prescient address to the Glenview Chapter of Theta Alpha in 1968 – which
was published in the Literary Number of the 1969 Academy Journal (another
lost treasure) and included in this book of his essays – he spoke about The
Academy College: The Choices Ahead.
In sharing “some thoughts and hopes and concerns that I have as Dean
of the College of the Academy for its future,” he said: “I think everyone in the
General Church needs to be concerned about the College because of what it
means to the General Church.” This was almost 50 years ago but his words
still speak to both our hopes and concerns for the College. Consider just this
excerpt:
“I do not believe that the Academy College is the best college in this
country, but I do believe it is the most important. As the most important, it
behooves us to make it the best that we can. It is very easy to see why it is not
the best. We have limitations of size, of viewpoints, we have problems of many
kinds; and yet I also believe truly that it is the most important – not just for
the Church – it’s obviously the most important for the Church because it’s the
only one. But I believe that it is the most important college in the country for
the world. If Harvard, or the University of Chicago, or any other college in
this country failed, there would be others to take its place. But if the Academy
College were to fail, there would be nothing in the foreseeable future to replace
it.”
(BMH)
let’s get real
The supreme, and really only, Reality is the Divine Human of the Lord. It
encompasses all that is, all that has any actual existence, spiritual and natural.
Everything in creation is more or less real and substantial depending upon the
degree to which it participates in Reality Itself.
Our own finite humanity is received from the Lord’s infinite Divine
Human. Our humanity at birth consists in the fact that we have a potential
which no other animal has for becoming more human throughout our lives.
And our lives extend to eternity; the process of becoming fully human is not
cut short in the case of those who die as infants, but continues in heaven.
The more we learn about the Lord from His Word, and are conjoined
with the Lord by a life according to His Word, the more truly human we can
become; and the more real we can become. This is what life is all about.
“We are because God is.” (Divine Providence 46)
(WEO)
311