. This is not to say that non-Catholics are or should be unwelcome at Holy Cross, but merely that any institution whose core is not Catholic cannot be Jesuit. With this in mind, I do not think it is controversial to say that Holy Cross largely departs from the Catholic Church on matters of faith in thought and practice, and a still larger portion departs on ethical matters. Insofar as this is the case, Holy Cross can only pretend to be authentically Jesuit. The name “Holy Cross” is not enough, our statues of saints are not enough, and the fact that many of our students grew up going to Catholic school is not enough when we are not Christians. As long as we are not Christians, our Jesuit heritage remains merely that, heritage.

But is that it? Shall we use the Jesuits rolling in their graves in our cemetery to power the PAC? Shall we Catholics be content complaining as Holy Cross becomes increasingly “progressive,” increasingly secular, and thus less Jesuit? Shall we be cynics, satisfied with our laughter when our friends and family ask, “So is your school, like, really religious?” A pessimist may say yes, but pessimism is not Christian. Any Fenwick Review writer could write a long and provocative article about all the ways Holy Cross fails to be authentically Catholic and thus fails to be Jesuit. Maybe that is necessary. But it is not enough. What we need is to identify where Holy Cross lives out its Jesuit Charism well, and work to strengthen these points. We need to claim our Jesuit inheritance. We must participate in and promote the sacramental life of the Church at Holy Cross. We must adopt authentic Ignatian modes of prayer. We must preach the Gospel. We must pursue academic excellence, and scholarship which seeks truth and advances the cause of faith, rather than subversion. We Catholics must live in such a way that reveals the fruits of the Jesuit charism so that Holy Cross will see what it means to be authentically “Jesuit.”

Endnotes

[1] The OED defines Heritage as “the condition or state transmitted from ancestors.” Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “heritage (n.), sense 4,” June 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/5778821977.

[2] “Jesuit, Catholic Tradition,” College of the Holy Cross, accessed November 5, 2024, https://www.holycross.edu/about-us/jesuit-catholic-tradition. 

[3] According to the Council of Trent, session six, canon 1: “If any one saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.”

Letter from the Editors, Fall 2024

Dearest Reader, 

We thank you for picking up a copy of the Fenwick Review. We can think of no better way to introduce our first edition of the 2024-2025 school year than to expound on what the Fenwick Review is. Perhaps the via negativa is best taken to start this task. First, the Fenwick Review is not a monolith; our writers, staff and guests alike, frequently differ and disagree with each other about politics, religion, and more. Not every writer agrees with what is written in the pages of this magazine; indeed there has been and will continue to be fervent disagreement between writers about the ideas contained in each article. Second, as an entity, the Fenwick Review does not “say” or “believe” anything beyond its mission statement, rather, individual people writing for the Fenwick Review say and believe xyz. Now we are in a position to better say what the Fenwick Review is. First, as an opinion journal, the Fenwick Review is a platform for individual writers. Individuals who want to write from a conservative or Catholic perspective choose to publish in the Fenwick Review. Second, the Fenwick Review is partisan; we are both conservative and Catholic. We platform specifically conservative and Catholic thought to contribute to a culture of free and open dialogue on our campus and expose students to both the rich intellectual tradition of American conservatism and the Catholic intellectual tradition. Over the past year now we have been working to reform the Fenwick Review to better contribute to a free, open, and respectful dialogue on campus, while returning to our mission statement to better guide us in our operations here at the Review. We hope that reading our articles will at least inform, challenge, or inspire you. As always, we welcome disagreement and want our peers to interact with the ideas put forth in this edition of the Fenwick Review. 

Pax vobiscum, 

Griffin Blood ‘26 and Briana Oser ‘25, Co-Editors in Chief

Letter from the Editors, Spring 2024

Dear Reader,

Thank you for picking up a copy of The Fenwick Review. As the academic year comes to a close, we bid farewell to our seniors and thank them for all their contributions to the paper. This edition features multiple senior pieces that share their reflections on their time at Holy Cross.

