The After Dinner Scholar

The first After-Dinner Scholar podcast on February 1, 2017 began: The 16th century English philosopher, statesman and scientist Francis Bacon famously stated, “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is,” he went on to explain, “some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”  Much to my surprise, that first podcast was seven and a half years, 390 episodes, and more than 205,000 downloads ago. And as of this episode, I'm hanging up my headphones and (for the most part) my mortarboard. Links: The Eucharist Podcast with Wyoming Catholic College Mars Hill Audio Journal Dr. Jim Tonkowich at The Stream  

Last week Dr. Tiffany Schubert discussed Inferno, the first book of Dante's Comedy. Our friend and former colleague Jason Baxter remarked that in Inferno, “Dante's poetic violence is meant to melt down the hard heart so that it can be reforged into something new.” Purgatorio is the place where that melted down and malleable heart finds the forge, the place where the hammer of suffering purges all impurities and fashions our hard hearts into hearts perfected. And finally Paradiso shows us the path of choosing the good, true, and beautiful habitually as we gaze on the Face of God eternally “lost,” as the hymnwriter put it, “in wonder, love, and praise.”

Midway in the journey of our life I came to myself in a dark wood, for the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard it is to tell the nature of that wood, savage, dense and harsh— the very thought of it renews my fear! It is so bitter death is hardly more so. (Inferno 1.1-7) During Lent and now during Easter, our sophomores, under the guidance of Dr. Tiffany Schubert, have been reading Dante's Divine Comedy in their humanities class. And while that reading is academic, no one can avoid Dante's emphasis throughout the poem on our spiritual lives.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote, "At Easter we rejoice because Christ did not remain in the tomb, his body did not see corruption; he belongs to the world of the living, not to the world of the dead; we rejoice because he is the Alpha and also the Omega, as we proclaim in the rite of the Paschal Candle; he lives not only yesterday, but today and for eternity." Theologian Dr. Jeremy Holmes shares his insights about the risen Christ as we celebrate the Octave of Easter.

Saint Ephrem the Syrian said, “We give glory to you, Lord, who raised up your cross to span the jaws of death like a bridge by which souls might pass from the region of the dead to the land of the living.” The cross is the bridge from death to life, from Hell to Heaven, from the judgment we deserve to the grace we can never deserve, from eternal captivity to the self to eternal freedom in God. With that in mind, during this Holy Week, it seemed appropriate to rebroadcast a conversation with theologian Dr. Kent Lasnoski about the four last things.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (159) declares Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth. During their final spring semester in their science course, Wyoming Catholic College seniors consider the theory of evolution. Their professor, Dr. Daniel Shields guides them towards, as the college catalog puts it, “the ultimate goal of achieving a coherent synthesis of faith and reason.”

Observing the French Revolution, British Member of Parliament, Edmund Burke, noted, “But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.” Over the past few weeks, our Wyoming Catholic College juniors have been considering the French Revolution with their professor Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos.

It's been a strange winter here in Lander, Wyoming beginning with nearly two feet of snow on Thanksgiving—of which about fourteen inches fell between four and eight PM. Another foot or so just before Christmas and nothing but dribs and drabs after that. And now—a bit early—what's left of that snow is melting in warm, early spring weather. Not that we don't think about getting outside and enjoying nature even in the depths of January, but as the days warm, fishing, gardening, hiking, and all the joys of the warm seasons become topics of conversation. Nature. Nature is a fundamental part of a Wyoming Catholic College education because—well, nature is fundamental. Dr. Stanley Grove shares about the place of nature in the college's curriculum and in our lives.

The new Apple Vision Pro headset, we're told, “delivers fun and rewarding gameplay for players of all skill levels. Players can dive into games on the App Store that transform the space around them, use an Environment for a more immersive experience, or play compatible games on a screen as large as they want.” What do we make of video games whether on phones, computers, TVs, or inside the Vision Pro? Are they sinful or perhaps as one pastor-theologian remarked, not sinful, but definitely dumb? Or… Wyoming Catholic College senior, Greg Bowman, entitled his senior oration, “Are Video Games Fine Art?”

