July 1985 Print

The 1985 Commencement Address to the
Seniors of Saint Mary's Academy by
Father Hervé de la Tour,
Rector of Saint Mary's College

Dear Seniors,

A long time ago, before the earth was created, before any of us existed—thousands of years ago—there was a tremendous battle in heaven. It was a battle the likes of which no one has ever seen before and no one will ever see again. It was a battle more terrible than any fictional "Star Wars"—more terrible because it was something real. It was a tremendous battle because those who fought in it fought for eternal life or eternal death. It was a battle between the angels.

Now God created the angels as pure spirits, all good and beautiful. He gave them their nature and elevated them to the state of grace, that is, He bestowed upon them sanctifying grace. But, before admitting them to the glory of the Beatific Vision, God wanted them to merit this reward by having them make an act of submission to Him. So God tested them, and then He waited.

Suddenly, there was a cry. It was the first cry of the battle. And it was the cry of Lucifer, a cry of pride. The heavens resounded with the bold defiance of the angel: "I will not serve Thee." Lucifer was the most excellent, the most bright and the greatest of all the angels, for God had given to him immense qualities. But Lucifer refused to acknowledge that he was a creature, that he owed his perfection to God, the source of all goodness. He turned his back to God and refused to adore Him, to recognize God's transcendence, to realize that he was only a creature receiving existence, life, grace, and happiness from the Creator.

As soon as Lucifer made this great cry, there was a tense and evil silence. Then, one by one, other angels began to follow Lucifer and to commit after him the horrible sin of pride. The number of rebel angels grew greater and greater.

Then, a second cry shook the heavens, a cry even louder and more powerful than the first. It startled the rebel angels, for it was a cry filled with the holiness of God: "Who is like unto God?" "Mi-ka-el," an angel, brave and strong, stood out and boldly faced Lucifer, ready to take up the standard and defend the rights of God.

We can imagine the two angels facing each other and the battle between those two very powerful minds. Michael went to the throne of God, threw himself at the feet of the Most High, and made an act of profound adoration and humble submission to his Divine Master. He shouted again to all the remaining angels: "Who is like unto God?" This cry meant, "Only God has the privilege to be the source of all being, goodness and beauty. No one else can boast this privilege of self-sufficiency except God. God is God." Michael knew that everything he had, he received from God. So Michael proclaimed that he was totally dependent upon God.

The fearlessness and fortitude of Michael aroused the courage of other angels who rallied to his standard and together they repeated the profound cry of humility: "Who is like unto God?" Michael won the victory; Lucifer was defeated. So God brought the battle to an end. To the rebel angels, God gave them hell forever; to the faithful angels, God rewarded them with the Beatific Vision. The battle was won with Michael and his angels stating firmly and openly that they depended upon God for all things.

Dear seniors, you have chosen St. Michael as your patron for your graduating class of 1985. The great St. Michael was chosen as your guide and inspiration, for he is the champion of the rights of God, the captain of the good angels, and the one who defended the honor of the Most High.

Today, more than ever, we need to invoke St. Michael. We need to be humble and obedient. We need to proclaim, as he did, our submission to God. To fully realize this, we need to look back into time, into history, and to examine just what it is which has guided Catholics, not only Catholics, but all men with common sense, in their quest towards virtue, towards the right, toward heaven. In all cases, we will see that this inspiration comes from the acknowledgment of our dependence upon God.

Both reason and faith teach us that we are nothing without God. We receive everything from Him, both our existence and our activity, in both the natural and the supernatural order. We have been created from nothing. We cannot acquire the slightest merit for heaven without the grace from Our Lord. We cannot perform the smallest act of virtue without the Divine assistance. Yes, we are really totally dependent upon God.