As we look forward to next year, we welcome a new co-editor: Briana Oser. We look forward to welcoming back our writers who studies abroad and meeting new writers as well. We hope all our readers enjoy this edition and have a great summer.

Reddens laudes Domino,

Griffin Blood ‘26 & Anna Moran ‘24, Co-Editors-in-Chief

The Review Reviews: Mania Interview

The Fenwick Review is grateful to publish this interview. The views expressed therein are not necessarily the views of the Fenwick Review or its writers and staff. It should also not be assumed that the interviewee shares or agrees with the views or mission of the Fenwick Review.

In addition to reviewing Mania, I had the opportunity to interview the show’s creator, writer and student Blake Sheridan. This transcript was edited for clarity and length.

Emma: Thank you so much for being here, Blake!

Blake: It’s my pleasure. Thank you for reaching out!

Emma: What was it like to create a musical and see it to production?

Blake: The story started in a very internal space. I was in my room right when Covid was happening, and it was a very personal thing I experienced within myself. Then it was a question of, “How do I communicate this idea so other people understand and experience it in the same way?” I’ve been writing Mania for four years, but that’s a misleading claim because it sounds as if I was writing nonstop for four years [laughs], which is not very true. There were months when I didn’t think about it at all. Every time I revisited it, I had to ask, “Does this impact me in the same way? Does it say what it did when I looked last? If not, how do I edit it to make more sense?”

Emma: Once ACT accepted the script, did it evolve much with their input?

Blake: The heart of the show has not changed since it was written, but the directing team and I did make some changes. Rachel Golden was a big help; she made the script a lot more concise and applicable to ACT. But so many people were involved: Maggie Baum, Wesley Smith, Vincent Sekafetz, Adele Feldberg… So yes, there was a process the script had to undergo. We learned a lot going forward about how to account for that process, because this was the first time we had done an original musical. It was a great learning experience.

Emma: Do you think ACT’s likely to do other original musicals now?

Blake: I think this experience will make ACT more prepared in the future, but I don’t think it will increase the possibility of doing an original musical again. This was a very unique endeavor where a lot of things had to align, and I don’t know if that’s likely to happen again. Although I do hope people feel inspired to write now. I hope they feel they can really explore, and put their work out, and submit it to ACT.

Emma: I read Mania as an exploration of the absence and presence of God. Does that surprise you? Can you give your own treatment of the themes you wanted to explore?

Blake: That brings such a big smile to my face. It’s weird, I wouldn’t say that was a theme I had gone in planning to talk about. But as I created these characters and lived in their world, it was something I found myself thinking a lot about, so I’m very glad those themes came through. In the show there’s no clear representation of God, and there’s not a clear representation of Satan, either, but there is an agent of Satan and there isn’t really an agent of God anywhere. That dynamic’s there; what it means, I don’t know. [Laughs.] But I think it relates to a way the world can be seen. There’s a lot of distractions around us, a lot of agents of chaos, and when we look to agents of God, maybe we don’t necessarily see them visually in front of us. But we have to look inwardly and see if we can become that ourselves. I don’t know how much you can gather that from the show, but that’s one way to look at it!

Emma: If it were only about the absence of God, I’d expect the agents of evil to not appear in explicitly religious terms. But the referee often cants his lines like he’s at a religious service.

Blake: One of the referee’s things is that he’s very outwardly charming. He has showmanship, and he tends to mock religious tropes. Some of his lines are pure puns on popular Christian phrases. This is not something that started with me; in Paradise Lost, there’s the idea of Satan mocking the good, or pointing fun at the good, or trying to shine brighter than the good. That’s definitely part of the referee’s character. He tries to make himself seem like he’s above it, or can make fun of it, or sees it as a joke. It’s one of the really annoying parts of his character because it’s funny, it’s charming, but there’s something malicious behind it.

