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A Trappist

Asks

Catholic College Graduates.

“WHAT’S

WRONG?”

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A

Few Questions for

Alumnae and Alumni

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LIBRARIES

Yale University Archives



A Trappist

Asks

Catholic College Graduates:

“WHAT’S

WRONG?”

A

Few Questions for

Alumnae and Alumni



NIHIL OBSTAT:

Fr. M. Alberic Wulf, O.C.S.O.
Fr. M. Maurice Malloy, O.C.S.O.

Censores

IMPRIMI POTEST:

+ Fredericus M. Dunne, O.C.S.O.
Abbas, B. M. de Gethsemani

IMPRIMATUR:

+ Joannes A. Floersh, D.D.
Archiepiscopus Ludovicopolitanus

die 9 Novembris, 1940

First Printing 10M

Second Printing 20M

COPYRIGHT 1940
by the

ABBEY OF GETHSEMANI, INC.

Deae&Efled



MY YOUNGEST BROTHER

H. CHARLES

PRAYING THAT HE MAY MAKE HIS

ALMA MATER PROUD



4 WHAT’S WRONG?”

Something Is Wrong!

Causes still produce effects, and as we sow,
so do we reap; yet Alumni and Alumnae of
Catholic Colleges are not being Catholic Col-

lege Alumni and Alumnae. So I say that

something is wrong. What is it?

Something is very wrong! Born and bred

to be different; placed for four years in an

entirely different atmosphere; schooled in a

very different philosophy of life; trained to

be totally different in aims and ideals from

the thousands and hundreds of thousands that

surround us, Catholic College graduates

should be stand-outs and stand-offs in our

frenzied world of modern men and women.
But look around you. Look and see if you

can find anything that sets us off from the

rest.

Certainly it is not our keenness of mind, for

keenness of mind can come from Columbia,

which, I read, is “the greatest red training

school this side of Moscow.” Most assuredly

it is not our conscious dignity, for conscious

dignity which shades into hauteur, if not

snobbery, is typically Harvard. It cannot be

our urbanity, amenity and refinement, for

these can be found in those from Vassar,

Princeton and Yale. As for culture and

breeding, I have encountered both in men and
women who were not even baptized. And if
we dare say “Faith,” one need only point to
the unlettered but worshipful day-laborer and

shame us with a gesture.

Strain your eyes as you may, you can come

only to the conclusion with which I have

titled these pages: “Something is wrong.”

Something is very wrong! We do not stand
out; we do not stand off; we are not really



“WHAT’S WRONG?” 5

different, and we should be. Just what is

wrong?

At the next reunion, or even now, look

around you and recall your college chums and

you will see that something is wrong. We
have attained our measure of success as men

measure succes. Senators, governors, mayors,

judges, doctors and lawyers, keymen of cor-

porations and captains of finance, powers in

the world of money, politics and the press, all

come back for reunions. Career men and
women, who were our campus companions,
greet us at alumni and alumnae gatherings.

There are surprises and disappointments in

our ranks: campus stars have fallen and wall-

flowers burst into bloom; but striking the

average, we can justly label our graduates
with the label of success. But is it a specif-

ically Catholic success? Hardly! And “there’s
the rub.” *

Senators, governors and mayors have come

from other colleges, and the difference be-

tween their regimes and ours was not striking.

There are just judges and skillful lawyers,

clever surgeons and expert doctors who never
made the Sign of the Cross. And the world of
money will always be dominated by the un-

catholic and the unchristian. The successes

that we have achieved in these fields do not
stamp us as Catholic College graduates, nor

make the world look to Catholic College
campuses as training fields of men and wom-
en, successful men and women, who are start-
lingly different. What is wrong?

Our ranks are no longer thin, but our ef-

fects on the world at large are just as meager,

if not more so, than they were when a Cath-
olic College graduate was the anomaly of

anomalies.



6 “WHAT’S WRONG?

Just look at the situation. From out of the
thousands and the tens of thousands, God se-
lected us. With a definite purpose in the mind

divine He placed us in Catholic Colleges and
for four full years had us specially trained

for a specific end. God paid our tuition and
now looks for dividends on the divine invest-
ment; and I am afraid that He looks in vain.
Something is very wrong!

God Paid Our Tuition

Yes, it was God who paid our tuition, no
matter who drafted or endorsed the checks.
Some of us had brains and won scholarship;
but it was God who gave us the brains. Some
of us had brawn and the Alumni hired us;

but it was God who gave us the ability to
punt, pass and run or the skill to block and

to tackle. Most of»us had parents who sac-
rificed; but it was God who gave us those
parents and inspired them to the sacrifice.

And for the few of us who worked our way
through, the same holds true — it was God
who paid our tuition.

Now God does nothing bootlessly. “Nihil
frustra dedit Deus.” He has a purpose divine

for everything from a dazzling dawn to a

sparkling drop of dew, a purpose divine for

a blazing sun and a whirling Saturn as well

as for a glowworm and a golden chaliced but-

tercup. He had a purpose divine for Bethle-

hem’s cold and Calvary’s Blood and He had a

purpose divine for our College education.

There are no accidents with God and He does

nothing haphazard. When He made us fresh-
men, He had a plan; when He placed us in

sophomore, He had a purpose, when He passed

us on to junior, it was with definite intent;

when He gowned us as seniors and graduated

us, it was with divine determination. BUT



WHAT’S WRONG? 7

— He left us free! Free to frustrate or fulfill
the purpose divine. Free to complete or de-

feat the plan of the Infinite. I wonder whether

God wasted four years on us.

I start with Alpha, because I want to be

true. I start with a concept that may strike

you as strange, for we are not used to going
below the surface and looking at things from

the standpoint of the divine. Our own per-

sonal intellectual system has never been really

theocentric, and that is why so simple a
truth as the fact that God paid our tuition,

and paid it for a very definite purpose, will

strike many of us as strange. But it is true!

And He is Alpha!

The next thing to realize is who our Alma

Mater is. It is all well and good to speak of

Holy Cross, Georgetown and Fordham, of

New Rochelle, Trinity and Notre Dame, or
any one of the other hundreds of Catholic

Colleges as Alma Mater, but it is not deep

enough. It is meet and just to name Jesuits,

Dominicans, or Benedictines, the Madames of
the Sacred Heart, the Sisters of Charity or of

Notre Dame as our educators, but it is not
deep enough. These orders and congrega-

tions have being only because a Man one day
said, “All power is given Me in heaven and
on earth. Going therefore, teach ye all na-

tions.” And that Man was the Son of God.
That is why I say our Alma Mater ultimately
is Holy Mother Church, whose soul, you

know, is the Spirit of Truth, and whose body,

you and I and the hundreds of millions who
are baptized.

This is theocentric thinking and true. God
selected us. God paid our tuition. And the
Church of God schooled us. God is our
Alpha. And God acts purposefully.



8 “WHAT’S WRONG?

Now why did He do it? Why did Omnipo-
tence and Omniscience put His finger on you

and on me? Why, out of the thousands and

tens of thousands of Catholic boys and girls,

did God select you and me and place us in
the classrooms of Catholic Colleges and keep

us there for four years? Why?

Just what answers will come to your mind

as you face that question, I do not know; but

I want you to know the ones that finally came

to my mind, for I consider them important,
eternally important, not only for you, but for

the Church and for God. I started with

Alpha. Do you think that I will end with
Omega? Read on and see!

Not To Make Us Geocentric!

It was at an Alumni banquet some years

ago that I heard one of the finest after-dinner

speeches of my life. A fellow classmate took
for his theme “The Treasures Alma Mater

Gave Us” and then grew eloquent. He thrilled
us that night and many a back was straight-
ened and many an eye looked out on life with
a bolder, braver vision because of a newer re-

alization of all that Alma Mater had given us

in the four-year course.

When the banquet ended my friend was
surrounded my appreciative alumni and
warmly congratulated and thanked. But to

all the compliments and congratulations that

came to him that night he had but one an-

swer. It was, “Oh, just another sentimental

loud-speaker.” He said it with a laugh and
he made others laugh as he said it. I took

it to be his pleasant way of bandying praise

and I chuckled. But when we were alone
my chuckling ceased for he did not cease to
say, “Oh, just another sentimental loud-

speaker.” He even added that the only true



“WHAT’S WRONG?” 9

statement he had made all night was the one

with which he answered compliments.

“But your speech ...” I said.

“My speech was nothing but sentiment. I

conceived it in sentiment, deliverd it out of

sentiment and for the sole purpose of arous-

ing sentiment. And, by heavens, I succeeded.”

Then turning abruptly he asked, “Just what

practical treasures did Alma Mater give us?

Did Latin or Greek ever get us a job, or hold

one for us? Did our faultless syllogisms and

our clever philosophical distinctions swell our

pay-envelope? Did our chemistry, physics,

and biology, our astronomy and geology, our

sociology and history ever help us make a

sale?” He was bitter. He now grew sar-
castic. “Why, the only practical thing our

College ever did was to call our graduation

‘a commencement’; for commencement it was,

commencement of a new life in a strange
world; commencement of a practical educa-

tion with Experience as professor and profits,

the passing mark; commencement of practical

learning and practical living; a commence-

ment of life’s battling after four years of

coddling by our Alma Mater.”

There was much more than that to the
tirade; in fact, we spent the better part of the
night at it. But I have given you enough to

let you see why he concluded that four years
spent in a Catholic College of liberal educa-

tion were four years wasted, as far as prac-

tical results were concerned.

And he is right! Latin as Latin and Greek
as Greek never got anyone a job, and formal

philosophy, history or the sciences never held

anyone his job. My friend is absolutely right!
The classics as classics never increased a
salesman’s sales or fattened his commission.