January 31 to February 2 the Wyoming Catholic College community enjoyed days packed with senior orations. Each senior, having written a thesis in the fall, presents his or her findings in a 30-minute lecture followed by questions from a faculty panel and the audience. It is a wonderful celebration of all our students accomplish in their years at Wyoming Catholic and it's always a privilege to have students as guests on the podcast. Moira Milligan's oration was entitled “No Pain, No Gain: The Radical Nature of Sacrificial Love.” And she began with how she chose her topic.

This podcasts is "about the Great Books and the liberal arts," something that sets The After-Dinner Scholar apart from other audio blogs from Wyoming Catholic Collage. Case in point, the college has launched a new podcast entitled “The Eucharist with Wyoming Catholic College” inspired by conversations about the National Eucharistic Revival. The podcast features Wyoming Catholic College President Kyle Washut and, our guest, theology professor and academic dean, Dr. Jeremy Holmes.

The number of integers (1, 2, 3, 4, and so on) is infinite. And oddly enough so is the number of even integers (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and beyond). Meaning that the number of even integers is equal to the number of all integers, both odd and even. Welcome to infinity. While it's still winter, it's not too early to think about Wyoming Catholic College's summer PEAK program for high school juniors and seniors. In it we give them a taste of life at the college including backpacking, horseback riding, Catholic worship and devotion, and classes complete with homework and tests. Not only do high school students enjoy the two weeks of PEAK, but they walk away with a pretty good idea of what it would be like to come to college here at Wyoming Catholic. Many decide that it would be wonderful and join us as freshmen. Mathematician Dr. Scott Olsson has taught a course at PEAK on infinity. And I asked Dr. Olsson to give us a finite preview of infinity. To learn more about PEAK 2024 click here.

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures,” remarks Anne Eliot in Jane Austen's Persuasion. “None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.” It is always a great pleasure on the After-Dinner Scholar to introduce you to books written by our faculty and Dr. Tiffany Schubert's book, Jane Austen's Romantic Medievalism: Courtly Love and Happy Endings, has just been released.

While you and I sit by a delightful fire—or at least (assuming you live in a cool climate)—delightful central heating, our Wyoming Catholic College freshmen are spending a few nights in their Quinzees: giant mounds of snow, hollowed out to form shelters. That seems an odd way to prepare for a rigorous second semester of Latin, theology, philosophy, humanities, math, and science. Yet we consider snow camping a vital part of a Wyoming Catholic College education. Karl Eby, Wyoming Catholic College class of 2013 is the Assistant Director of our Outdoor Leadership Program sheds a little light on the Freshman Winter Trip.

“Social connection,” wrote U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy in  his May 2023 “Advisory on our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” “is a fundamental human need, as essential to survival as food, water, and shelter. Throughout history, our ability to rely on one another has been crucial to survival.” That may come as news to many modern Americans, but back in the fourth century BC Aristotle would have told you the same things. Friendship, he wrote in his Nichomachean Ethics, “is not only a necessary thing but a splendid one. We praise those who love their friends, and the possession of many friends is held to be one of the fine things of life.” Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos recently taught The Nichomachean Ethics with our Wyoming Catholic College juniors and looking at, among other things, friendship.

This podcast was posted on December 26, the day after Christmas. It was the commemoration of St. Stephen's martyrdom described in Acts chapter 7. On the 27th, we remember St. John, the only apostle who was not martyred. The 28th is the memorial of the Holy Innocents who were murdered by King Herod in his attempt to kill Jesus. And finally on Friday, we remember the martyrdom of St. Thomas a Becket. Why do we do that during Christmas week? Wyoming Catholic College President Kyle Washut clarifies it for us.

During the first weeks of Advent, the Church directs our attention to the second advent of Christ, that day when he will come again in glory to gather his people into his resurrection, remake this tired, sinful world, and set all wrongs right. When he “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain" (Revelation 21:4). In this last week, we focus on his first coming as the babe of Bethlehem, his coming into our world of tears, death, morning, and crying. Theologian Dr. Jeremy Holmes in his personal spiritual life, in his scholarship, in the classroom, and in his book Cur Deus Verba: Why the Word Became Word has spend a great deal of time considering the mystery of the Incarnation, of God become flesh. Morten Lawridsen's "O magnum mysterium," which Dr. Holmes mentioned, can be found here.