Emma: Near the end, Lucy tells him, “You’re not going to get away with this.” I felt we were meant to take that somewhat seriously, not see the end solely as a triumph of evil, but it’s ultimately ambiguous. You spoke over email about not wanting to impose interpretations, but I’m dying to know what the ending means to you!

Blake: I’ll try not to give an interpretation, but an observation. Throughout the show, we see this split between parents and children. That’s a very simple reduction, but there’s a gang that gets swept up in the intensity of the plot, and there’s a gang that’s off in their own world. At first it’s very humorous. Then it takes a turn and starts to affect people’s lives. In Act II, there’s a group of Dinosaur and Meteor parents together, and they say, “And the kids, they’re better off posthumous.” It’s this moment of, “I don’t care, I’m only focused on what’s going on right now.” The observation I would make about the end is that we see Lucy over her son, and she’s kind of… giving all she has to him. And she’s, in a way, making a statement to the referee about what she values and what’s important to her now.

Emma: What’s your philosophy of art criticism? The “death of the author” seems somewhat in line with what you’ve communicated about authorial intent.

Blake: It’s very tricky. “Is there subjective or objective truth, which one’s the real truth, who has the power…” These questions have been asked for ages. I don’t know the exact number of people who saw Mania, but that’s how many truths there are of the experience of Mania. Then there’s my truth of Mania, which is how it came to be. I don’t really want to place value on which means more or is worth more objectively. There’s that saying, “Everything in the universe happens for a reason.” Whatever experience you had, that was what was meant to happen for you. I don’t know if some deity gave it to you, or just the spontaneity of random events, but now you have that, and you don’t necessarily need mine, if that makes sense. Unless you want it! You can also look for it and compare. That’s part of the game of humanity, we compare and we discuss and we share.

I have to add something, though. If I’m writing a line, I can be thinking of a play in which I saw that line done, and it means something specific to me, and I’m referencing it or turning it into something new. That reference is a big piece of art. Then let’s say there’s Bob. If Bob has watched none of the media I’ve watched, and Bob sees Mania, he might have one experience. But if Bob watches everything I’ve watched, it might make complete sense. It might be like, “Oh, this is exactly what he was trying to do!” Understanding someone’s history is just as important. If you want to understand what someone’s doing with art, you have to look at their history, and what they’ve learned, and what they’ve experienced.

Emma: What should readers look at to understand Mania?

Blake: Little League games, for one. [Laughs.] Then there’s two references I’ve always cited. Kicking and Screaming is a sitcom from the 2000s starring Will Ferrell. And Black Friday is a dark comedy musical by StarKid. It criticizes — not criticizes, but investigates — consumerism and capitalism. Those are the main references, but there’s plenty more out there.

Emma: Do you plan to get Mania performed again, or published?

Blake: When I started writing Mania, I didn’t know ACT was going to do it. I didn’t even have a conception I would bring it to Holy Cross. That’s important, because if I had written it for ACT, I don’t know if it would have been what it was. There’s something unique about doing it for the sake of doing it. When I first created Mania, I was creating it for the sake of creating it, in a way for God — you know, for what my understanding of God is. There’s something valuable in people creating things in that space and then offering it to the world, because, when expectation comes into play, it can really get in the way. So, in terms of next steps, taking it one step at a time, and just trying to keep finding that space where I can be in communication with my creativity.

“The Main Thing is to be Moved” : Lessons from Rodin and Rilke

Go to the Limits of Your Longing

God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

-Rainier Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God.

In the poem above, Rainier Maria Rilke offers incredibly powerful advice on how to live a life in Christ. Simultaneously simplistic and endlessly complicated, Rilke’s message is both inspirational and solemn: Live, do not be afraid. Be impactful, find meaning, seek truth. Persevere, experience boldly but stray not from the path. Seek greatness. Walk with the Lord in all you do.

