Culture, Festivity, and Tradition Alive and Well at Christendom College

Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia, is known not only for its faithfullness to the Roman Catholic Church and its academic excellence but also for the culture that it imparts to its students.

Front Royal, Va. -- A distinguishing feature of Christendom College is its emphasis on Catholic culture, festivity, and tradition. Liturgical feasts and ethnic celebrations always have been integral to life at the College and have offered rest and refreshment from the arduous pursuit of wisdom that is the students daily work. Every month of the academic year has its celebrations and traditions. There are the feasts of St. Joseph, St. Francis, St. Patrick, St. Francis de Paola, and Divine Mercy Sunday. There are First Friday adoration, the May crowning, the Feast of Christ the King, and so many more.

Christendom does what it does like no other place with which I am familiar," says Kirk Kuykendall, a 1990 Christendom graduate who now serves as chairman for the Dallas, TX, chapter of Catholics United for the Faith. Theres an immediate air that this place is Catholic through and through and that the intellectual life, rooted in the faith and the mysterious legacy of the Fathers of the faith, is very important. Yet, there is a tremendous balancing of that with the cultural and social ethos that says were not pulling out of society. Rather, we will be leaven in the culture and in a way that is primarily focused on what anyone can understand, not just academics."

Incoming students, having visited the college or heard about its traditions from a sibling or alumni parent, generally come eager and well-prepared for these celebrations. Many seek the College particularly for its happy combination of intellectual rigor and Catholic festivity. Every year the College attracts a large contingent from St. Gregorys Academy, a Catholic boys boarding school in Pennsylvania itself known for encouraging Catholic festivity.

The transition from St. Gregs to Christendom was smooth," says Fred Fraser, an alumnus of both St. Gregorys and Christendom. The St. Gregorys Academy education is protected and nurtured at Christendom. The culture of both Christendom and St. Gregs is founded on four pillars: Liturgy, Literature, Song, and Camaraderie, and these pillars support the life of all the students."

Sometimes the students even bring their own traditions and festivities to the attention of the College. The Gregs boys have made juggling and song a part of Christendom. The annual St. Francis de Paola day, for example, celebrated in early April, was initiated by student Mike Schmitt '03, and will be carried on in the life of Christendom students in perpetuity. Brendan and Daniel McGuire, also of the Class of 2003, for four years brought their bagpipes and Scottish regalia to many College feasts and events. Their sometimes martial and sometimes melancholy sounds will be missed.

The mixture of liturgy, academics, camaraderie, culture, traditions, and festivity characterize the very essence of what it means to be a student at Christendom College, and what it means to be a Catholic.