The music coming over the air—for those who still listen to the radio—and in various Christmas mixes from Pandora, Apple Music, Spotify, and so on tends to be a wild and wooly mix including everything from “O Holy Night” to “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” It's a mishmash of worship, good theology, horrible theology, family, home, childhood, greed, and, of course, romance. As we try to sort it all out, here are some thoughts from Wyoming Catholic College's choir director and composer-in-residence, Paul Jernberg.

Virgil's Aeneid tells us about the founding of Rome and begins with the destruction of Troy at the end of the Trojan War, the war recounted in The Iliad. As the Greeks burn and sack Troy, Aeneas escapes with his father, his son, his household gods, and a small band of fellow refugees to found a new Troy—greater, more powerful, and more magnificent than the old Troy—in Italy. Dr. Tiffany Schubert has been teaching The Aeneid to our Wyoming Catholic College sophomores.

Last Sunday was the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe which was instituted by Pope Pius XI with his 1925 encyclical Quas Primas (In the First) as a response to “those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society, in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin.”  Rather than sounding nearly 100 years old, Pius' words sound as though they were written yesterday. Theologian Dr. Kent Lasnoski discusses why we need to pay a bit more attention to this last Sunday in the Church year as we prepare for Advent.

The great Roman statesman and orator, Marcus Tulius Cicero said:  In truth… while I wish to be adorned with every virtue, yet there is nothing which I can esteem more highly than being and appearing grateful. For this one virtue is not only the greatest, but is also the parent of all the other virtues. The ancients understood—as most moderns don't—that virtuous living makes us happy. Thus, Cicero argued, gratitude, thanksgiving is the gateway to happiness. With the celebration of Thanksgiving Day approaching, Wyoming Catholic College President Kyle Washut had this to say about the virtue of thanksgiving.

In Herman Melville's Moby Dick, we meet Captain Ahab for the first time long after the Pequod has left Nantucket. “There was,” says Melville's Ishmael, “an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did his officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe." Dr. Virginia Arbery has taught Moby Dick for years is, once again, reading it with our Wyoming Catholic College seniors many of whom are introduced to the book and Captain Ahab for the first time.

The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The thronèd monarch better than his crown. Those are the words of Portia, heroine of William Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice as she defends her husband's friend Antonio from the Jewish moneylender Shylock who, Antonio having defaulted on a debt, demands a literal pound of Antonio's flesh. Dr. Adam Cooper has been reading The Merchant of Venice with our Wyoming Catholic College juniors.

Once every semester at Wyoming Catholic College, we hold an All-School Seminar. For the fall seminar, a week ago, all of our students and faculty read and discussed Pieper's Leisure: The Basis of Culture.  Pieper wrote in 1947 in what was a devastated Germany. Everything was damaged or destroyed and workers were a vital necessity at all levels of the culture. It was a world of what he calls "total work," a world he believed would lose its soul without leisure properly understood. Philosopher Dr. Michael Bolin attended one of student-led seminars and had this to share.  

We're regularly told that the only kind of knowing of which we can be certain is "scientific" knowing. What does that mean? How does it apply to the world and our everyday lives. Mathematician Dr. Scott Olsson has thought and taught a great deal about the questions surrounding science and what it can--and can't--tell us about the world around us. Here are some ideas he brings to his Wyoming Catholic College students.

The theology curricular track at Wyoming Catholic College begins with "Salvation History in the Old Testament." The course is, for the most part, reading the narrative portions of the Old Testament from Genesis to Maccabees.  Dr. Jim Tonkowich has been teaching this freshman course this semester and shares some of the course's content and his own experience encountering the Old Testament with our students.

“Reading,” said Sir Francis Bacon, “maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.” Student academic life at Wyoming Catholic College mirrors Bacon's comment. Our students read the Great and Good books of our civilization and come to class prepared for what Bacon called “conference.” We would say conversation. And while writing is part of most courses, freshmen take "Trivium 101—Writing Truthfully." This week's guest, Dr. Tiffany Schubert, finds teaching Trivium 101 a great pleasure.