The first pictured Rodin sculpture, which is nestled in Holy Cross’ Memorial Plaza, is outstanding in a similar way. It depicts Eustache de Saint-Pierre,  (as found in The Burghers of Calais, Rodin's best-known public monument) who was the oldest of the six burghers and the first to volunteer to be sacrificed to save his native city. The weight of this situation can be clearly felt, even today. The precise way the light hits it, the telling physicality of the figure, the depth of emotion, and the seriousness it exudes invite the viewer to adopt a contemplative attitude in a similar way that Rilke does.

The second pictured Rodin sculpture is active yet serene, depicting a youthful sprite. It is different from the somber Eustache de Saint-Pierre, but is equally enigmatic nonetheless. This is the genius of Rodin, able to portray a vast range of figures, perspectives, and emotions with the most careful technique and attention to detail. When observing his work, one is forced to pause, to think, to reflect, and to look beyond the present moment. Rilke incites this beautiful disruption in us as well, through the layers of meaning that lie beyond the surface of his words. 

It is not a well known fact that sculptor Auguste Rodin and poet Rainier Maria Rilke crossed paths numerous times during their lives. Their story, though, is one worth telling: it serves as a reminder for all of us at Holy Cross that we must orient ourselves to virtuous ends. Patience, strength, dedication, faith, purpose. These are traits that Rodin and Rilke embodied, and they are traits that should define us all. Moreover, Rilke and Rodin both embraced the apprenticeship model to develop their talents. They humbly grounded themselves in the greatness which came before them, acknowledging that this turn to the past is not only a worthy, but necessary endeavor. This is the lesson which I fear is missing from the classrooms of Holy Cross and from the hearts of Holy Cross students. 

But it is the precise mentality from which Rilke began. Before his poetic career took off, Rilke traveled to Paris in search of inspiration and became Rodin’s secretary. Immediately drawn to the great sculptor, Rilke was willing to take any opportunity to observe Rodin’s masterful artistry. After days, Rilke was deeply and seriously inspired by Rodin. After years, Rilke was able to craft a beautiful and poignant monograph of Rodin’s art and Rodin’s life. Rilke also dedicated the second volume of his breakthrough collection New Poems (1908) to his mentor, without whom, he acknowledged, the work would not exist. 

What Rilke took away from Rodin changed his life. Rodin taught him to see the beauty and terror of the world at the same time and demonstrated the importance of committing fully to one's craft in pursuit of perfection. For these reasons, Rodin left an indelible mark on Rilke, who, in turn, opened his eyes, heart, and mind and allowed them to be molded. Their relationship moved from one of master and pupil to one of equals. Both were visionaries in their own right. 

Rilke’s monograph of Rodin includes a similar story of inspiration from Rodin’s youth. Rodin was influenced by legends such as Dante, Baudelaire, and Michelangelo, names which are notably inscribed into the walls of Dinand’s reading room. Rilke recounted:

 “After having read the works of these two poets they remained always near him, his thoughts went from them and yet returned to them again. At the time when his art took form and prepared itself for expression, when life as it presented itself before him had little significance, Rodin dwelt in the books of the poets and gleaned from the past. Later, when as a creator he again touched those realms, their forms rose like memories in his own life, aching and real, and entered into his work as though into a home.” 

These great men left an indelible mark on Rodin, so that he could leave an indelible mark on Rilke. Thus is the cyclical and generational- amazing- tide of influence. This is the kind of mark that a liberal education should make on each of us. It is the mark that Holy Cross should leave on us- the kind of experience that we should seek. To cite Rilke’s above poem once again, we should feel inspired–almost terrified–at the necessary pursuit of truth. Objective truth, rooted in objective goodness. 

Like the Rodin sculpture, many important things are overlooked and undervalued by this campus. We overlook our history, as made evident by the thoughtlessness with which we pass our campus’s art and architecture everyday. We overlook the liberal tradition, and with it the radical principles of the American Founding which gave birth to us and our freedoms. Lastly, we overlook the centrality of our Creator, without whom none of this would exist. 