But where my friend is wrong, and very



10 “WHAT’S WRONG?

wrong, is in thinking that they were ever in-

tended to do so!

Acquaintance with the “wily Ulysses,” the

“well-greaved Greeks” and the “swift-footed

Achilles” was not meant as a “sales-promo-

tion meeting!” When Alma Mater introduced
us to Plato, Socrates and Demosthenes, to

Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles, she did

not mean us to look upon them as “possible
prospects.” Homer taught us that the sea was
“loud sounding” and “wine dark”; Virgil told

of the “pious” Aeneas and the “facilis dis-

census Averno”; Horace gave us odes and

epodes and Juvenal some real satire; from

Cicero we learned how to swing a rhythmic
sentence and from Tacitus how to strike off
a sharp and staccato one. But all these ad-

jectives and adverbs, all these melodious

phrases and these striking pictures of the pen

were never meant to aid a salesman in mak-

ing his demonstration or show him how to
make “a close.” Alma Mater aimed higher.

Telescope, microscope and geologist’s pick

are excess baggage for the modern man of
business. To know who attacked whom, in

what place, in what year and why, is so much

useless data taking up valuable floor-space in

the memory of a man whose one aim is to
make a dollar. But Alma Mater aimed higher.

For the man whose world is horizoned by
sales and a commission, and whose life’s am-

bition is a bank-account, a liberal education

is the most profitless and impractical invest-

ment that can be made. It is four years

wasted! And if life is only for earning and
earning and more earning, if material pros-

perity and economic security are the be-all

and end-all of human efforts, then I say, let

us have done even with sentiment and sen-

timentalities, let us label Alma Mater im-



“WHAT’S WRONG? 11

practical and proclaim her education a waste

of time!

But the shoe goes on the other foot! If

today our world is geocentric and not theo-

centric, we are the ones who wasted four
years; for we have missed the whole point

of Alma Mater’s training. She did not teach

us the arts for art’s sake; she labored with

them to teach us the one great art, the ART
of LIVING! She did not give us the sciences

for the sake of information; her sole aim was

our formation. She did not teach us how to

make a living; she did teach us how to make

a life. She taught us one art, one subject,

for one end. She aimed to make our lives

theocentric and to keep us from ever going

geocentric. She had a unity about her that

approximated unicity.

Unity That Nears Unicity

I know that the general condemnation of
our generation is lack of thought. From pul-

pit, platform and press, by priest, pedagogue

and pamphleteer we are labeled a thoughtless
generation. But I am convinced that the gen-
eral condemnation is wrong! We do not lack
thought; our big trouble is that we have too
many thoughts, altogether too many thoughts,
with no reflection on those thoughts!

The modern mind is never still. It cannot

be; for when the press is not screaming at it,
the radio is. And we know from our psychol-
ogy that the mind of man is like a highly
sensitized photographic plate and that it

catches every light and shadow. How can we
lack thought then, when our whirling world
would give us no rest, when not even the
home is quiet, when from morn till night
and often far, far into the night, flash after

flash after flash is being imprinted on our



12 “WHAT’S WRONG?

sensitized souls. No, we do not lack thought
nor do we need time to think. That is our
greatest trouble; we are always thinking.
What we very specially need is time to stop
thinking and time to reflect. Our mind is like

the silver screen in the modern movie house

of continual runs. Second after second after

second some new scene is being flashed upon

it. What we need badly are some “stills” so
that we can stare at them, study them and
thus learn!

Our modern world is too noisy; too filled

with broad headlines and big broadcasts.

What we need is a little silence so that we
can listen to ourselves reflect! We have be-
come so noisy that we can never hear the
whispers of our reflective selves and our in-

nermost souls.

Our world is too bright; too many head-

lights and searchlights and spotlights. What

we need is a little darkness so that we can

see, clearly see the Way, the Truth and the

LIGHT!

We have so much thought that we are
thoughtless, so much noise that we are deaf,

and so much light that we cannot see. In

short, our difficulty can be summed up by

saying that we are so busy about so many

things that we can never find time to be oc-

cupied with the ONE thing necessary. And
that is why we are failures! We have failed
to fulfill the one vocation God gave us; failed

to be the one thing He trained us to be; failed

to attain the one end He had in mind when

He sent us to College and kept us there.

Yes, I am insistent on the oneness of it all;
for I know something of the single-minded-

ness of God and I have seen the absolute

single-mindedness of our Catholic College

education. What I want you to realize is



WHAT’S WRONG?” 13

not the unity of it all, but its almost unicity.

It is true that we studied many subjects and

many branches of subjects; it is true that we

were schooled in the various arts and the

various sciences; but now that I have closed

out the hurly-burly of the world, now that I

have cloistered myself in silence and heard

myself reflect, now that I have become truly

theocentric, I see what I want you to see —
the startling unity, aye the almost unicity of

our College education. Study these “stills.”

Reflect! And you will find what is wrong.

God, who paid our tuition and sent us to

His school, never does things by halves. When
He said, “Going therefore teach ye all na-

tions,” He instituted His colleges. When He
added, “Teaching them to observe whatsoever

I have commanded you,” He drew up their
curriculum. When He said, “Seek ye first
the Kingdom of Heaven,” He defined the
purpose of all education. And when He said,
“This is eternal life: that they may know
Thee, the one true God and Him whom Thou
hast sent, Jesus Christ,” He set in the boldest
of bold relief the aim and object of all life

and learning. That is why I dare say that
Catholic Colleges do not teach many things.
That is why I say that they teach but one
thing and that through many media. They
teach THE WAY, the only way to HAPPI-
NESS; happiness here and hereafter, and

they teach that fully. They could not do

otherwise for they are but the mystical con-

tinuation of Him who said, “I am come that
they may have life and have it more abun-
dantly.” Life, you know, is only for happi-

ness!

I have heard the classical training laughed

at and a liberal education assailed; but now
that I have had time to reflect I find that it



14 “WHAT’S WRONG?

is the mocker who is at fault and the sneerer
who has failed. In fact, perhaps the cleverest
summary of the matter that I have ever heard

was given by my classmate, the “sentimental
loud-speaker,” and he gave it the night we
thrashed out the practicality of the course.

He did it in the modern American manner,

with wit, exaggeration, sarcasm and slang.

He played with words and on words and used

the “reductio ad absurdum” with an artist's

skill. “To most of us today,” he said,
“
‘Helen

of Troy’ is only a girl from upper New York;
‘Quintillian,’ the amount of our overbalanced

budget; and ‘Juvenal’ a gangster under

twenty-one.” On he went with a whole host
of classical names and allusions. From “Ars

Poetica” to Ethics and Natural Theology he

covered the course. But when he was finished

it was pointed out to him that he had omitted

one subject, a subject that runs through the

whole course, a subject that IS the whole

course; for it is the subject that makes Cath-

olic Colleges Catholic and renders liberal

education really liberal.

My friend looked puzzled, so we went on
to tell him that this one subject colors all

others and gives them what true meaning

they have. It is the one subject which, when
fully learned and fully lived, makes us Cath-

olic College graduates, but without which we
may be cultured, clever and refined, brilliant-
ly learned and astoundingly wise, successful

beyond youthful hope or maturer expectation,

but we are not CATHOLIC. That one sub-
ject will not help us make a living; in fact,

there will be times when it will prove a posi-

tive hindrance; but it will help us make a

life! It is not meant to be an asset in the

carving out of a spectacular career, but it is

the one instrument that will chisel out a



15“WHAT’S WRONG?”

character, make a man, a man, and a woman,

a revelation. That one subject gives mean-

ing to our “A.B.” and our for by it,

and by it alone, we are constituted bachelors

and masters of the one great art, the art of

living.

To teach that art is the end and the aim

of Catholic liberal education. Catholic Col-

leges do not intend to turn out money-makers,

kings and queens of finance; they aim to pro-

duce real men and radiant women. It is not

their purpose to bring out the instinct for

gold that is latent in every son of Adam
and every daughter of Eve; they want to

bring out the instinct for God that is in the

soul of every child of our fallen race. So

they teach but one art — the art of living,
the art of CATHOLIC living, the art of liv-
ing the Christian life in all its fullness. Any
other life is shadow or sham! So for four

full years in every class and in every course,

Catholic Colleges teach RELIGION!

Etymologically and theologically speaking,

religion is the binding of man to God; but
pedagogically speaking, it is the revelation

of man and God. That is why I say that
Catholic Colleges teach one art, one subject,

for one purpose — they aim to produce not
mere men and ordinary women, they aim
to produce MYSTICS!

Do not start. Mystics are not queer people!
In the truly Catholic sense they are simply

real men and radiant women who know, love
and live their religion; real men and radiant
women who are life-giving cells in the mighty
Mystical Body of Christ; real men and radiant
women who are representative Catholic Col-
lege graduates — lights in the midst of dark-
ness, theocentric souls in a geocentric world,

fearless leaders of a lost race. That is what



16 “WHAT’S WRONG?”

Catholic Colleges aim to produce — MYS-
TICS — happy souls who radiate Christ!

But What Has Happened?

We went through that course. But today,
most of us have only our degrees, to prove

that we are Catholic College graduates. We
have not the happiness that was planned for

us nor the contentment that was promised.

We are not mystics. We are not men and
women different from the hundreds of thou-
sands around us who never saw a Catholic
College campus. But do not blame Alma

Mater! She taught us the way to happiness,

and taught it thoroughly. When we left her
care we were in possession of an easily read
road-map. Alma Mater had red-inked our

only way. She knew where we should be
going and she knew the shortest and the saf-

est way. But we, in our eager hurry to

arrive, threw away the map this Lady of wis-
dom had given us and started to ask direc-
tions from the clever traffic-cops of the world.