The Iliad, first of Homer's great epics, tells the tale of the war between Greece and Troy as it unfolded on the plains outside that ancient city. And the focus of the tale is Achilleus, the greatest warrior on either side who, for most of the book, sits on the sidelines. Dr. Glenn Arbery is both a scholar and teacher of The Iliad who, once again, is reading the epic with our Wyoming Catholic freshmen.

To graduate from Wyoming Catholic College, students need to spend at least ten weeks in the wilderness. That includes their three-week freshman expedition, a one-week freshman winter trip just after Christmas and six additional weeks over the next three years. This week is Fall Outdoor Week at the college. Students are rafting, rock climbing, backpacking and fishing, and canyoneering. Last week I spoke with a senior who told me she was going on a trip she had wanted to do since she heard about it freshman year: rafting the Green River through the treacherous Lodore Canyon in northwest Colorado. And I recalled a podcast I recorded a few years ago with Paul Milligan who had just returned from guiding a trip through that canyon. Here's what Paul had to say.

“Every art and every investigation, and similarly every action and pursuit,” wrote Aristotle at the beginning of his book on ethics, “is considered to aim at some good. Hence the good has rightly been defined as ‘that at which all things aim'.” We all, Aristotle contends, aim at what we believe is the good. But how do we know what is truly good? And how is it possible as he tells us, that the way to aim at the good has to do with politics? Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos is reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics with our Wyoming Catholic College juniors. Here's what he had to say about the good.

Wyoming Catholic College has a new president, Kyle Washut. It seems fully appropriate that Prof. Washut, a native of Wyoming who has been part of the Wyoming Catholic College project since before the beginning of the college, should now take the helm. In this podcast, President Washut tells us about the earliest days at the college as well as his hopes and plans for its future.

The college year at Wyoming Catholic College ends with the formality and pomp of graduation as we award degrees and bid another class farewell. The year begins with another, largely-forgotten ceremony equally formal, meaningful, and full of academic pomp: Matriculation in which each new freshmen adds his or her signature to the matricula, the large, leather-bound book that contains the names and signatures of every Wyoming Catholic College student since the school's inception. This year's ceremony, in addition to welcoming new students, President Glenn Arbery welcomed his successor, newly-appointed President Kyle Washut. Here are President Washut's remarks to the class of 2027.

Nathaniel Hawthorne begins his 1843 short story “The Birthmark,” “In the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one.” That is, he married a beautiful woman. The scientist—actually more of an alchemist—gazed at his beautiful wife one day after they were married and remarked, “‘Georgiana has it never occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might be removed?'” She was beautiful, but not perfect and her birthmark became his and then her obsession. Surely science and technology could make Georgiana perfect. Dr. Virginia Arbery spoke to the Wyoming School of Catholic Thought about “The Birthmark” as we considered “The Ancient and Modern Challenges of Technology.” Afterwards we had this conversation.

“A number of people, by now,” wrote Wendell Berry, “have told me that I could greatly improve things by buying a computer. My answer is that I am not going to do it.” As the Wyoming School of Catholic Thought considered the topic “The Ancient and Modern Challenges of Technology” this past June, we thought we end not only Martin Heidegger, but with agrarian author Wendell Berry, reading two essays: “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer” along with letters to the editor and Berry's responses and “The Use of Energy” where he, like Heidegger, worries that modern technology turns all things including humans and all human things into “standing reserve.” Dr. Daniel Shields gave the Wyoming School these introductory remarks.

If you ask any philosophy student which philosopher is the most challenging to understand and read, chances are she'll say, “Martin Heidegger.” Despite the difficulties inherent in reading Heidegger, as this year's Wyoming School of Catholic Thought considered issues surrounding technology, we read his 1953 essay “The Question Concerning Technology.” Heidegger, who lived from 1889 to 1976, witnessed a great deal of technological change, much of it extremely harmful. What did it all mean? Dr. Glenn Arbery guided the participants in the Wyoming School in a give-and-take conversation about Heidegger's essay with these words.

