California
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January 30, 2023
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Students at 91黑料, California, celebrated their patron saint last Friday with prayer, scholarship, and joyous fellowship at the annual St. Thomas Day festivities.

The day began with a community Mass in Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel, offered by this year鈥檚 visiting lecturer, Rev. Stephen Brock, Ph.D., a noted scholar of St. Thomas at the University of Chicago. In his homily, Fr. Brock reflected on the importance of humility from a Thomistic perspective, commending, especially, St. Thomas himself, who embodied 鈥渆xcellence with humility, desiring only to serve God and souls.鈥

Mass
  • The procession enters the Chapel
  • The priest incenses the altar
  • The choir sings
  • Rev. Stephen Brock at the altar
  • The tutors in the congregation wearing their academic regalia
  • Rev. Stephen Brock delivers the homily
  • Sunbeams highlight the incense smoke; the priests are at the altar
  • The thurifer incenses the congregation
  • Three priests at the altar
  • Another view of the tutors in congregation
  • The Host is elevated
  • Fr. Brock gives out Communion
  • The altar servers recess

After a brief brunch, faculty and students convened in St. Cecilia Hall for Fr. Brock鈥檚 lecture, entitled, 鈥淔ree Choice: What It Is Not, and What It Is.鈥 The scholar led listeners through the arguments of modern atheists, Sam Harris in particular, opposing the notion of free choice, and built a Thomistic case for why free choice is not only real but beautiful. Fr. Brock and the College鈥檚 faculty and students then deepened their engagement with the subject in a lively Q&A session in the Dillon Seminar Room.

 

Rev. Stephen Brock delivers the St. Thomas Day lecture

 

That evening, all celebrated the feast with a formal dinner in St. Joseph Commons.

Dinner
  • Dinner
  • Dinner
  • Dinner
  • Dinner
  • Dinner
  • Dinner
  • Dinner
  • Dinner
  • Dinner
  • Dinner
  • Dinner
  • Dinner

The day culminated with a beloved campus tradition, Trivial and Quadrivial Pursuits. The student body divided into three themed teams and played a version of Trivial Pursuit built entirely around the College鈥檚 integrated curriculum. The teams, judged by a panel of tutors, competed to answer questions, often with a sophistical bent and a hearty dose of culinary bribes for their judges!

Trivial-Quadrivial Pursuit
  • Two students in costumes
  • A student in toga and laurel wreath with the mic
  • A team of students, mostly dressed as animals, behind a sheet of cardboard
  • A student in a tiger suit converses with a student in a fedora and black coat
  • One of the tutors chuckles as he looks on
  • Two tutors laugh at the spectacle
  • Students dressed as angels (?) escort a student dressed as St. Thomas Aquinas
  • Team Angels applauds
  • The tutors laugh and applaud
  • Dr. Ferrier reads a question from the question box
  • The tutors give their thumbs-up to a challenge
  • Another view of the same
  • The two refs look on
  • Three pose for a photo in costume
  • The tiger-costumed student throws an enormous die
  • Two sit in the middle on an enormous board, acting as completion markers
  • View of all the tutors as Dr. Cooper selects a question from the question box
  • Dr. Ferrier gives a thumbs-up
  • Students cheer
  • One team cheers wildly

This years鈥 themed teams were 鈥淐alvin & Hobbes,鈥 led by Isaiah Martinez (鈥23); the Divine Comedy, led by Esther Reuhle (鈥23); and Noah鈥檚 Ark, led by Michael Bishop, (鈥23). To begin the event, each team made a grand entrance, replete with fanfare and tomfoolery. First came a campy (yet respectful) flood narrative, followed by a heated debate between a boy and his tiger, and then an abbreviated play-by-play of Dante鈥檚 magnum opus 鈥 in which St. Thomas Aquinas himself, looking remarkably like Steven Kirk (鈥23), appeared to round out Dante鈥檚 journey to paradise.

The game then began in earnest, with sophistry expounded and bribes exchanged, but the ultimate victory went to Miss Reuhle鈥檚 Divine Comedians. The winning team dug into a delicious after-party, furnished with classy snacks, celebrating their victory in the Dumb Ox Caf茅 鈥 an apt location!

The day ended with good cheer and smiles all around. St Thomas Aquinas, pray for us!