Welcome to Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy, Canada's newest venture in Catholic higher education. The Academy is a post-secondary institution for the study of the liberal arts, offering a grounding in the perennial principles of Catholic truth. Our program provides students with a solid and invaluable introduction to higher studies, with which students can approach any discipline — any walk of life- with confidence and assurance in the truth.

We have come a long way since last year, when our pilot project, the Mater Ecclesiae Study Centre, was meeting in living rooms and lofts. We now have two buildings for our use.

We have come a long way since last year, when our pilot project, the Mater Ecclesiae Study Centre, was meeting in living rooms and lofts. We now have two buildings for our use. A former convent of the Saint Joseph Sisters serves as a classroom, a refectory and a men's dormitory, while a pleasant little house overlooking the lake, about a 5 minute walk away, provides a home for our female students. Our inaugural class has responded eagerly to their studies. It is truly inspiring to see how quickly young minds appropriate the truth. Canada urgently needs minds that are well-formed in the wisdom of the Church and of the greatest minds of history. Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy provides the means to form our young people. Our curriculum is unique, developed along the lines of ecclesiastical directives for higher education, including a fidelity to the teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

This year has seen our students grow in many different ways. Besides the primary formation of the intellect, we have had numerous opportunities for growth in spirit and body. We have been blessed by the visits and support of numerous priests, including Father Scott McCaig of the Companions of the Cross, who said our first college Mass in the parish church of Saint Hedwig's, and Father Paul Burchat of Madonna House who offered Mass in our own chapel and gave an inspiring talk on Marian consecration, followed by confession. These spiritual milestones have been combined with weekly hikes on surrounding trails to beautiful look-outs, a walking pilgrimage to the Jubilee shrine of Saint Mary's in Wilno, and a day-trip to Toronto for the 25th anniversary of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri.

Ultimately, we hope to develop the Academy into a fully-accredited four-year college. Although God has blessed us in so many ways, much still needs to be done in order to achieve this goal. Currently, all of the staff work without salary in order to see this project off the ground. Stability, especially of the financial sort, is a goal towards which we are striving. Much depends upon the support and feedback that we receive from those who see the intrinsic value of good education. In no university in Canada can one receive an education like that of the Academy. Imagine a school where all professors take the oath of fidelity to the Magisterium, where the truth is taught without compromise, where academic rigour is emphasized, where the day-to-day life is infused with a truly Catholic spirit, all nestled within the breathtaking beauty of the Madawaska valley's lakes and hills. How much good could be done in the world by those formed in such an environment!

As we near the end of this term, and this grace-filled year of Jubilee, we now wait upon God. We are poised on the brink of a great breakthrough. Our desire is to go ahead with a second year, expanding the size of our student body to at least three times its present size. But much depends upon people like you, who will ultimately benefit from an institution like this. Many of you have children finishing their high-school studies, and are wondering what to do. Here is an opportunity placed before you. Make of it what you can. God will bless your efforts, be they spiritual or financial, a hundredfold.

May this Christmas season be holy and joyful for you and yours. Let us keep each other in prayer.

Yours in the Holy Family,

John Paul Meenan, M.A., M.Sc.

Director

This article originally appeared in the Seat of Wisdom Newsletter, Winter 2000–2001.