The cocoon on the mountain
Jack Daly
Class of 2025
(12/2021) At the beginning of the school year, our Vice President Dr. Bernard Franklin asked the student body gathered at the convocation to consider the university to be our cocoon. During their college careers, it is hoped that every student will undergo a metamorphosis, in which they will shake off the last vestiges of adolescence and emerge as a responsible citizen ready for their role in the world. Mount St. Mary’s is just that, a cocoon hidden in the forested hills of Maryland. A university found in any other setting would invite the dangers of the broader society to adulterate its ability to accomplish its mission: to form good men and women.
The campus has long been watched over by the great, golden statue of Our Lady. Her two arms were outstretched, gesturing down the mountainside to the activity taking place below her. It seemed as if all of the buildings of the school had sprouted from the wake of the grace she broadcast with her hands, like the roses that fell from St. Juan Diego’s tilma. While her image is currently down for repairs, we, her children, know that we are never truly without our Holy Mother, and we await the return of her delightful likeness.
Just beside that wonderful monument is, of course, the renowned Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, and it is truly a treasure. It is full of many beautiful pictures and statues of Our Lord, Our Lady, and the saints; works of art made with such exquisite skill and style, that it would take pages to adequately reflect their beauty and ability to move. The site is always busy with pilgrims, many from foreign homes. Where my words fail, let their pious hearts stand as a testament to the location’s magnetic spiritual quality. It is truly a privilege that so many young people are allowed the chance to spend their college years close to such a beautiful place.
While the campus itself is full of visual reminders honoring salvation history, not an hour away students can find some of the most impressive reminders of human history. Anyone with proficient knowledge of the nation’s history is assuredly aware of the Battle of Gettysburg, but few get to see for themselves the amazing monuments of the destruction and bloodshed that the country was witness to just over one and a half centuries ago. The battlefield is, and shall remain, one of the favorite spots for students to visit. It is a place for us to remember the sacrifices of our forefathers, which allow us to live in the country we do today.
In addition to the battlefield, the town of Gettysburg is also noteworthy. Visitors to the area can see many of the buildings that have been preserved from the time of the Civil War, a great contrast to the newer kind of town that we call home to today.
In the opposite direction, the city of Frederick can be found South of the University. Like Gettysburg, Frederick continues to be blessed with many old and awe-inspiring buildings. These houses were built mainly from brick and lend a wonderful nineteenth century charm to the town. This is not to say that Frederick is stuck in the past; any one with the chance to see the place for themselves will find a vibrant and modern community, but one that has not forgotten the origins of its identity.
While these larger towns are perfectly good spots for students to drop by on occasion, the real honor is our school’s location within Emmitsburg. Since many students after graduation are likely to find themselves living in one of the nation's cramped, busy, and noisy cities, they will surely look back fondly upon their days in quiet Emmitsburg. The town is a snapshot of rural, small-town America, the memory of which will likely gain a Romantic, pastoral appeal when we look fondly back on our time here.
One cannot stress enough the beauty of the countryside within this region. During early fall, in the evenings, when half the sun is obscured by the hills, the green fields that we can see just across the way are tinted gold by the light of the dusk, so that the whole area looks like a landscape painting.
Among the most defining features of this rural beauty are the many farms around us. When coming or going from the University, one will see countless fields of crops and pastures of animals. Farms like Good Soil, run by Professor Stephen McGinley, serve as sites where students can find an authentic, direct connection to the world through meaningful, tangible work.
There is also an important spiritual aspect to our school’s location on a mountainside. Mountains have been associated with a closeness to the divine since time in memorial. Sinai, Zion, Calvary are a few mountains that are within the Judeo-Christian religions, and the ancient Greeks had Mount Olympus and the Athenian Acropolis. It is fitting, then, that we should spend our years studying the higher things on a place that is itself elevated. Here we are able to survey the many subjects of the world just as easily as we can survey our physical surroundings.
Another famous mountain that we can compare our university to is Mount Purgatory, the setting, and subject of Dante Alighieri’s Purgatorio. On the mountain, the souls of those guilty of venial sins purify themselves in order to reach Heaven above. The mountain is separated into levels where souls are freed of specific vices, with the most severe at the bottom, and the less so towards the top.
As one of the souls newly arrived to this mountain, it is my hope that I will undergo a similar purgation and perfection here, that I will find my path forward growing easier as I let go of old vices that have handicapped me, so that I can at last move higher up the mountain. May this cocoon within the countryside really be the place where all of us can see a metamorphosis in ourselves.
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