Testimonials

Friends' Testimonials

A sign of hope

"Magdalen College is a stimulus and a sign of hope for Catholic education at this time of some moral and spiritual confusion in our country.

"Today, as in previous difficult times for civilization, the Catholic Church is committed by her divine mission to speaking the word of God‘s truth and to educating young people who will be leaven of goodness and holiness in the world. The graduates of Magdalen College are equipped to let the truth and life revealed in Jesus Christ shine through them to brighten human hearts and lives."

Born from the heart of the Church

"A truly Catholic college is 'born from the hearth of the Church' (Ex corde Ecclesiae). Magdalen College is a privileged setting for planting news seeds of wisdom, knowledge, spirituality, morality, and Christian community. I applaud your mission to educate that whole person in the joy and hope of the Gospel and encourage you to continue your work of forming Christian minds and hearts as you help to lead each student in the search for the truth and to encounter the 'font of truth' in Jesus Christ."

The genius of Magdalen College

"In a famous sermon on the Resurrection, Cardinal Newman stressed that: 'Nothing is done effectually through untrained human nature.' Later in the same sermon he says: 'Not only is the multitude fickle, but the best, unless urged, tutored, disciplined to their work, give way. Untrained nature has no principles.'

"The genius of Magdalen College is to recognize this reality for what it is, and to dedicate itself to training human nature. This is an enormously difficult enterprise. Few academic institutions see the need for it, and even those that do are hard pressed to know how to go about it. In its thirty–year history, Magdalen College has had the courage to take up this challenge."

A model of a noble mission

"Magdalen College offers our country a model of a noble mission to form and educate young people encouraging them 'to be active on behalf of the church as leading characters in evangelization and participants in the renewal of society.' (Christifideles Laici par. 46)

"The measure of success of Magdalen College is thirty years of integration of faith and life; the Gospel and culture; the spiritual and the secular. As one of the small number of institutes of higher learning which foster this unity, Magdalen College is a center of spiritual renewal.

Ad multos annos!

"When I first spoke to the student body of Magdalen College in the early 1980s, classes where being held in a converted motel. Nearly twenty years later when I addressed an alumni dinner, I was shown a campus in one of the most beautiful natural settings for a college that I have ever seen anywhere. The College has come a long way.

"However, what impressed me twenty years ago about Magdalen College, and what impresses me today, is much more than the location and setting, however conducive to learning that may be. What has consistently impressed me more then anything else has been the spirit of the students and of the alumni. We can talk about how a Catholic liberal education forms the whole person, but what is meant by that really only becomes clear when we encounter out in the world some of those same persons thus formed. Many Magdalen graduates are now out in the world, making their marks in the way that their education has enabled them to do. I can only now say to the students, faculty, administration, alumni, and benefactors of the college: Keep up the good work, and ad multos annos!"

Example of "Greatness Emerging"

"It has been said that the truly 'Great' have always been tested in the fire and proven their worth...Often, I believe it is rather that we are all called to such 'Greatness' by the God who made us; yet so very few are taught that in purification accepted for Christ, Love reaches its zenith and becomes the shining example of heroism for which the world continually waits and looks. Magdalen College has given the world this example of 'Greatness Emerging' because Christ, who is the 'Way, the Truth, and the Life' has always been kept at the helm."

A sign of God's blessing

"Magdalen College successfully challenges the secular misconception that faith and rigorous academic learning must be separated. It is indeed a sign of God's blessing that Magdalen College is flourishing. It has brought the light of Truth into the minds and hearts of a multitude of young people, forming them by giving to them the beauty of Catholic culture, to become leaders in society."