We wanted short-cuts to happiness. We got
our directions from these smart boys, direc-

tions that took us off the road and directions

that we have followed! If we have not found
joy in life and living, if we are not now pos-
sessed of that “tranquillity of order” that

Alma Mater called “peace,” if we are not
enjoying a harmony of all our faculties and a

perfect balance of body and soul, if we are
not really happy, do not blame our educators

nor our education, blame ourselves. They

showed us the way; we deliberately got lost!

We were told to build our lives “four
square,” and we were shown how to build
them. Alma Mater gave us detailed blue-

prints. She showed us the indestructible

pyramids and told us to build along those



“WHAT’S WRONG?” 17

lines, to base our lives on the four unshakable

corners of Prudence, Temperance, Justice and

Fortitude and then to go on building to our

apex, which should be lost in God because

we were made for God.

But we tore up those blueprints and started

to build as the wise of the world build; we

would base our lives on money, fame, posi-

tion and pleasure. We were wiser than our
Alma Mater. She told us that we would find

our happiness from within, but we were sure
that we could find it from without; for the

wise world had told us so. We sought our
happiness then, not in what we are, but in

what we could get; not in the manhood and
the womanhood that God had given us, but
in the trinkets and the trifles that we could
acquire. Yes, it is too true that most of us

tore up the blueprints that Alma Mater gave

us and instead of building on the four Car-

dinal Virtues, we have foundationed our lives
on the four capital curses!

It is not difficult to see what happened. We
were mesmerized by the materialistic world.

Our apprenticeship for life was spent under

the tutelage of Alma Mater, but when we
had “served our time” we refused to work
along the lines that she taught us. She

trained us for happiness, we went in for
hedonism. She showed us how to make hap-
piness, we sought it “ready-made.” She told
us that it came from personal activity, we
thought we could find it in mere passivity.
She said from within, we insisted from with-
out. She said from creation, we said from
absorption; and that is why we are more
nearly sponges than intelligent men and
women.

Today we would rather read a thousand
lines than write a single sentence. We would



18 “WHAT’S WRONG?”

prefer to listen to the radio with all its

trifling trash than really think. We would
rather parrot someone else’s opinion than

form one for ourselves. We are “ready-
made” men and women of the Twentieth
Century. We think “ready-made” thoughts,
utter “ready-made” words, feel “ready-made”

emotion, follow “ready-made” political plat-

forms, accept “ready-made” economic ideals

and programs, and never reflect! That is

why we are like receiving-sets and not
studies; we echo and only echo, we never
produce! That is why we are not happy and
that is why we are failing to make others
happy. We are lights that have failed, cis-
terns that are broken, leaders who are being

led, mystics who have been mesmerized,

truth-bearers who are being deceived.

It is very easy to see what happened. We
went in for comfort, not contentment; we
sought leisure, not life; we thought only
about a good time and forgot almost com-

pletely about a good eternity! We became
completely geocentric, as money, man and
maid absorbed our attention. We became en-
grossed in a job, a salary, a bankbook, a

home; some friends, some fun and some fu-

ture. But real life and real living — those
things of eternal value and everlasting worth

— we forgot. Our assets lie unused as we
pile up eternal liabilities, chasing the rain-

bow trail in quest of power, popularity,

pleasure and peace.

It is high time to call, “Halt!” and to re-

flect. It is high time to realize that as long

as we are not dynamically Catholic, we shall
never be tranquilly happy; as long as we are
not theocentric in thoughts, ideals and ef-

forts, we shall never know peace; as long as

we are not MYSTICS — men and women



“WHAT’S WRONG?” 19

who are God-conscious, God-centered, God-
absorbed — we shall never know happiness
here, nor any great degree of glory hereafter.

It is high time for you and me to reflect and
to evaluate the assets we garnered from our
four years in a Catholic College. It is high

time that we remembered what Alma Mater
taught us with all the clarity and force of

her very clear and forceful being; namely,

that life’s goal is not economic nor political;

it is moral and mystical!

Do not be deceived. This is no narrow
view of education that I am presenting. Al-
ma Mater had a unity that approached unicity
in the midst of her startling variety. Actual-

ly, she treated only two beings — God and
man; and she treated them for only one pur-
pose — the happiness of both. That is a
proposition that needs no proof for the re-

flective. If Catholic Colleges swerved from
that course and that objective, they would
have played traitor to Jesus Christ who com-
missioned them to teach truth that man might
have beatitude.

You know that the Catholic Church admits
of no divorce. When separation is imperative,
she permits it; but she knows that then the
soul is gone from the conjugal union and she
well knows that a body without a soul is a
corpse. So, too, in education, separate Cath-
olicity from culture, divorce “reading ’riting
and ’rithmetic” from religion, and you have
a corpse — an organized something, but NOT
an organism.

If the proposition sounds strange, I think
the trouble is with our perspective and not
with the proposition. No matter how un-
certain our thought on the matter, the thesis
itself is certain. God paid our tuition for
our formation and not for our information,



20 “WHAT’S WRONG?”

and His one object has ever been “that men
have life and have it more abundantly.” His

spouse and our Alma Mater fitted us for life

and did it in a most practical manner. Her

liberal education endowed us with every good

gift that is necessary for man to live as man.
She prepared us for life and prepared us

thoroughly; not only for this life but ex-

pressly and explicitly for the much more im-

portant after-life. After all you know life

is a unit. We are not creatures of an hour,
we are beings immortal. Life for us will
never end, though our mode of living will

change. Life does not end at death. No,

indeed! Its mode alone is changed. In other

words, our eternity has already begun! So,

when I say Alma Mater prepared us for life,

I need make no distinction. I mean that she

fitted us for that unit which began in time

but goes on forever. She did her part; but

are we doing ours? Are we using our assets?

Are We Using Our Assets?

In our moments of exhilaration we have
often cried out, “This is the life!” But when

reflection came we had to admit that that
was NOT the life. What we have sometimes
called life was nothing but an unmanly and

an unwomanly way of seeking escape from
life. Drugs, drink and debauchery place one

in another world, it is true, and they cause

one to dream. But there is always an awak-

ening! Now dreaming is a human necessity.
It is part of life and one of its happiest parts.

That is why Alma Mater taught us how to
dream. She labored to give us the very ART
of dreaming. She wanted us to be able to

dream pleasant dreams, and dreams from

which there would be no sad or sick awaken-

ing. Two full years she gave to the develop-



“WHAT’S WRONG?” 21

ment of this faculty and the acquisition of

this art for she knew that man and woman

must have stimulants. Stimulants are a psy-

chological and physiological necessity. But

Alma Mater taught us to take ours from books

and not from bottles. She wanted us to be

“full men,” but she wanted that fullness to

come from reading and not from rum and

rickeys. She wanted us to be able to dream

dreams that come true and not be drunkards.

That is why she gave us two years of litera-

ture. But I am afraid that we have laid

aside this asset. I hope we haven’t lost the

art.

Do you remember when “Be yourself!” and

“Act your age!” were common colloquialisms?

As usual these slangy, expressive imperatives

have foundation in deepest pyschological and

pedagogical fact. For four full years Alma

Mater labored to teach us how to be our-

selves and how to act our age. To insure

our evolution into our real selves she first

taught us selflessness — that was sophomore
year; then she taught us salutary selfishness

— that was junior and senior years. She
showed us the heart of man through rhetoric

and the drama, and the soul of man through

logic and psychology. She wanted us to feel

for others and to live for others, but she

knew that we could never do this rightly

until we knew how to live for God and for

self. Throughout the course she labored to

give us balance; and if today we are unbal-

anced, it is only because we have not used

our assets.

Alma Mater was thorough. She neglected

nothing from our tenuous fancy to our phys-

ical well-being. We had our library, gym-

nasium and chapel, our arts, sciences and

philosophy, and we had our broad-vistaed.



22 “WHAT’S WRONG?

breath-taking dream-making theology. If we
have narrowed our horizons and hemmed in
our souls, if today, our life is 95% material

and 5% spiritual, if we are aesthetically and
mystically anemic but economically and po-

litically robust, if life is a battle and only

a battle for dollars and cents, if existence is

the dry, unromantic, prosaic thing that many

make it, merely a grasping for gold, if life

has lost all lyricism and we find ourselves
soured, disillusioned, disappointed men and
women, the fault is ours! We have not used
our assets. And here is how I prove it. . . .

Do You Ever Dream?

A human is more than a mere body, and
life is a whole lot more than a tremendous

amount of work, a few laughs and very much
worry. Your soul is more than mind, you

have a memory and a will, a fancy and an
imagination; and unless you employ all these

you are not really human. As I said before,

Alma Mater wanted you to be yourself, to

be fully human, so for two years she gave

you literature. Why? Why were we satu-
rated with poetry in freshman and with

rhetoric in sophomore year? Why did Cath-
olic Colleges, who had so little time to school
us for life, give so much of that time to litera-
ture?

I say to make us happy by giving us the

sublime art of knowing how to dream!

That may sound like a unique theory, but
do thrash it out with me for I think I can
show you what is wrong and what has hap-

pened. I further think that I can help you

to happiness.

I say that literature was given not so much
for language as for life; that freshman year

was aimed more at showing us how to live a



“WHAT’S WRONG? 23

poem than how to write one, for it was a

year of revelation — the revelation of God
and man. God, you know, is Truth and

Beauty and the one Object worthy of our

noblest emotion, and man is hungry to hold

God and to be held by Him.

