The student years can be years of great foment, with intellectual and emotional formation (or in many cases deformation).  In this context, it is good for students, as we gear up for the academic year ahead, to reflect on the future direction of our lives, as well as how to live it now.  We hope that the collection of articles that we have put together for you will assist you in undertaking these tasks.

New Springtime publishes the graduation speech of Olivia Meese delivered at the College’s first graduation.  In it, we learn of the immense fortune of the Campion students, as well as the Church in Australia.  Here is an educational tradition that is worth preserving, a tradition that immerses the student in the West’s cultural history. 

Dr. Stephen McInerney, of Campion College, describes the joys and benefits of reciting poetry.  This is a lost practice, an art which, like the repetition of prayer that embeds the petition within our hearts, enables the beauty of language and its form seep into our souls.

Daniel Hill, PhD student at Sydney University, describes in a wonderfully combative piece the decline of art into the postmodern mess that we find it today.  Although the decline of the visual arts and architecture, particularly within the Church, is enough to make us rend our garments, Daniel reminds us that we can hope for the recapturing of beauty in our cultural forms.

Some of the editors have also jotted down some thoughts on what they are currently reading.  A perusal of that piece will demonstrate the varied interests of the NS editors, as well as providing a brief but informative insight into some great literature.  Authors ranging from Boethius to Thomas Merton are mentioned.

Of course, it is difficult in our workaday world to achieve that inner stillness from which true contemplation of the finer things in life.  David Collits reviews Josef Pieper’s Leisure the Basis of Culture in which the decline of the art of contemplation is documented.  Happily, Pieper provides us with clues as to how to emerge from this mire.

All of this, however, would be of little value to Catholics if those Catholics were not listening to the life to which God is calling them.  Discernment can be difficult.  Very rarely will we be struck by lightning with our vocation.  For this reason, Br. Paul Rowse’s heartfelt discussion of his path to the Dominicans is of great value, as well as interest.

Catholic students ought to have a keen desire to recapture the glorious cultural forms of the Catholic past without desiring to recreate entirely the past.  However, as part of the Church’s new springtime, young Catholic students are charged with renewing our culture, so that perhaps our children can be saved from the darkness surrounding us.