But this is the age in which we live: utilitarian and ideological, rapidly changing and swaying with the tides of popular and fleeting beliefs and moral codes. The superficiality of Holy Cross is reflective of the superficiality of the American culture which surrounds it. This is the student body we have become, but it’s not the student body we have to be. 

To mitigate this problematic contemporary tendency towards easy, seemingly obvious short term solutions and understandings, one must dive into the richness of history and those who came before. It is only within this context that we can make sense of reality, yet this crucial fact has been largely forgotten. Following Rilke’s advice, we must take life more seriously. We must seek to fulfill our unique purposes. We must stand firm, and focused, in the face of a culture that values change, a culture that is inconsistent and shallow. 

Holy Cross physically embodies a time of the past, and for this we are lucky. The campus serves as a reminder of the school’s roots. Our roots. Great wisdom is undeniably preserved here, so long as it continues to be recognized, and sought, instead of rejected. Yet, figures from history are being erased and discarded at alarming rates. Names are wiped off the slates of time, here at Holy Cross, and around the country. Rodin sculptures are carelessly glanced over, Rilke’s words fall on deaf ears. If we can no longer look to history for answers in which to ground our humanity, where can we turn?

 It is clear that the vast majority of American society is turning the wrong way. Holy Cross should turn back and look to the past. We all stand on the shoulders of those who came before. We must acknowledge that there is truth to glean from history and tradition.

As highlighted in Rachel Corbett’s book, You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin, Rilke offers advice for how to find meaning; 

“Search for the reason that bids you to write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart. Then ask yourself, would you die if it were denied you to write. This above all — ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: must I write? If the heart utters a clear, I must, then build your life according to this necessity, but be prepared to surrender to the imperative forever, for art is not a choice, but an immutable 
disposition of the soul.”

So notice it all, the art around you. Think about what came before, think about what exists now. Take it all in, reflect on your own talents in the context of that which came before, and then turn that passion outwards. What kind of art are you meant to make? What gives your life meaning? Who do you draw inspiration from? 

This is a deep, reflective exercise. One that requires a liberal education and awareness of the important things; religion, philosophy, and history as mentioned before. Holy Cross must do better to inspire these contemplations. 

During a time when people seek instant gratification, immediate pleasures, coddling, and exceptions, this task of the pursuit of meaning becomes even harder, almost unorthodox. Now, moral relativism rules the day, and with this, so does complacency, mediocrity, and a system of judgment which changes with the tide of popularity. What does it mean to be great in the modern age? 

According to Rilke and Rodin, to be great is to be focused, to better oneself and to grow in likeness to the image of God, and to take oneself and one's life seriously. Liberal education is the means through which this greatness can be cultivated. As Holy Cross students, we all have this special opportunity. It is our job to make the most of it. 

So I end where I began: In the words of Rodin, “The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.” This is how we become the people we are meant to be, how we find ourselves, and figure out our unique contributions to the world. The first step in this journey is to find inspiration in what is all around us. 

References 

“Go to the Limits of Your Longing” Rainier Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, 2005.

“Auguste Rodin” by Rainer Maria Rilke 1903, translated by Jessie Lemont and Hans Trausil, 1919. 

You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin, Rachel Corbett, 2016. 

Thanksgiving for Summorum Pontificum Almost 17 years Later

           In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI signed a groundbreaking motu proprio which affirmed the right of all Latin rite priests to offer the sacraments according to the books in place before the second Vatican Council, restoring a liturgical unity within the Latin church and reconciling her to the principles of liturgical continuity. What comes to most peoples’ minds will be the liberty given to offer the old Mass (the 1962 Missale Romanum or Usus Antiquior), but it must also be noted that Summorum Pontificum (SP) gifted the Church all the traditional sacrament books (which includes all the traditional forms of the sacraments, breviaries, etc.) that were in use prior to the Second Vatican Council. Even other traditional Latin rites (e.g. the traditional Dominican, Carmelite, or Ambrosian rites) have since experienced their own revivals in the aftermath of SP. The heart of the Holy Father’s philosophical justification was articulated in his letter accompanying SP in which he wrote: 

What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.  It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.