As Robert Walton and his ship attempted to find a route to the North Pole, they discovered on a small ice flow a dog sled with an exhausted passenger, a man named Viktor Frankenstein. Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein or, the Modern Prometheus tells a cautionary story about technology. Using all the scientific learning and technology he could muster, Viktor Frankenstein literally and figuratively creates a monster—a monster he fears and who pursues him to the death. Dr. Tiffany Schubert gave this introduction to Shelley's novel to the Wyoming School of Catholic Thought as we considered The Ancient and Modern Challenges of Technology.

In addition to being an Anglican priest, Jonathan Swift had a special gift for satire. "Satire," he wrote “is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.” Writing amid the scientific and technological advancements of the early 1700s, Swift was less than convinced that the progress was actually progress and in Gulliver's Travels he included a voyage to the flying island of Laputa where science and technology come under his satirical gaze. Dr. Tiffany Schubert gave this introduction to Gulliver's adventures on Laputa.

Francis Bacon famously noted that, “Knowledge is power.” And the knowledge of science that then leads to the knowledge of technology brings enormous power. In his book The New Atlantis, published in 1627, the year after his death, Francis Bacon imagines being lost in the Pacific Ocean and landing in an unknown country, one filled with scientific and technological marvels. Dr. Paul Giesting led the participants in the 2023 Wyoming School of Catholic Though into a discussion of Bacon's work with this introduction. The text to The New Atlantis can be found here.

…[W]hatever is in motion must be put in motion by another,” wrote St. Thomas Aquinas at the beginning of his Summa Theologiae, “If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.” This proof of God's existence is the first of five that Thomas presents at the beginning of the Summa. And while that seems simple and convincing to most of us, many scholars are certain that the proof is not at all convincing insofar as it relies on Medieval physics and cosmology.  In his new book, Nature and Nature's God: The Scientific and Philosophical Validity of Aquinas' Proof of an Unmoved Mover Wyoming Catholic College philosopher Dr. Daniel Shields argues that those scholars should take another look at Thomas' argument.

In the early 1990s—a mere thirty years ago— America Online was launched into cyberspace and the Hubble Telescope was launched into outer space. These have changed our lives. And it's an odd parallel to two technological advancements from the Middle Ages—one from 1436 and another from 1608. In 1436, German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented a printing press with movable type. In 1608, an unknown person invented the telescope, an idea that spread as a result of printing and was quickly picked up by Galileo who built his own, studied the heavens, and had his revolutionary findings printed by printing press. At the Wyoming School of Catholic Though this past June, adult learner listened to this introduction to Early Modern science by Dr. Paul Giesting. Readings: C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image, Chapter 1 Johannes Trithemius, De laude scriptorum, extracts Francis Bacon, Novum organum, Aphorism 129 of Book I Galileo Galilei, Sidereus nuncius, abridged Johannes Kepler, Dioptrics extract from the preface Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, pages 206-212

Genesis 1 tells us, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” As the college's 2023 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought considered “The Ancient and Modern Challenges of Technology,” the Scriptures proved a vital guide to invention and evaluation. At the school, Dr. Tonkowich gave this introduction to seminar discussions of Genesis 1-11 and Exodus 25-40.

Now have we journeyed to a spot of earth Remote-the Scythian wild, a waste untrod. And now, Hephaestus, thou must execute The task our father laid on thee, and fetter This malefactor to the jagged rocks In adamantine bonds infrangible; For thine own blossom of all forging fire He stole and gave to mortals; trespass grave For which the Gods have called him to account, That he may learn to bear Zeus' tyranny And cease to play the lover of mankind. Those words set the scene at the beginning of Aeschylus' play “Prometheus Bound.” It's the god Prometheus who stole fire from Hephaestus and gave it along with the technology to use fire to mortals, a race Zeus, newly crowned as chief god, intended to destroy. Dr. Virginia Arbery gave the 2023 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought this introduction to our seminar conversations about “Prometheus Bound.” You can find the text of the play here.

