Event hosted at St. Thomas of Villanova school in King

These student volunteers recently worked a whole weekend to ensure the Augustinian Institute gathering was a great success.

The fourth gathering of the Institute for Augustinian Values was held recently at St. Thomas of Villanova College near King City.

The school welcomed a delegation of seventy teachers and administrators, priests and lay persons, from the eight American schools and one from the Commonwealth (Ireland, England and Scotland) to illustrate how St. Thomas of Villanova College has incorporated the core values, anima et cor unum (one vision and a common will), of St. Augustine into all expectations and practices of its academic, extracurricular, sports and social outreach programs. The event was “an overwhelming success on every level,” according to Paul Galetto, OSA, Secretary of the ASEA and President of St. Augustine Preparatory School.

In September 1999, Paul Paradiso and Grant Purdy together with 23 founding families opened the doors to the first home of St. Thomas of Villanova College, an independent Catholic school, at Sacred Heart Parish in King City. The following January 24, the school moved to its current location on 33 acres of the Marylake.

Since the school’s foundation, Paradiso and Purdy, along with the school’s familial community, have striven to build a learning institution that is committed to excellence and to the spiritual, intellectual, physical and social development of young people. This vision not only includes the infrastructure of the site, but it also involves advancing the philosophical and framework of the school.

Villanova’s philosophical growth has resulted in a membership within the Augustinian Secondary Education Association and an association with a long-standing tradition founded on St. Augustine’s principles of unitas (one mind, one heart on the way to God), veritas (the search for Truth, love for learning, the Inner Teacher, interiority), and caritas (love, compassion, care and service) and to meld this charism with Villanova’s founding morals of fides (faith), excellentia (excellence), disciplina (discipline) and sacrificium (sacrifice).

As a member of the Augustinian Secondary Education Association, St. Thomas of Villanova has become an educational institution whose mission not only promotes students who aspire to academic excellence but also one that engenders young people who have “faith in spirit and truth” and will bring forth the intrinsic values of St. Augustine into university and into the world around them.