As we see in  many of his liturgical writings and reflections, this principle of valuing what came before as sacred permeates Pope Benedict’s understanding of liturgy and the Church itself. Even in his pre-papal memoirs, “Milestones: Memoirs: 1927-1977”, then-cardinal Ratzinger, reflecting on his first hand-missal, writes of the Church’s sacred Liturgy: 

It was becoming more and more clear to me that here I was encountering a reality that no one had simply thought up, a reality that no official authority or great individual had created. This mysterious fabric of text and actions had grown from the faith of the Church over the centuries. It bore the whole weight of history within itself, and yet, at the same time, it was much more than the product of human history. Every century had left its mark upon it. The introductory notes informed us about what came from the early Church, what from the Middle Ages, and what from modern times. Not everything was logical. Things sometimes got complicated, and it was not always easy to find one's way. But precisely this is what made the whole edifice wonderful, like one's own home.

It is precisely this organic development which gives, and continues to give the liturgy her unity, beauty, and depth. Liturgy is not something static, but ever slowly developing and shaping the Church. Likewise, Liturgy, properly understood, is not the product committee or community, but rather of centuries of tradition and development. By reading the same readings and by praying the same orations over centuries it bridges Catholics of the past and the present. This unity of prayer between Catholics over history is both a beautiful and fitting characteristic of our traditional liturgy. It is what marks us as truly “Catholic;” that is, universal. 

           Because of the principles outlined in SP and its accompanying letter, Tradition was no longer to be relegated to a few isolated chapels and banished from diocesean life. Instead, it could be a part of the heart of the Church’s worship. SP served to normalize tradition, welcoming it back into the mainstream of Catholic life. What the Church regarded as sacred and great was once again recognized as “sacred and great for us too.”

           Benedict also had the foresight to see how the Church’s youth would be attracted to what were her normative liturgical rites for over 500 years. He wrote in his letter accompanying SP: “It has clearly been demonstrated that young persons too have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist, particularly suited to them.” Here I hear the Pope speaking about young people like myself who, until encountering the traditional liturgy, experienced a great deal of difficulty participating in and praying the Holy Mass. I can say from my own experience that I find the older liturgical books to be more accessible and that they communicate to me more clearly, both verbally and non verbally, this Fons et apex (Source and Summit) of Christian life. I’m not claiming that every young person prefers the traditional rite, but from my own experience I have noticed that there is both greater interest in and greater tolerance for the traditional rite among the youth. Despite the prejudices of some septuagenarians, I am certain that, under God’s providence, this trove of liturgical treasures opened up by Summorum Pontificum will survive for generations to come.

References: 

Ratzinger, Joseph. Milestones: Memoirs: 1927-1977. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998. 

The Crisis of Meaning at Holy Cross

I have been a student here at Holy Cross for four years. I have lived and breathed this campus for four years of my life. I have been immersed in various classes, social groups, campus events, and way too many Thirsty Thursdays at Weagle. Even after all this immersion, I still do not know what it truly means to be a Holy Cross student. 

However, I do know that I have been inundated with a lot of slogans that tell me what it means to be a Holy Cross student. According to these slogans, a Holy Cross student must be “a man or woman for and with others,” who always seeks “magis” and “cura personalis” above all else. By themselves, these slogans are pretty good. Who is opposed to being a “man or woman for and with others?” Are we going to be men and women for ourselves? Or cura personalis? Are we really just going to care for one aspect of ourselves to the detriment of the rest? Nonsense. The vast majority of people, even those outside Jesuit-sponsored institutions, intuitively understand that these things are good and important. 