Just look at what Alma Mater did to us

that freshman year. She tuned our ear to

the magic of melody and the rapture of

rhythm. She opened our eyes to the wonder

of the world and showed us how to see God

in everything from the sounding sea to the

silent stars. Mind, memory and will, fancy

and imagination were all given play and given

full play. Whole worlds were conjured up

before us in a sonnet’s last line or in a trio-

let’s refrain. The trinity was taught us,

that immortal trinity: the good, the true and

the beautiful. More, we learned much of
man this first year. We learned that man
was head and heart as well as hands; that

there were other thrills for man than those of
the flesh; that there was an ecstasy to be

had in everything from the witchery in the

mere word-music of “Kubla Khan” to the

soul-shaking agony in “Oedipus Rex.” In-

deed, this was a year of revelation!

If we did not come forth from freshman
artistic creators, we should at least have be-
come capable critics, for our Catholic Col-

leges were most Catholic. They took in the

full sweep of Poetry’s gamut. Alma Mater
did not shrink from showing you the beauty

of Swinburne’s music or the exquisite cameos

in Omar Khayyam. She gave you pagans,
not for their paganism, but for their poetry;

the Iliad and the Odyssey were taught, not

for their theology, philosophy or morals, but

for the epic grandeur and the true beauty

they contained. Alma Mater steeped us in



24 “WHAT’S WRONG?”

a world of musical cadences, delightful fancies

and mystic imaginings, for she wanted us to

know how to dream and how to lead a full
life so that we would know happiness.

Have you ever dreamed since? Have you

ever caught the poet in Christ as you listened

to His Gospel? Have you ever played with

God’s great universe since you left the cam-

pus? Have you been little enough and great

enough to be childlike? Have you been “so

little that elves can reach up and whisper

in your ear. that you can turn pumpkins into

coaches and mice into horses, lowness into

loftiness and nothing into everything?” Have

you been great enough “to be bounded in a

nutshell and count yourself king of infinite

space?” Have you ever “made the universe

your box of toys? dabbled your fingers in the

day-fall? become gold-dusty from tumbling

amidst the stars? or made mischief with the

moon?” In other words, have you been the

child that Francis Thompson describes in his

“Essay on Shelley,” saying, “he teases the

growling and kennelled thunder and laughs

at the shaking of its fiery chain. He dances

in and out of the gate of heaven. He chases
the rolling world. He gets between the feet
of the horses of the sun. He stands on the
lap of Mother Nature and twines her loosened

tresses after a hundred willful fashions to

see in which way she will look the most
beautiful.”

No, we have never done that! For that
would have been to dream, and dreaming,

while it may make one momentarily happy,
will never make one any money; and we
would rather be miserably rich than happily

poor. There is our answer in a sentence!

We are not fully happy because we are not
leading full lives. Man can make real money,



WHAT’S WRONG?” 25

but money can never make a real man, and

every real man is part dreamer. Oh, I speak

not of idle dreams. I speak of mysticism

and meditation, for I am talking not of sleep,

but of vision. The dreaming I have in mind

is brought about, not by closing the eyes,

but only by fully opening them. I am talk-
ing about the ability to soar from the visible

to the Invisible, from creature to Creator,

from buttercup and butterfly, from shooting

star and pounding surf to the eternal silences

where dwell the Trinity, Father eternally be-

getting Son, and Father and Son ever pro-

ducing the Holy Ghost. I am talking about
going from the heart of a rose to the Heart

of God, of lifting oneself out of the muck

of this world’s mad maelstrom of materialism
and dwelling in the light of the Light In-

accessible, the Glory that is our glory beyond

the stars! The dreaming that I am talking
about is the practical dreaming that Alma

Mater taught us, the dreaming of the Cath-

olic mystic who gets the most out of life be-

cause he or she puts the most into life; the

dreaming that has us often, yes, almost al-

ways, hearing the “deliberate speed, majestic

instancy” of the beat of the feet of the

“Hound of Heaven.”

Life at its highest is spiritual, not material;

intellectual, not sensitive; imaginative, fanci-

ful, emotional — poetic rather than prosaic;
a romance, and not drab realism!

But why should I go on? Old Cicero
taught us that “letters are the nourishment

of youth, the delight of old age, the adorn-

ment of our prosperity and our consolation

and refuge in adversity”; he also taught that

“letters delight us at home, are no burden

abroad, stay with us at night, are company

in our travels and companions in the seclu-



26 “WHAT’S WRONG?”

sion of our country villa.” But what of that?

He was old and he was Cicero. We confine
our readings to the daily newspaper, the

graphic and now and then, the Sunday sup-

plement. Our home libraries contain a few

current magazines that are neither thought-

provoking nor soul-satisfying. And yet we
wonder what is wrong! We have forgotten
that there are men who see more than appears
and who speak in musical cadences of the

beauty and truth that is a reflex of God.

We have forgotten that there are those who,
using rhyme and rhythm, express their wor-

thy thoughts in a manner that can stir our

noblest emotions. Alma Mater saw fit to

teach us how to dream. But we do not be-
lieve in dreams. We are of the Twentieth
Century. We are more nearly machines for
making money than men and women who can
dream of God. Small wonder we are unhap-

py! We have neglected the Art of Dreaming
and hence, have crippled our souls.

Haven’t We Become Too Singular?

I think so. And I say singular in order to
avoid the offensive “selfish.” I say singular

and by it I mean that we have ceased to be
universal. Will you thrash that statement

out with me? It is my summation of our
neglect of the asset we gained in Sophomore
year.

Tell me, why were we taught rhetoric?
Was it merely to enable us to build a speech
properly? to be able to weave words in a

manner calculated to persuade? Did we dis-
sect Demosthenes, Cicero, Burke and Webster

just to know what an exordium is and how
to draw up a peroration? If so, it was all a

waste of time. For most of us have never

delivered a speech since; and most of us



“WHAT’S WRONG?’’ 27

never shall deliver one. If so, Alma Mater

was teaching artifice and not art, turning out

manufacturers and not men. If so, sopho-

more year was most impractical. But is it so?

I say no! I say that Catholic Colleges do

not teach Latin, Greek, and English in sopho-

more year. I say that they teach man and

his emotional heart. They teach man and
his relation to God. They teach life. Oh, I

know that they teach the “Queen of the Arts”

through the threefold medium of Latin, Eng-

lish and Greek, and that they do this to cap

with a fitting climax the training of mind

and heart that began five years before when

a gangling youth began to learn his gram-

mar. But that is my point — art bespeaks
the universal!

Alma Mater taught us the “Queen of the

Arts,” and taught it thoroughly. Actually,

she gave us a stethoscope in our sophomore

year, and placing it on the pulsing heart of

humanity, had us listen.

What was Hecuba to us or we to Hecuba
that we should weep for her? Why should
we frown with Hamlet or frenzy with Lear
unless we had much in common with them?
If there be not a striking solidarity as well

as a striking singularity about us, then litera-

ture cannot live, nor art have a universal

appeal. Unless my heart beats as your heart
beats and you and I have ambition as well

as Macbeth, ideals as well as Brutus, and

purposes as set as Hamlet, then there is

no mirror that can be held up to nature. If

mankind is not a unit, then drama is a foolish

dream and rhetoric a waste of time.

But Alma Mater knew better and she
wanted us to know better. She wanted us
to know ourselves and our fellow man, so for
a full year, she adjusted a stethoscope to our



28 “WHAT’S WRONG?”

ears and taught us to catch every murmur
of Humanity’s throbbing heart. That is the
why of Cicero and Demosthenes, of Sophocles
and Shakespeare; that is the whole why of
sophomore year. Not drama nor rhetoric, but
the universality in every single one of us,
our solidarity in the human race. These
studies have been called “Humanities” and
rightly so, for they tend to offset our giant
selfishness and to stunt its dreaded growth.
They clearly teach us that the human heart
is not merely a pump for our circulating
blood, but that it is a sensitive instrument
of many tuneful strings that vibrate at the
slightest breath.

To make us Christian humanists Catholic
Colleges have a sophomore year and of that
year they make a long retreat. They make
it a time in which we study man and God and
learn how to live.

In much of the drama Alma Mater showed
us how NOT to live, and the reflective man,
recalling the lessons of sophomore year, must
gasp, “How old the new! How very old the
new!” Julius Caesar gave us a picture of
a world without God and of a man, a tiny
creature of clay, who would make himself an
omnipotent deity. And Julius Caesar is being
played today in modern dress by a Stalin and
a Hitler. Purges are not modern; Henry VIII
was very fond of them.

But all this oneness and sameness, all this
similarity and solidarity, all this amazing
universality would have been useless had not
Alma Mater shown us our solidarity in the
Mystical Body of Christ and accounted for
our tears for Hecuba, our sympathy for Ham-
let and our pity for Lear, by showing us our
common source — the breath of God.



“WHAT’S WRONG?” 29

We had many sermons and retreats dur-
ing our college course, but no one gave better
retreats or preached better sermons than did
William Shakespeare. He will live down the
ages and be a missioner to many and a re-
treat master par excellence to millions, just
because he so well knew that individuals are
not so individualistic, that they have very,
very much in common. He taught us plain-
ly that we can be as blindly superstitious and
greedily ambitious as was Macbeth, as un-
grateful and tyrannically self-willed as was
Lear, as dominated and undone by women as
was Hamlet and as stupidly self-deifying as
was Caesar.

That is how unified our course was!
Shakespeare was a spiritual father and pagan
Rome a retreat master to teach us our re-
ligion. Alma Mater knew that she had but
twenty-eight months out of a lifetime to
mould heart and mind to “seek first the King-
dom of God,” only twenty-eight months to
teach us that we are children of God and so,
too, is our neighbor, only twenty-eight months
to warm our breasts with love for God, then
for self and for neighbor. That is why she
labored with Latin, Greek and English, with
Science’s microscope and telescope, but most
especially with Literature’s stethoscope to
teach us that we are one, one with every
man and woman who breathes, because we
have all been breathed upon by God.

