For men of the Catholic Studies Men’s House, the day begins earlier than it does for theaverage college student. Any passersby on Summit Avenue at 6:15 a.m. will see about two dozen college men dressed in khakis and collared shirts making their way toward the St. Thomas Chapel for morning prayer and Mass, after proudly hanging their Vatican flags outside the men’s houses. Within the first hours of our day, we try to establish what we want to do differently than most men on campus. Between morning prayer, Mass and our first morning classes, the first three pillars upon which the Fraternity of St. Michael was founded are covered: prayer, study and fraternity. These three pillars are united and transformed by the fourth pillar: charity. All who livein the men’s house belong to the fraternity. The Fraternity of St. Michael is a band of brothers uniting under the protection of St. Michael in the pursuit of living a communal life of prayer and academics. As Newman proposes, while the university is where ideas are exchanged, the colleges, or residences, are where the students live and formation takes place. This is at the heart of the Fraternity of St. Michael.The four pillars upon which the men’s houses stand are:
Study. We are all Catholic Studies majors, undertaking a course of studies that focuses of the development of the human person by centering on the logos, the Truth, which is the second person of the Blessed Trinity. Our members include men double majoring in the sciences, philosophy and other subjects.
Fraternity. We rely on our brothers to encourage each other to grow, to call each other out to greater thing, to remind us that it is our lack of character that drags us down. As scripture reminds us, metal sharpens metal.
Prayer. At the center of our lives is prayer. Monday through Friday we rise at 6 for morning prayer at 6:30 and Mass at 7. While there are no other mandatory times of prayer, we encourage each other to pray the rosary daily and say night prayer in groups, if not alone.
Charity. In charity we practice our faith and bring the love of Christ to others. Every Sunday evening we open our home to students on campus for dinner. We begin with a decade of the rosary and end with a Salve Regina, making this a concrete way in which we can serve and act as leaven on campus.
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