The college has been doing so for a little more than 150 years now. A year ago this week, alumni, family and friends arrived on campus to celebrate the milestone over several days.
Connors recalled it as an opportunity for students for the priesthood to remember those who came before them and thank God for their service.
Pope Benedict XVI even took part in the celebration. In a private audience with students and alumni, he thanked God for "the many ways in which the college has remained faithful to its founding vision by training generations of worthy preachers of the Gospel and ministers of the sacraments, devoted to the successor of Peter and committed to the building up of the Church in the United States of America."
He applauded the NAC's history of offering seminarians an "exceptional experience of the universality of the Church, the breadth of her intellectual and spiritual tradition, and the urgency of her mandate to bring Christ’s saving truth to the men and women of every time and place."
These are traditions that the college holds to as dearly as it does to its other time-honored customs: the hard-earned success of its soccer team, the annual Thanksgiving weekend festivities, and group trips over breaks that include those to assist foreign missions.
A strong sense of fraternity is evident in every aspect of campus life, but it is perhaps Thanksgiving weekend celebrations like last year's that show the NAC's best colors.
In a country that does not traditionally celebrate the holiday, the college gathered 400 people together for Mass and a meal this year. Traditional events include the yearly "Spaghetti Bowl," pitting "old men" against "new men" in a friendly game of American football preceded by a rendition of the national anthem. Divided into the same squads, the new and old men create and put on shows for the gathering.
Students also group together in their respective corridors to share breakfast over the weekend, for which Msgr. Checcio has a special interest. "I like to make the rounds and sample them all!" said the rector.
Fraternity is revered by the NAC's residents. Connors paraphrased the Pope's words from the Year for Priests — "no one becomes a priest on one's own."
"We are not called one man and then another man as much as we are gathered together as an apostolic bond, like Christ's first apostles," Connors said.
The Dec. 8 anniversary of the college's founding gives them the opportunity to remember its role and blessing throughout its great history. It is a chance to give thanks for the clergy, family, friends and benefactors who have made the the institution and its programs possible
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As Connors put it: "To study in Rome is a unique blessing, so close to the saints and martyrs of the Church, to the bones of Peter the fisherman and to the successor of Peter, the Holy Father.
He has learned what it is to lay down his life for the Gospel, he said. “Through consecrated study of the saving truths of the Gospel, through fraternity and lifelong bonds of priestly friendship and most of all through deep, serious, daily prayer I have come more and more to be ready to lay down my life in service to the Gospel.”
The proximity to St. Peter and his successor, added Msgr. Checchio, makes for "a very unique formation experience" for seminarians and priests preparing to serve the people of God.
"It is a wonderful place to learn about Christ and His Church, and to prepare to lay down our lives in service of Him."