Alma Mater does not call sophomore year
a failure because we have ceased to read
Shakespeare and forgotten how to write a
speech. No. She knew that the day would
come when most of us would forget even the
alphabet of the Greek. But she hoped that
we would never forget that we are all from
God. She hoped that we would never be-



30 WHAT’S WRONG?”

come so selfish as to forget that the man next
door or the woman across the way are flesh
and blood, that under both stiff front and

tattered rags beats a human heart that is
hungry, that what man and woman and child
want most in life is not money, might or

mastery, but only human sympathy. Every-
one of us is lonely, and a word, a smile, a

pat on the back means much to everyone of
us. That is why half our college course was
given to Humanities. Alma Mater wanted

the throb of the human heart to beat in our
ears ceaselessly, and finding echo in our own
pulse, set us about the corporal and the spir-

itual works of mercy, so that we might build
up the Mystical Body of Christ! Again I

say that Alma Mater’s one aim was to make

us mystics!

Is that too far a cry for you? Am I
stretching and straining when I go from

Jocasta to Jesus Christ? from Macbeth to the

Mystical Body, from rhetoric to Catholic

Action? If so, you do not know your Alma

Mater. She was fitting you for life, but not

only for this life. She knew Christ’s Gospel
and she knew that Heaven is given to those

who visit the sick, clothe the naked, feed the

hungry, give drink to the thirsty and call on

those in prison. She was teaching Humani-

ties, but they were Christian Humanities

which necessarily culminate in a great-

hearted love for all mankind, since all are

actual or potential members of our members,

and Christ, our head.

But we have forgotten poor blinded Oedipus

and sleepless Lady Macbeth. We have long
since ceased to weep for Lycidas. Why, we

do not even feel for Christ! We have be-
come so singular that our days, our nights

and our mornings are all taken up with self.



“WHAT’S WRONG?” 31

“Charity begins at home” with us, and ends

there! And it is hardly Christian charity,

it is more nearly chariness. We who belong
to a priestly generation are entirely prag-

matic. Our neighbor to us is only a possible

customer, a possible stepping-stone, a possible

source of enrichment. But to play the Sa-

maritan, to be another Christ “going about

doing good,” to be a priestly Christian offer-

ing up sacrifice for mankind; to be pragmatic

enough to be minting money for Heaven and

buying our eternal mansion on the install-

ment plan, the installments being daily deeds

of mercy — That’s mysticism! That’s me-
dieval! That’s piety! and we are Twentieth
Century, College trained, learned, loons!

What blinded fools we have become! Alma
Mater taught us the sure way to happiness
here and hereafter, but we still do not believe
her. Our hearts are empty though the pockets

of some of us are full, and we are all panting
for happiness even though we have steeped
ourselves in pleasure. Let us tear off the

blindfold and see! see that we can acquire
happiness only by giving. Give yourself to

others. Give your time, your thought, your

brightest word and most sparkling smile.

Human hearts are hungry. You can fill them.
Human hearts are thirsty. Give them a cool-
ing draught. Human hearts are cold and
naked. Cover them. Human hearts are lone-
ly and homeless. Take them in. If not in-

to your home, at least into your heart and

your prayers. Place them close to the Heart

of Christ and real warmth will cover them.
And remember always that “whatsoever you
do to the least of these, My little ones, you
do it unto Me!”

Again I am calling upon you to be a mystic,
for only the mystic is worthy of the name



32 WHAT’S WRONG?

of man, for he alone grasps the divine pur-

pose of life. If you would not be a mere

beast of burden, a beast of prey, a beast of

pleasure or a beast of pride, then be the

man and the woman Alma Mater taught you
to be — be a mystic and you will enjoy life!
Again I am back to happiness as I say

the only man on earth who knows how to en-
joy life is the mystic. All others enjoy only

death, for what they call life is not life but

death. God is life and only the mystic is

wise enough to enjoy God.

Again I am back to God and self, and I
say enjoy God. Serve Him. Praise Him.

Reverence Him. See Him — in your neigh-
bor. Adjust sophomore’s stethoscope again

and listen to Humanity’s heart. It beats as

your own. Drama is being enacted all around
you. You yourself are working one out. Will

it be a Romance or a Tragedy? Will it be

Heaven or Hell? Will it be for God or against

God? It has got to be one or the other.

Only the infant and the idiot can remain

neutral and you are neither young nor com-

pletely brainless. You are a Catholic College

graduate, trained to be a mystic, a lover of

humanity, because a lover of God.

Don’t be too singular — that was Satan’s
trouble. But be singular enough — as was
the Christ.

Are We Singular Enough?

The most singular individual to be found

in our mad modern world is the man or the
woman who is strictly logical. The tempo of
our times is too high for straight thinking

and the “Modern Mind” has outlawed reason.

When Hilaire Belloc had to write about
that which is neither “modern” nor a “mind,”

but which will be recognized under no oth^r



“WHAT’S WRONG?” 33

label than that of “Modern Mind,” he became
quite nauseated. He calls it “a spirit which
has lost acquaintance with logical form and

which is too supine to reason.” He says that
“it is made up of pride, ignorance and intel-
lectual sloth — their unifying principle be-
ing a blind acceptance of authority not based

on reason.” And you must admit that he
is right. The trinity that rules our day is
Fashion, Print and Iteration. Although a
thousand assertions will never take a proof,

get something into print, repeat it often

enough and the modern man and the modern
miss will accept it as strictly proved and
make it the leading fashion. That is the psy-
chology behind advertising. Modern man
becomes less and less a man as he becomes
more and more a parrot. He does little more
than repeat and repeat what he had read or
heard, and in thus using his memory, he
thinks he is using his mind. That is why I
say the most singular person to be found in
the world today is the person who does
straight thinking.

Of course, if Philosophy were only a specu-
lative science this condition might pass as
pitiable but not pernicious. But when we
know that straight living and straight lov-
ing depend on straight thinking, when we
know that logic, love and life are a united
trinity and follow one another as inevitably
as morning, noon and night, when we know
that idea gives birth to ideal or principle and
on this is based our action, then we shudder.
Philosophy might be looked upon as a specu-
lative science if history did not tell of the
France of 1790, the Russia of 1920, the Ger-
many of 1940 and the world at the present
moment. Philosophy might be looked upon
as a speculative science if we did not see



34 “WHAT’S WRONG?”

Christ crucified in our colleges, ostracized

from our politics and ignored in our world

of business. Philosophy might be looked upon

as a speculative science if our land was not

overrun with loose loves and looser lives, if

there were no Reno, divorce courts and found-

ling asylums. Philosophy is NOT a purely

speculative science. It is not something to

KNOW. It is something to LIVE, and that

is why Alma Mater gave us a junior year of

logic.

Have we been straight in our loves and our

lives? Have we been singular enough to be

straight in our logic? Alma Mater meant

us to be so. She meant us to be most singular

and that is why she gave us a fixed course

in scholastic philosophy. Oh, the wonder of

that course! It caused Harvard’s professor

of Education, L. J. A. Mercier, to break out

in a torrent of congratulations to Catholic

College students because they were fortunate

enough to be getting a clear-cut and com-

plete philosophy of life which could be justi-

fied. He said that the classrooms of non-

Catholic colleges were filled with students who

were getting no such philosophy of life and

whose thought was by consequence “chaotic,

pitifully chaotic.” He should know. And

we should know. Our whole world is chaotic,

but that is only because its thought is chaotic.

It has nothing stable about it because its

principles are not fixed. But we — for half
of our college course we were rigidly set in

the fixity of a determined philosophy. Have

we swerved?

I am asking questions because I hate to

write the answers. If I must use points, let

me use the interrogation in place of the ex-

clamation. They hurt me less and should

stimulate you more. So I ask, have we used



“WHAT’S WRONG? 35

our logic? Do we bring every statement to

the touchstone of truth? every argument to

the touchstone of form? every claim to the

touchstone of fact? That was the training

we got. We were taught to analyze and syn-
thesize, to distinguish with clarity and pre-

cision, to go from major and minor premise

to faultless conclusion. We were taught
straight thinking. We were trained to the
rapture of right reasoning because man is
only man when he is human and he is human
only when he thinks and wills according to

fixed rules. Have we been really human?
Alma Mater wanted us to be so; for she knew

that that was the only road to happiness.

Yes, I am back again at my original claim.
Education is only for happiness. And I am
saying that there is a thrill to straight think-

ing, an ecstasy in divining truth, a rapture

in detecting error and distinguishing the true

from the false. More! I say that Alma

Mater gave us the Porphyrian Tree that we
might climb it to God, and the rules for

syllogisms that we might find the Trinity.
No matter where I look in Logic, I find
adumbrations of the Trinity. I know that
there is perfect unity in the trinity of logic,

life and love. I know that straight thinking
begets straight living and both together

produce straight love. I know that the syl-
logism can have only three terms, which con-

stitute one argument and give one forceful

truth. I know that truth is eternal, im-
mutable, absolute. So I know that in learn-
ing the rules of syllogisms and tapping the

fonts of knowledge I was knocking at the

gateway to God.

There was nothing impractical about Alma
Mater. We were maturing as we reached
junior year; full manhood and full woman-



36 “WHAT’S WRONG?”

hood was almost upon us. So we were given
the food for the strong — metaphysics. With
a fearlessness found only in those who have
the truth, Alma Mater introduced us to the
erring and to error. We met skeptic, agnostic
and atheist, positivist, nominalist and con-

ceptualise materialist, idealist and pantheist.

Unhesitatingly she acquainted us with Des-

cartes and his doubt and the awful spawn

he generated, men who range from the pan-
theism and idealism of Spinoza to the ma-

terialism and atheism of Hobbes. We saw
Berkeley beget Hume and Kant give birth to
Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. We saw the
children always outdo their sires. Berkeley

denies the substantial existence of the body,

Hume denied that of the spirit; Kant gave
us “ignotum x,” but his children made every-

thing from “a” to “z” “ignotum.” No wonder,
then, that we heard Schopenhauer call the
world a madhouse and prescribe, as the only

remedy for mankind, universal suicide.