It is just this acknowledgement of our dependence which was the soul of Christian civilization. All nations, families, all individuals—bishops and kings, carpenters and bakers—everyone recognized that they were subject to God. Of course, even though this principle was clearly proclaimed, sin was still present, because of human weakness. But this spirit of dependence was still adopted, as a principle, by everyone. Our Lord was King, publicly and officially. This is what explains the perfect order, wisdom and peace of the Middle Ages. This order is expressed in the beauty of a Gothic cathedral, in the wisdom found in the Summa of St. Thomas, and in the peace found in the administration of St. Louis' kingdom. When men are in order by their submission to God, everything else is in order, and reflects that order.

Yes, this total dependence, this absolute dependence on God is the great reality of our state as creatures made by God. I think it is this which will strike us, after our death, when we will realize completely our dependence and exclaim: "I did not really know how much I was receiving from God, how much God was my salvation, my redemption." We will regret not having spent our lives in the truth, not having made enough effort to achieve humility.

And today, alas, what do we see? Modern man extols himself and proclaims his independence from God. Modern man refuses to acknowledge the laws that God gave to him. The laws of marriage are broken by divorce, by birth control, law of respect for life broken by abortion. Children no longer obey their parents. The laws of politics are broken by revolutions; and even natural laws, like the laws of the earth, of farming, are upset by modern man. Modern man destroys everything—everything which reminds him of his dependence on God!

I recently read an article claiming that modern man supposedly has invented a way to cultivate vegetables without soil, without sun, and without rain. Seeds are placed in a plastic container with water, and by using special light rays, vegetables come forth. These vegetables taste awful, but modern man is delighted in being able to succeed in doing something without the help of God. They still need the seeds, of course, but they delight in the terrible illusion that they are independent from authority, from law, from reality, and from God.

At St. Mary's, we want to restore this spirit of dependence by keeping ourselves away from the false errors of freedom, the false rights of man, and of false subjectivism. We want to be convinced of our nothingness as creatures. We want to acknowledge that of ourselves, we are weak, poor and miserable. By doing this, we proclaim God's strength, richness and kindness. We render homage to God's divine plenitude. We even rejoice in our nothingness, and we say: "O my God, if we were something, then you would not be everything. I am happy that you are the Most High." We want to shout to the prideful modern world, as did St. Michael: "Who is like unto God?"

"How wrong are you to build your lives as if God did not exist; as if He was not your ultimate goal!"

At St. Mary's, we want to express this humble dependence on God in all the details of our life. A few weeks ago, we had the procession of rogations. We said this beautiful prayer:

O Almighty God, we ask Thee in Thy Fatherly Love to pour down the rain of Thy blessing on these growing things created by Thee, which Thou hast been pleased to nurture by due measure of wind and rain. Bring to maturity the fruits of Thy earth, and grant that Thy people may always give thanks to Thee for Thy gifts, so that from the fertility of the earth Thou mayest fill the souls of the hungry with all good things in abundance, so that the poor and needy may give praise to Thy Name.

When we had our procession of the Blessed Sacrament in town for the Feast of Christ the King, we went into the streets and sung our hymn: Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat. And the people came out of their dwellings and adored Our Lord, proclaiming Him the King of their hearts, the King of society.

Dear seniors, you are going to leave St. Mary's, your school, and enter the world, a world full of modern men who want to ignore God. You will meet modern men puffed up with pride, making themselves the center of their lives. While in the military, I met a man who was an atheist. I asked him why he did not believe in God. He replied that he did not want to believe that there was Someone who was above himself. As students at St. Mary's, you know that you came from God—you have been created by Him. You go to Him; you have been made for Him. You are therefore to become saints, to joyfully acknowledge your dependence and say: "My God and my all! I want to live for Your glory."

So, bravely face the modern world and the crowds who choose sensual pleasures, ambition, worldly success, and money; the crowds who cry along with Satan, "I will not serve Thee." Stand up and join St. Michael in his cry which resounded throughout the heavens and say with him: "Who is like unto God?" Yes, you must be the champions of the greatness of God. Proclaim throughout your life that He is your Creator, your Master and your King. Show by your thoughts, words, and actions that you want to glorify Him. If you do this, then He will be your reward in heaven forever.

Take courage; you will win the battle! Our Lady is on your side. May she protect you.