Iowa Heritage Digital Collections
State Library of Iowa

1976 Yearbook

1976 Yearbook

Title

1976 Yearbook

Description

probably imagine, his nurse got pretty excited and chased the bees from poor baby
Ambrose's head. His father stopped her and said "Let's see what happens." (This of course
isn't an exact quote, but I don't know much about Latin, so. . .) The bees stayed for a
minute, and flew away without hurting Ambrose in the least. Well, his father thought that
was a good omen and that his son would be something very special. That is why this
college used the bee as a symbol, in case you have ever wondered about it. As the story
goes, the reason bees sometimes fly into saint's mouths when they are little is because the
words that will someday come from their mouths are as sweet as honey to the ear of
God.
True to the superstition Ambrose grew up able to read silently and speak eloquently. He
was very hostile to fancy or flowery speeches, and is quoted as saying "A Christian
teacher ought to place himself on the level of his audience, and, however learned or
eloquent, he may be, should make a point of using simple, plain, familiar speech."
I have heard it said of St. Ambrose that he was not a Christian at the time he became
Bishop of Milan. This is not true. He grew up in a Christian home and his mother and
sister were both great scholars of the Christian religion. He was simply unbaptized at the
time of his selection to the office. Adult baptism was the more common practice at that
time, so St. Ambrose was not unusual for that day. He did feel he had much to learn
before he could consider himself a scholar of theology, and became a devoted scholar of
theology, ana was a
devoted scholar until his
death.
He was one of about
twelve doctors of the
Church. Now, I knew he
was a doctor of the
Church, but I thought
there might have been
many doctors of the
Church, so I was pretty
unimpressed. When I
found out there are only
twelve, it changed my
opinion quite a bit. St.
Ambrose also had a
library in Milan which
was second only to the
Vatican library for
centuries. One of St.
86

Date

1976

Rights

St. Ambrose University, 518 W. Locust St., Davenport, IA 52803

Identifier

http://cdm16810.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16810coll2/id/3130