We analyzed these men and their methods
and we found that they were all alike. Dar-
win, Spencer and Huxley, Nietzsche, James

and Bergson are only blind men leading the
blind and, just as our Savior promised, fall-

ing into the pit.

We met these men in our classrooms and
there we refuted them. As long as we were
on the campus we wanted nothing to do with
them or their teachings, for we hated error
and were learning to live logical truth. But

today, as we live out our logic, are we as
cautious, as wisely critical and as Catholicly

true? Is not our business associate who

works on the principle of “profit at any price”

a pragmatic materialist? Is not the man
across the way, who is forever talking reli-

gion but never practicing any, a skeptical



“WHAT’S WRONG?” 37

agnostic? Is not the woman downstairs, who

is so full of the latest ways to enjoy yourself

without paying the price, a hedonist? Is not

that young couple, who are always entertain-

ing, a pair of “eat, drink and make merry”

atheists? Are you not surrounded by com-

munists and pagans? They are living out

their philosophies — false ones; and you
must live out yours!

We must be most singular in our topsy-
turvy world, for we have a logic that takes

care of our psychologic and physiologic. We
have a logic that must be loved and lived.

We have a logic that guards and guides, that
rules and regulates, that guarantees and in-

sures our lives and our loves.

Philosophy is a very practical science. Had

there not been a Marx and an Engels there

would not now be a Stalin and a Hitler. Hob-
bes, Locke and Hume are responsible in great
part for our drunkenness, birth control and

divorce. Suicide, murder and rape can point

to Schopenhauer, Spencer and Huxley; for

every crime demands a criminal and every

criminal, before he acts, must have a con-

cept. That is why I say that the foundation
of Sing Sing, San Quentin, Leavenworth and

Walla Walla were laid by false philosophies.

Let me insist that your mental health, your
real happiness, your true holiness are all

based on logic, the logic Alma Mater gave
you in your junior year.

As you come back to the campus, no longer

boys and girls, but men and women of the
world, husbands and wives, fathers and moth-

ers, Alma Mater looks at you and hopes
that your small families are due to Christian

self-control and not to sinful birth control;

hopes that your mounting bank account is

due to the use of sound principles and not



38 WHAT’S WRONG?”

to sharp practices; hopes that your increas-

ing popularity is due to real worth and not

to wiliness; she ardently hopes that your

progress in the financial, political and social

world is in no way due to any compromised
Catholicity, but rather to a vibrant living-out

of your scholastic philosophy. Are her hopes

well grounded?

Like it or not, we have failed somewhere.
Our God-given vocation is not being fulfilled.

Our vocation is to be militant Catholics in

the midst of a pagan world. We are not
one in five in this land of ours, but what a

discord we could cause in the ceaseless chant
of mad materialism if one in every five gave
voice to Christlike spiritualism! We are not
one in five in America, but what a drop we
could cause in the ever mounting tide of

paganism if we boldly proclaimed our Catholi-
cism! We are not one in five in America,
but what a different America this would be

if one in every five lived his Catholic logic!

Yes, we have failed somewhere. We are not
singular enough to cause the plurality of the

people to pause and wonder, “What is truth?”

We are not logical enough to make the illogi-
cal stop and ask themselves, “What must we
think of Christ?”

Why Are We Not Adventurers?

When we were seniors Alma Mater con-
centered all her efforts on the individual.

From every possible angle she played her

searchlights on our souls. She gave us Psy-

chology to show us that we had a soul, a
personal, immortal, spiritual and free soul.

She gave us Ethics to show us that we had
rights, individual and inalienable rights and

corresponding duties. She gave us Natural

Theology to show us that we had a God, an



“WHAT’S WRONG?” 39

infinite and personal God, who is omniscient,

omnipresent and omnipotent. What a year

of rapture and revelation this was! What

a climax to a perfectly balanced course!

What an ecstasy for the ego. Tiny man was

shown his sublime dignity, his duty and

his amazing destiny. We needed cap and
gown for this year because decorum demands

vestments when one enters the holy of holies.

Literature gave us much of life, of man
his modes and his manners. We had seen
the heights and the depths that he can reach.

Poetry had fed our fancy, fired our imagina-

tion and flamed our emotions by its lofty

thought. Rhetoric had thrilled our being as

it translated for us the throbs of the human

heart we heard beating in our literary stetho-
scope. We thus learned much of man, and
indirectly, much of God. Then came Logic

with its accent on the intellect and we found
ourselves microscoping man’s mind. Thus

for three years we were dealing with the
universal with only indirections on self; but

now came a concentration and a concentering
on the ego. Alma Mater was putting on
pressure, for the dawn of commencement was
graying in the East. Soon we would be setting
out on life’s great adventure and she wanted

us to know our dignity, our duty and our
destiny. Life is a very personal affair. The

individual is ever paramount. So Alma Mater
stressed our individuality, whispering as it

were her parting words, “Remember what
you are and where you are going.”

Psychology was an exhilaration. Under our

mental microscopes went specimen after

specimen until we had proved with a proof as
rigid as a mathematical formula, as tangible

as fact and as true as God that we were
more than a bundle of atoms destined for dis-



40 “WHAT’S WRONG?”

integration and the grave, more than a highly

organized and evolutionized ape, much more
than flesh and blood and bone. With some-

thing like awe we looked upon the grades of
grandeur: the rock, the rose, the wriggling

worm, on and up we made our way from that
which only grows to that which sees and feels

and hears, to that which understands and

knows. Then with all the force of bursting

bombs came the thunderous truths of the

soul’s simplicity, spirituality and immortality.

That was the time that we realized that we
came from God. Body might be from the

blood of the brute, but the spiritual soul IS

the breath of God; and that is why we say
that we were not formed nor fashioned, but
that we were created. “He who is” had to
work in order that we be. Indeed, Psychology
was an exhilaration! It proved that we had
a spiritual soul that is immortal and a will

that is free. Our dignity was very clearly

shown us — we are children of God!
Quite logically then, came Ethics. For an

individual has rights, inalienable rights, and

that means corresponding duties. But the

real revelation of Ethics was not our duty

so much as our destiny. For Ethics took the
hunger of our souls and told us what it was.

It told us that we were hungering for hap-
piness, and a happiness that is not mere

pleasure, but a permanent possession of good.

Years have fled since we learned that truth.
Is it not high time that we lived it? Pleasure
is not happiness; it is only its counterfeit

and sham. If you have not learned that as

yet, then ask the bacchant and the bacchante.

They will tell you that pleasure is not hap-

piness and never can be; for every brim-

filled bowl has its dregs, and every night of

revelry its following head-splitting dawn. If



“WHAT’S WRONG? 41

you have not fully learned that yet, then

ask the worldly-wise contraceptionalists. They

will tell you that pleasure is not happiness,

and they will be most insistent if you meet

them in the evening of their lives; for a

house without children is never a home! If

you are not fully persuaded that pleasure is

not happiness, then ask Mr. and Mrs. Mam-
mon, they of the Midas-touch, or Mr. Demi-

god, the people’s choice at the polls. They

will tell you that god and glory are not hap-

piness; for they are too difficult to hold!

Understand me! Alma Mater did not say

that we must not enjoy pleasures. Never!

Christianity does not teach that you should

not snatch as much pleasure as you can from

the passing things of this passing world, so

long as this pleasure is not at the expense

of your real happiness. What she does teach,

and what Alma Mater stressed, is that to

choose the greatest imaginable amount of

human pleasure at the expense of the smallest

surrender of a moral standard, is the act of

the illogical and the fool. She does teach

that to take what is passing in place of what

is permanent is madness; to seek pleasure

forgetting all the while about happiness, is

to be unchristian, uncatholic and untrue.

Ethics told us our destiny. It said that

if we would be true to ourselves, we must
have God. It told us many wonderful things:
it told us about the ego, the family and the

state; it told us what was Caesar’s and what

was not; what parents must do and what

they must not do; what I can yield and what

not. But the most wonderful thing that

Ethics said is that we must grasp God. Hap-
piness is impossible any other way. Beati-

tude is the goal of life and there is only one

way to it. With the clearest of clear calls



42 “WHAT’S WRONG?”

Ethics was always saying, “If you want real

happiness, follow the road.”- And that road
was labeled “LAW” — the natural law, which
is a participation of the divine. I say, “Walk

that road, Catholic College graduates, and

your pillows will be easier at night, and one

day you will rise from your deathbed re-

freshed!”

Dignity, destiny and duty — what a trinity!
But it would never, could never, exist with-

out God, so Alma Mater threw wide the door

to her greatest natural revelation when she

gave us our Natural Theology. Ethics had

translated our heart’s hunger and our soul’s

thirst. It told us that we wanted the perma-
nent possession of the true and an unbreak-

able grasp on the good; it told us that we
wanted beatitude. Natural Theology told us

who is the True and who the Good; it trans-
lated Ethic’s “beatitude” into that monosyl-

lable of three letters that contains every-

thing; Natural Theology told us about GOD.

It did that soul-satisfying thing of pouring

the light of reason on the “Obvious Invisible,”

and performed that heart-thrilling act of

analyzing man’s groping after and grasping

of the intangible God.