In the Phaedrus, Plato wrote about writing that, “it will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories, they will trust to external written characters and not remember of themselves.” It seems almost beyond believing that as we worry about technologies such as artificial intelligence and smart phones, Plato considered and rejected the new technology of writing things down on paper. It's evidence that for millennia, we humans have been inventing new things and debating about whether or not they are or are not useful—or even safe. At the 2023 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought, the college's adult week, Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos gave us this introduction to our readings from Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch. Readings: 1. Sophocles, Antigone 334–375 2. Plato, Phaedrus 274c–275e 3. Plato, Laws 796e–800b 4. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.2 5. Aristotle, Politics 1.4, 2.8, 7.11 6. Plutarch, Marcellus ¶¶14–19

Hephaestus was the Greek god of technology. Unlike Zeus, Apollo, Athena, and the others who were unspeakably beautiful and strong, Hephaistos talks in Homer's Iliad about “my own brazen-faced mother, who wanted to hid me, for being lame.” Wyoming Catholic College recently held our adult learning week, The Wyoming School of Catholic Thought. Our topic was “The Ancient and Modern Challenges of Technology.” Dr. Glenn Arbery, the college president, opened up the week with these words about Hephaestus and techne from chapter 18 of The Iliad. The book can be found here.

Like all graduating seniors, Wyoming Catholic College seniors look forward to baccalaureate robes, degrees, and moving their mortarboards tassels from, right to left. But much more than the typical academic regalia, our seniors look forward to being awarded that most coveted graduation emblem, a black Wyoming Catholic College Stetson. Those cowboy hats are the symbol of their four years of exercising mind, body, and spirit in a Wyoming Catholic College education. College dean, Mr. Kyle Washut explains how the tradition began. 

The 2023 Wyoming Catholic College graduation speaker and recipient of the college Sedes Sapientiae award was Most Reverend Samuel J. Aquila, the archbishop for the Archdiocese of Denver. His words were realistic about the challenges we face as a culture and as a Church, but there were nonetheless words filled with hope. After the graduation ceremony, I expressed my gratitude to him saying, “Thank you. I needed that.” And I suspect we all need what he had to say. Here are Archbishop Aquila's words to the Class of 2023 and the rest of us.

Each year the Wyoming Catholic College senior class chooses one of its members to deliver a speech at graduation. The Class of 2023 chose Miss Emma Hermanson. Before coming to Wyoming Catholic College, Emma Hermanson spent her high school years at a classical school in Colorado. At Wyoming Catholic, her favorite part of the curriculum was the humanities track, feeding her abiding love of literature. After graduation, Emma will be getting married and beginning her work as a high school literature and writing teacher in the fall. Here is what Emma had to say at graduation. For information on The 2023 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought click here.

This past Saturday, May 13 began what we've come to call our graduation triduum, three days of celebrating the achievements of ther Wyoming Catholic College Class of 2023. Graduation weekend begins with the senior dinner on Saturday evening—seniors, faculty, and staff only. Monday was Commencement. And Sunday, after Baccalaureate Mass we held The President's Dinner at which college president, Dr. Glenn Arbery, addressed seniors their parents, families, and friends along with the faculty and staff. Here's what Dr. Arbery had to say.

BENEDICK                                But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. BEATRICE A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. BENEDICK God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face. William Shakespeare's “Much Ado About Nothing” has it all: heroes, villains, loyalty and betrayal, hatred and love, serious crime and silly sidelights. At one point it veers dangerously close to utter tragedy only to come right again with true love conquering even the coldest hearts. I asked Dr. Tiffany Schubert to begin giving us an overview of the play.

There was a time not too long ago when every church had a church choir. Ordinary people knew how to sing parts and often tackled difficult pieces of music with wonderful results. At Wyoming Catholic College, the choir loft in our oratory and, during special masses such as our upcoming graduation mass, the choir loft at Holy Rosary Church here in Lander are crowded places. Our students love to sing. And this spring semester they have the added inspiration of a new choir director, our Composer in Residence, Paul Jernberg. Mr. Jernberg is also the founder and director of the Magnificat Institute of Sacred Music.

“We know,” St. Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, “that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” Those words from St. Paul can and should comfort us. Nothing happens in our lives or our world that God does not intend to bring about good for His children. His providential care surrounds us. On the other hand, terrible things happen in our lives and in the world around us. Does God will evil? Allow evil? Maybe evil is not what we think it is? Dr. Michael Bolin has been reading St. Thomas Aquinas' Compendium Theologiae with our Wyoming Catholic College sophomores considering, among other things, that “all things are governed by divine providence.”