These slogans allow Holy Cross to escape from answering the big question of “what does it mean to be a member of this community.” The administration uses these amorphous statements as a substitute for answering the tough questions posed at the beginning of our mission statement. These questions, which you might have glanced at in Montserrat (which, by far, is one of the most misguided programs at Holy Cross), are very good. In order to live the good life, we must figure out “how to find meaning in life and history” and “what are our obligations to one another.” It is impossible to live a truly human life without answering these questions.

The sad fact is that Holy Cross has made these questions, which lie at the heart of the College’s current mission statement, impossible to answer. They have made them impossible to answer because, above all else, Holy Cross has made the institutional decision to become a corporate institution. 

You might be asking what is the difference between a corporate institution and an educational institution. Well, for starters, a corporate institution seeks above all else the minimization of conflict, the maximization of the endowment, and the growth of the administrative bureaucracy. Can anybody with a straight face tell me that these goals are not the main goals of our administration? 

An educational institution does not seek these things. These goals, while sometimes important for the survival of the institution, are not the telos of an educational institution. To Holy Cross, these three corporate prongs are our final end. We have no greater end. Our end is not “in hoc signo vinces” or “ad maiorem Dei gloriam,” but rather it is “make sure that we soothe the concerns of alumni (whether they are progressive or conservative; old or young; white or non-white) enough that they are still willing to remember us, and the endowment, in their will.”

This corporate model has inevitably hurt the student body because it has produced an administration that is fundamentally incapable of giving students anything more than amorphous, relatively subjective, and undefinable slogans. For example, can anybody really define for me what it means to be “a man or woman for and with others?” Or, does it just mean whatever I want it to be? 

The scariest consequence of the administration’s corporate approach to institutional management is that they have entrusted these questions to people who fundamentally disagree with the mission of our college: the progressive academic.

Our faculty, composed mostly of very kind and overly generous people, is also stacked with dangerous ideologues. The faculty, by and large, has proposed solutions to these fundamental questions, but many of these solutions are inhuman and drastically opposed to the traditional mission of our college. Their solutions are not grounded in claims of Truth, but rather you will hear plenty of variants of “the truth is whatever you want it to be,” “objective truth does not exist,” or “just live your (undefined, subjective, and constantly transforming) truth, babe” from them. 

By grounding their answers in these morally relativistic terms, they have fundamentally destroyed the student body’s ability to answer these questions. Every man, woman, and child who labored to answer these questions in generations past would have been unable to answer them without resting them on solid, morally secure foundations. However, the progressive academics have intentionally destroyed this capacity in order to fulfill their ideological goal–the transformation, and thus destruction, of the liberal arts and humanities.

The modern academic is not a traditional academic, rather they are ideological conquistadores intent on colonizing the liberal arts and humanities in an attempt to “decolonize” and deconstruct them. In their opinion, one does not become a “man or woman for and with others” through living lives of charity and faith; rather, one only becomes a “man and woman for and with others” through actively working to dismantle “systems of oppression” and “recentering” social structures both on and off campus (ideas that would have been very foreign to Ignatius, Fenwick, and Arrupe).

The question remains: what can we, people who are opposed to this ideological colonization and believe that the administration is weak-kneed, do about this institutionally existential crisis? 

The answer is honestly not much. Holy Cross has made the active decision to become an Amherst College with a pretty chapel. No amount of complaining, arguing, or writing op-eds in The Fenwick Review will change this fact. As a result, somebody has to lay out a plan for institutional recapture, and the good thing is that, unlike the progressive academic, we do not have to start from scratch. The plan for institutional recapture has been laid out since 1843.

The plan is evident in our campus’ architecture. Holy Cross was built by men who believed in the good, true, and beautiful. And so, they built a campus that corresponded to all that is good, true, and beautiful. There is no greater example of such a building than Dinand Library. Dinand, an intentionally imposing neoclassical structure, tells that our mission is “ut cognoscant te solum deum verum et quem misisti Iesum Christum.” Institutionally, we exist in order for students to be able to “know you, the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you sent.” That is our mission. 

