Return to flip book view

COLLEGIUM SANCTORUM ANGELORUM Mission The Collegium educates and forms students, through the traditions of the Church, to renew all things in Christ. * * * * * How We Fulfill Our Mission Our mission is built on four pillars: the traditional Latin Mass and Divine Office, a traditional Catholic curriculum, a unique student work program, and a close-knit community. Traditional Latin Mass and Divine Office We embrace the liturgical traditions of the Church because they most fully express the goodness, truth, and beauty of the faith. Currently the traditional Latin Mass (TLM) is offered at nearby St. Mary’s Catholic Church, as is the novus ordo Missae, which our students are also welcome to attend. We also sing Lauds and Vespers in the traditional Benedictine manner each weekday. However, our program is more than just a series of courses, liturgies, and student jobs. Spiritual formation is integrated into the experience: - prayer (Lauds, Mass, Vespers, Angelus, grace before and after meals) is integrated into the daily routine; - meals are taken as a community; - work is required of every student, partially for its spiritual benefits and partially to help offset costs. In addition, confession, adoration, and spiritual direction are all available with our parish pastor or at the parish two blocks from campus, where there is also an adoration chapel. Our liturgical life underpins several qualities of Benedictine Spirituality that are infused into our program: - Liturgy (Office and Mass), - Obedience and Humility, - Personal Conversion, - Hospitality and Community, - Dignity of Work (ora et labora), - Simplicity of Life and Stewardship. Traditional Catholic Curriculum Our curriculum is unlike any other college curriculum. It is based on a centuries-old model of liberal education: an overarching study of the human experience, including humanity’s history, the physical world in which we live, and the natural laws of reality that bind us. The paradigm of Aristotelian Realism permeates and integrates the entirety of our curriculum. This reaches even into our math and science

Page 2 courses, uniting them to the study of philosophy and theology and leading the student to see how all our knowledge is united in the knowledge and love of God. We teach a curriculum that is as much a process as it is a list of courses. Students start with the processes of learning: grammar, logic, rhetoric. They apply these processes to the natural and physical sciences - those things that we can see, hear, and touch. Finally, they apply these processes to philosophy and theology - those things that we cannot see and touch but that are just as real. We embrace the traditional Catholic faith, the unchanging teachings and practices that have both shaped the faith of all the saints we venerate and shone as a beacon of light - the light of the Truth - to a world lost in darkness. We teach theology based on the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest theologian in the history of the Church. We teach mathematics as incorporated within our inquiry into creation as the science of quantifiable being. This roots mathematics in the real world and provides a sure foundation for its applications. We teach the natural sciences with the Aristotelian-Thomistic framework of inquiring into the causes and principles of the created world. In this way, science proceeds by mixing mathematics with our observations of the physical world, but without leaving behind its philosophical foundations. Unique Student Work Program Liberal arts students acquire a wide range of skills that are applicable to most fields of employment, for example, the abilities to think clearly and logically, to express oneself concisely, to problem solve, and the ability and desire to learn. At the same time, we help students gain work experience and various employment skills without having a myriad of “majors.” Every Collegium student participates in a work program, called Ora et labora, in which he gains experience and skills in different fields. We also enhance these skills in several ways: - we coach students to recognize these skills and to articulate them in resumes and job interviews; - we provide opportunities for students to get additional courses for fields that require them, such as science courses at the nearby community college to prepare for the MCATs; - we keep a publication of o positions and graduate programs for which no additional course work is necessary; o positions for which we can provide work experiences; o positions and graduate programs for which additional courses or training may be required and how students can attain these courses or training. Close-knit Community Collegium students live together, study together, work, eat, and play together. We are a small tight-knit community, in which students forge friendships that will last throughout their lives. Renewing All Things in Christ Collegium students are not “conformed to this world but transformed by the renewal of their minds,” (Rom. 12:2) hearts, and souls. They are equipped not just to “discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect,” (Rom. 12:2) but also to be ambassadors of the good, the acceptable, and the perfect in society. Formed then with a perspective on eternity but equipped to live in the here and now, Collegium students are truly in mundo sed non mundi and able to transform the culture into one in which Jesus Christ reigns as ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’ (Rev. 19:16) and Who will satisfy the deepest needs and longings of his people (see Isa. 40:9,10).