Taking scholastic philosophy’s five tradi-

tional arguments, those metaphysical lyrics

that St. Thomas has composed, our Alma

Mater gave us treasure that time can never

exhaust, and beauty that leads to and blends

in the vision that will bless us for all eternity,

if we are true. These arguments for the
existence of God are the climax and the re-

capitulation of the entire college course. In

them I find poetry — they set me dreaming!
To start with the infinitesimal and go to the

Infinite; to go from motion that is little more

than rest to the Prime Mover who is never



“WHAT’S WRONG?” 43

at rest; to go from the beauty in the heart

of a rose to the inexhaustible beauty in the

Heart of God; to go from the faultless sym-

metry in a snowflake’s crystals on and up

to the order that is found in the sun and

the moon and the stars, to the Orderer who
taught the bee to store up honey and the

wren to build her nest, who taught the sky-

lark to climb into the rosebush of the dawn

and man to go questing down the avenues of
time for truth and beauty and woman to
long for a child and a home; to go from an

acorn that has just dropped from an oak to

the Alpha who has no beginning and the

Omega who will have no end, to go from

effect just perceptible to Cause imperceptible

and inexhaustible — that is poetry, drama,
ecstasy, awe and adoration.

Here it was that we saw the unity of the
course. When cosmology had made use of
the findings of chemistry and physics, when
psychology had to wait on biology before it

spoke absolutely, the thoughtful man saw the
oneness in the multiplicity of our studies;

but when Natural Theology fused them all,
when it took astronomy and geology, biology,
chemistry and physics, when it took litera-
ture, logic and life, every branch of art and

science and showed how every one of them
spoke of God, then the thoughtful man ex-
ulted even as he adored and saw that Alma
Mater’s unity approximated unicity. This

was the study that proved life worth living

as it made the Intangible tangible and the
Invisible clearly seen. To learn of God, our

God; to argue out His existence, essence and

attributes; to prove that He is infinite om-
nipotent, omniscient, omnipresent; to show
Him with a mind and a will that are concerned
about us; to find Him Creator, Preserver and



44 “WHAT’S WRONG?”

Provider, put a Hit in the lines of life and
make the grave a gateway to glory.

Have you ever thought of that argument
from motion as you watched the whirl of the
world? Have you ever thought of the Com-
poser as you listened to Spring’s happy song?
Do you sometimes dream of the Artist as
you see the orderly chaos in a flaming dawn
or the anger in a frowning sundown? Do
you often lift up your mind and heart in
adoration as you watch a rosebud unfold, a
sparrow fall or a baby play with its mother’s
hair? Do you daily see more and more of
God, your God, in the world around you, in
sunshine and stars and sea, in blossom, bird
and bee, in child and maid and man? Is life
removing veil after veil after veil and pre-
paring you more and more for the vision that
will be face to face, the vision of Him whom
Alma Mater taught you to dream of, think
of, live for and love? Are you so living your
Ethics that you are sure of grasping the Sub-
ject of your Natural Theology? Are you?
Or is your life horizoned by the pay-envelope,
the bank-account and the preparation for that
rainy day, which may never come, to the
almost utter exclusion of thought of the night
that will most surely come, “the night when
no man can work,” or of that Dawn which
will never know sundown? In short, are you
praising, reverencing and serving God seven
days a week, twenty-four hours a day, or is
the late Mass on Sunday the sum-total of
your religion? Is your life the grand ad-
venture of ever searching after God, the ro-
mance of wooing that “Tremendous Lover,”
the thrilling quest to satisfy your soul by
conquering Heaven’s battlements and subdu-
ing Hell’s hating foe? Is religion your life,
or is it a mere accessory? Is God in mind



WHAT’S WRONG?” 45

and heart and will, in home and wife and

family, in leisure, business and politics? Are

you a daring adventurer after God? If not,

you have failed your Alma Mater, you have

failed your soul and yourself.

The Argonauts went after a Golden Fleece,

the Knights of the Round Table after the

Holy Grail, the medieval Crusaders wanted

the sepulcher of Christ, and Columbus, a way

to the East. Balboa discovered the Pacific

and Pizarro conquered Peru. Adventurers

have sought the philosopher’s stone and the

fount of perpetual youth. Some seek out the

Antipodes, while some, the lost Atlantides.

Men have rejoiced to climb Mt. Everest or
to find Tut-Ankh-Amen’s tomb. But what are

these in themselves or in their results com-

pared to the bold adventure of ever seeking

God? This is the search that ranges the whole

earth over, soars to the very stars and goes

beyond, and yet, it is achieved at home amidst
the prose of life by souls who are not con-
sidered in the least daring, but who are
actually the most daring beings in existence.

This is the search that captivates mind and

heart and senses, this is the search that ab-

sorbs the entire man, body and innermost

soul; this is the only search that makes this

world wondrous, life worth living and death

a wakening to delight. This is the Adventure

of Adventures and the one Alma Mater set
you on as she gave you your bachelor’s degree

and sent you out, not to make a living, but
to make a life, not to amass gold, but to grasp
God, not to fight the battle of life, but to

begin Heaven on earth as you became a truly

Catholic man or woman, a mystic, lost in
the love of God!



46 “WHAT’S WRONG?”

Why Not Act Your Age?

I have done. I have covered the course

from freshman to graduation day, and though

I have mentioned all the arts and sciences,

I have said nothing of the course in Religion.

Can you guess why? In the beginning I

said that Alma Mater teaches but one sub-

ject, and that Religion; I am now at the
end and have said nothing about the Religion

course. It was not an oversight, nor is this

section an afterthought. I had a point to

prove and I think that I have proved it.

Religion is not a derelict among the educa-

tional subjects, an exile from professional

pedagogy; it heads, permeates and sanctifies

the entire curriculum. Alma Mater was

teaching you Religion from enrollment day

till commencement, from Horace, Sophocles

and Shakespeare to the thesis on Church and

State and God’s particular providence. From

the golden September you first stepped on

the campus to the glad day in June when

you went forth a graduate, Alma Mater’s

ceaseless theme was God and yourself. At

all times, in all classes and in every course

she showed you your relation to the Absolute,

for that is the only proper end of education.

There was a course in Religion, a course

that linked reason and revelation, a course

that gave you higher truths and greater truths

than test-tube, microscope or biological dis-

section, a course that should have been called

by its proper name — a course in the Science
of God — for it was theology. Here you
used reason on things that reason of itself

could never know and played a light more

luminous than reason’s light on the two ob-

jects Alma Mater had so ceaselessly talked

about, yourself and God. These two you

saw under the light of faith, and what a



“WHAT’S WRONG?” 47

vision that was! You heard God speak, tell-

ing you much about Himself and all about

your soul. You saw a Man in Palestine who
claimed to be the Son of God; you saw Him

prove that claim by a life and a death that

no mere man could live and die; you saw
miracles at His birth, throughout His life

and at His death, only to be followed by the

greatest of miracles, His Resurrection. You

could not escape the conclusion that this Man
is true; He IS the Son of God; what He says

is the very word of God and therefore true

with the truth of Divinity.

You saw Him found a Church every bit as
discernible as our American flag with its red,

its white, its blue and its stars; for He made

His Church One, Holy, Catholic and Apos-

tolic; and today you recognize the man who
signs himself with the seal of the fisherman

as the visible head of that Society the God-

man founded after Jerusalem and Rome had
spiked Him to a cross and He had split the
tomb. Rome’s teaching, then, you know to

be God’s teaching, for it is guided and

guarded by the Spirit of Truth, who, as He
promised, will ever abide.

When once you had established this much
on purely logical and historical grounds, then

you plunged, and fearlessly plunged. Into

that sea of wondrous revelation you went and

saw the world created, saw light flash over

the universe’s blackness, and watched the

formation of man by the fingers of Omnipo-
tence. You saw all creation’s hierarchies
from a grain of sand to the singing seraphim,

and then you saw — sin. Lucifer fell and
lost Heaven. Adam fell and lost for you and
for me, Paradise; but moved the Trinity to
decree the Incarnation. Golgotha won grace
and made glory possible, as through seven



48 “WHAT’S WRONG?”

strong channels redemption flows; and we
know that by grasping the mystic hand of
Christ, which He reaches us from out eternity,
we can go to the Triune God.

That was the course, covering everything

from before time was until after time ceases;

and if it taught one thing clearly, it taught

the prodigality of the Trinity’s love for tiny

you and tinier me. The Father gave us crea-

tion, the Son redemption, and the Holy Ghost

gives sanctification and consequent glorifica-

tion. The Father gave Himself as He breathed
into a body of clay and made us living per-

sons; then He sent His only Son in Bethle-
hem’s cold to die in Calvary’s Blood; then,

in a roar of wind and a rain of flame, they

both sent the Holy Ghost to make you and
me more than man, to elevate us to the stat-
ure of superhuman, to lift us up to the level

of Jesus Christ!

Creation was thousands, maybe tens of

.thousands, of years ago. Redemption was

wrought nineteen hundred years that are

gone. And the Holy Ghost descended imme-
diately after. And yet, we have the Father
in every breath we breathe, for He must sus-
tain us in creation; we have the Son, in all
His glorified manhood, wherever a sanctuary

light burns, for He would prolong His Incar-

nation; and we have the Holy Ghost in the
center of our souls if we are in grace. In-

deed we are supermen, men who house the
Triune God, men who are spiritual giants
spending an exile in Time, men who are
Eternity’s children. We are not of, nor for,
this world, even though we are in it; and
it is high time that we acted our age! We
are old enough to know better.

Yes, we are old enough to know better, to
know much better than to be spending all



“WHAT’S WRONG?” 49

our years in a soul-crushing, brain-wearing,

body-breaking quest for gold or glory in place

of goodness and grace; old enough to know

better than to be seeking happiness where

happiness can never be found — in the pass-
ing pleasures of this very passing world; old

enough to know better than to be absorbed

in man or maid when we should be absorbed
in God; old enough to know better than to

be taken up entirely with making a living,

building a home, increasing a bank-account,

preparing for our old age and our children’s

future, when we should be primarily con-
cerned with praising, reverencing and serv-

ing God, preparing our eternal mansions,

heaping up indestructible merits by saving

and sanctifying our souls. We are all old
enough to have outgrown our foolish adoles-

cence and the daze of our collegiate life; old

enough to have sense, the common, Catholic

sense to live the life Alma Mater taught us
to live with her literature and logic, her

sciences and her arts. We are all just about
old enough to become children — the children
of God the Father, God the Son, and God
the Holy Ghost!