Holy Cross also knew that one can only truly know Christ and live this mission through the liberal arts and humanities. One can only truly be immersed within this tradition by studying “religio, philosophia, ars, literae, historia, scientia, medicina, jus.” These disciplines “nourish youth [and] delight old age.” They make us human. They answer these fundamental questions posed in our current mission statement. The works, conquests, and ideas of men such as Aquinas, Benedict, Bellarmine, Columbus, Copernicus, Dante, à Kempis, and Justinian (whose names are all prominently featured in the Main Reading Room) are examples of individuals (and there are many more, including modern, female, and non-Western figures) who show us what it means to be truly human and Christian. These figures have engaged in the Great Conversation through studying and participating in the triumphs and failings of our civilization, the liberal arts, and the Church. They are the models that our administration and faculty should point us toward.

Holy Cross, like much of our world, is in a crisis of meaning. We are unable and unwilling to answer the fundamental questions posed by our very institution because our current corporate administration acts primarily out of fear. As a result, they leave these human questions to the province of ideologues whose intent seems to be the destruction of the institution itself. However, this story does not have to end with Ignatius wishing that the cannonball hit his head instead of his leg, rather Holy Cross can go “ad fontes.” Holy Cross can return to the sources of her heritage, her very self, as evidenced through her very campus. There, she will find the answers that she poses to herself; there, she will be able to tell her students what it truly means to be a member of this college.

What I Have Learned at Holy Cross

           I began my Holy Cross career by taking a class entitled “The Meaning of Life.” We read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, The Book of Job, Plato’s Dialogues, Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, and more. The class, perhaps for the first time in my life, sparked an interest in the meaning of life and the significance of suffering. After all our reading and discussion of what makes life meaningful, our final assignment was to do a research project on someone whose life and writings exemplify the meaning of life, and to share what we thought this meaning was. I chose Mother Teresa and paraphrased the Greatest Commandment, saying, “I want to live a meaningful life, like Mother Teresa, by doing all I can to love and serve God and my brothers and sisters on Earth.”

           I was saying more than I knew. I had forgotten what I wrote in this final Montserrat paper. As I re-read sections of it to write this reflection, I expected to disagree with what I wrote as a freshman. I do not disagree at all. I believe what I wrote in freshman year now more than before. What has changed throughout my 4 years at Holy Cross is my understanding of what it means to love God above all things and my neighbor as myself.

        My education has introduced me to saints, martyrs, and holy fools. When I said, “to love and serve God and my brothers and sisters on Earth,” I think I, with the best intentions, meant, “to be a good person.” Not to be too weird or over-the-top about the faith, but to be kind, pleasant, and helpful to others. To go to church on Sundays, some other days as well. But even then, I felt a longing for something deeper. The saints, martyrs, and holy fools I have encountered showed me what it means to truly and deeply love God and neighbor. They are more than what we think of as a “good person.” A good person is kind to his friends, maybe even to those he does not like, but he does not necessarily die rather than renounce his faith. A good person is grateful when things are going well in his life, St. Paul sang a hymn of praise when he was imprisoned. A good person goes to Church on Sundays out of mere habit, a saint goes because he recognizes it is Heaven on Earth.

           I encountered these saints and deepened my faith thanks to my education, both inside and outside the classroom, at Holy Cross. I like to think that I got the experience of a Holy Cross of which St. Ignatius would be proud. I think he would have negative feelings towards a lot of what happens on the Hill, but I am happy to report that hope silently lives on here. A handful of great professors have taught me language, literature, theology, and philosophy, and they have nourished my mind with wisdom (and folly). They have taught me what it means to live out our noble mission statement, to be “men and women for and with others,” but they have taught me this by teaching me the necessary prerequisite to all love: to know Love Himself. To do all for the greater glory of God and to live a meaningful life.