It is high time for us to act our age, make
Alma Mater proud and give glory to the God
who made us, educated us and awaits for us
to grow old enough to become as little chil-

dren, because — “of such is the Kingdom of
Heaven.”

Are We Looking Towards the Dawn?

We are growing older and ever older, and
with inexorable steadiness are approaching

what so many call “the evening of life.” Do
you call it the same? Or are you Catholic
enough and true enough to call it what it
really is — our Dawn?



50 “WHAT’S WRONG?”

To most men old age is “evening,” and
death, “the blackness of night”; but not to

the thoughtful Catholic College graduate.

Never! For Alma Mater taught us how to
grow younger with the years, how to become
greater children of God, and to look upon

death, not as an end, but as a beginning, not

as a sleep, but as our real awakening. And
again Alma Mater was teaching us fact!
Death is not night; it is Dawning!

Like all other men and women, you and I
are always facing that ever graying and con-

stantly brightening East; but are we looking
towards the Dawn? No one can turn from
that East; it is inevitable. But many a man
and many a woman are closing their eyes to
that Dawning; and it is this opening or

closing of the eyes that differentiates the

modern materialistic pagan from the Catholic

College graduate who is true. For it is not
our views on life that make us so different,

it is our dogmas on death! Omar Khayyam
has a philosophy of life, a very definite phi-

losophy, but it is only because he has a def-

inite dogma on death. And today, from the
steppes of Russia to the surges of the English

sea, human life is wantonly wasted and in-
dividuals held as little worth because those in

power look upon the human soul as nonexist-
ent and on death as life’s end. Are we as
pagan as Omar, or as blind as those in the

Reich and at the Kremlin? Or are we look-
ing towards the Dawn?

If our eyes are focused on our Dawning,

if we are wise enough to be going through
life ever mindful of death, if we are always
looking, not for a good time, but for a good

eternity, then we are safe! We are true to
our Alma Mater, true to ourselves and true

to God. And when our Dawn does break we



“WHAT’S WRONG?” 51

shall have something to show for life. We
shall not be empty-handed.

Oh, what consummate tragedy is held in

empty hands! And empty hands are all that

can be shown to an all-discerning God by

those who go through life without looking

towards the Dawn. Now is the time to ask
ourselves: Are our hands empty? If tomor-

row should be Eternity’s Dawn, what could

we show for life? If we had to stand in the
brilliance of Light Inaccessible tomorrow

morn, what would He see for all that He has
given us? What would He find as the re-
sultant of the four full years He allowed us

for our Catholic College course? Would it

be empty hands?

Incarnate Truth spoke a parable one day,

a fearful parable. With lightning strokes He
etched an unforgettable picture as He told
of the man who gave to his servants certain
talents and then went afar off. Years after,

he returned and calling together his servants,

he demanded an account. Some had doubled

the money and for it received immediate re-

ward and high praise; but there was one

who had hid his talent in the earth, and be-
cause of his unprofitableness, was cast out

into exterior darkness. Then, lest any miss

the point of the parable, Jesus spoke of the

Last Judgment. That is the Dawn we are
facing, and our talent is our Catholic Col-

lege course. What have we done with it?
Does it lie hid in the earth?

If you say, “No,” then tell me where are
the Catholic College graduates who are ra-
diating Christ? Where are the men and wom-
en who have spurned the modern heresy of
action and who dream dreams as did the
author of “The Hound of Heaven,” and sing
songs like unto “Ex Ore Infantium?” If you



52 “WHAT’S WRONG?

say, “No,” then tell me, where are the men
in public life who stand out as did Sir Thomas
More, showing to the whole wide world a

merry, cultured gentleman of God, a states-

man par excellence, and a saint who could
price with unerring appraisement the things

of time and the things of eternity? And
where are the women like unto Elizabeth
Anne Seton, she who could be the toast of

the town, model wife, devoted mother, holy

widow and God’s sainted nun? If you dare

say, “No,” then tell me why Truth Himself
is so little known and Infinite Love so violent-

ly hated; tell me why the Mystical Body is
not more robust and the Church of Christ

more universally loved. If you dare say,

“No,” then tell me what you have to show
for life?

Not money — for at Dawning, money does
not count. Christ has a different currency!

Not friends — for at the Dawning you
stand alone!

Not family — for your life’s partner and
your little ones cannot be on hand.

What can you show today? If tomorrow

should be your Dawning, would Christ have

to ask, “What’s wrong?”

There is only one way to prevent that

question. It is to keep looking towards the

Dawn.

If you keep looking towards the Dawn, you

will have much to show for life; for you shall

dream those prayerful dreams which count

in time and in Eternity, you shall amass real

riches. Keep looking towards the Dawn and
you shall be universal in your works of mercy,

ever aiming to be like Christ, always going

about doing good. Keep looking towards the

Dawn and you shall live your logic, making
your life, your love and your longing tangent



WHAT’S WRONG? 53

to Him who is Life and Love and the Object

of your deepest desire. Keep looking towards

the Dawn and your life shall be a romance
and not a tragedy, a gripping adventure and

not just “days without end.” Keep looking

towards the Dawn and you shall be a chiv-
alrous mystic who goes tilting down the

avenues of time radiating Christ and quest-

ing for God. Yes, keep your eyes focused on

that Dawn and you shall never be empty-
handed; but at its breaking you shall stand

laden with deeds done as Alma Mater taught

you to do them. You shall stand with soul

rich with merits, those weighty merits won
through daily expressive expenditures of

energy in the exercise of Prudence, Justice,

Fortitude and Temperance. Fix your eyes on

that Dawn and I promise that you shall stand
in its full flush with a heart that is crimson-

dyed and a flesh that is white with Tabor’s

whiteness because daily you fed on the glis-

tened White Bread of Angels and drank from

the ruby-red cup of Christ’s Blood. Fix your

eyes on it and at its breaking you shall stand

with mind, memory and will throbbing with
ecstatic delight, for now, at long last, they

see and have and hold Him who engrossed
them during earth’s exile. You shall stand
smiling and unafraid as you come “face to

face” with Him who sent you to college that
you might have Eternal Life!

Get something to show for life NOW. . . .
Tomorrow MAY BE Eternity’s Dawn! Do
not force Christ to ask, “What’s Wrong?”

We are in a very dangerous position. We
can reap only what we sow. Time is Eter-
nity’s cradle, and if we do not so live as to
make Alma Mater proud, we shall have
turned a temporal favor of God — our Cath-
olic College course — into a seed of eternal



54 “WHAT’S WRONG?

woe. If we are only broken cisterns, many
members of Christ’s Mystical Body may die
athirsting. If we are lights that fail instead
of lights that so shine before men that they
may see our good works and glorify our Fa-
ther who is in Heaven, we shall most likely
burn for all eternity.

Remember Nicodemus and Joseph of Ari-
mathea! They were disciples of Christ. They

learned truth from Truth Himself, but they

did not practice it openly. They were friends

of Christ, but only in the dark. When the
Sanhedrin voted, these two were absent. They

would not condemn Christ, but they did not

defend Him. They became assertive when it

was too late. They became assertive only

after His death and were on time only to

take Him down from the cross. Are we do-
ing the same? Modern Atheism and material-

istic Paganism promise a crueler crucifixion

of the contemporary Christ. If we do not
soon assert ourselves, we may be on time
only to take Him down from the cross!

The Church Militant looks to Catholic Col-

lege graduates. She expects them to fight, to

be leaders in the fight; and the only way to

lead is to follow Christ!

Man waits — Alma Mater waits — the
world waits — Heaven or Hell waits for the
Catholic College graduate! — What’s Wrong?



BOOKS AND BOOKLETS

SUPPLIED BY THE ABBEY OF OUR LADY

OF GETHSEMANI

The Family that Overtook Christ $2.75

The Man Who Got Even with God 2.00

Life of Dom Edmond Obrecht 1.50

Life and Times of St. Bernard 6.50

St. Bernard on the Love of God 1.50

The Soul of the Apostolate paper 1.00

cloth 1.25

leather 2,50

The Cistercian Life 50

Joseph Cassant, Trappist Priest paper .50

cloth .75

Yvo Poussin, Trappist Lay Brother

paper .65

cloth 1.00

Louise Tessier 1.00

Descriptive Booklet of Gethsemani Abbey .25

Cistercian Nuns 1.50

Order of Citeaux 1.75

Holy Abandonment, Dom Lehodey ... 4.00

Spiritual Directory (Cistercian) 2 vols.

each 1.75

Spirit of Simplicity .40

Lieutenant Michael Carlier, Monk 2.00



BOOKLETS (10 cents each)

REDUCTION FOR QUANTITIES

Are You?

Fiat and Remake Your World

Life is a Divine Romance

The God-Man’s Double

What’s Wrong?

Set the World on Fire

Doubling for the Mother of God

What Are You Doing to Jesus Christ?

Do You Want Life and Love?

Have You Met God?

For Your Own Defense

A Startling Thing for You

To Mothers Who Have Sons in the Service

Eventually: Why Not Now?

Apostolate of the Contemplatives

Master Magnet (St. Bernard)

24 Hours a Catholic

An Hour With Christ

Let’s Build a Home

Our Lady of Gethsemani

Trappist, Ky.





Printed in U. S. A.