All-Class Reunion Mass 2007

I am very pleased to have this opportunity during Reunion Weekend to say one last time:  Welcome Home. Poets and authors like to write that you can never go home again; obviously, none of them ever attended Georgetown—because this is certainly a homecoming.  And no matter where you journey in life, I hope you always feel that this is still your home…that you are still part of us…and that you are still members of the Georgetown family.

It’s very appropriate that we celebrate your coming home on Trinity Sunday. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says to his disciples that he has “much more to tell,” but he cannot reveal everything to them—for we know that they would not, yet, fully understand it.

In a similar vein, all of you enjoyed the rare and remarkable Georgetown experience during your time here. But, still, when you left the Hilltop you may not have fully appreciated—fully understood—the importance of that experience. That appreciation and understanding, like the disciples’, comes over time—even a lifetime—as we confront and surmount challenges and make the most of opportunities.

This is a very moving time of year to remember that Georgetown experience, to be here on the Hilltop. I can honestly say that after 31 years, nothing diminishes the emotional hold this time of year has on us. Just two weeks ago, we celebrated commencement, and this weekend we bring a close to this academic year by welcoming back to campus all of you who share the commitment to membership in this special community.

Commencements are bittersweet experiences. We are justifiably proud of the young men and women who have embraced their Georgetown years—the Georgetown experience—and leave here with lives of great promise, of great hope for the kind of difference they can make in the world. We close our eyes as they walk across our stages to receive their diplomas and we imagine the lives they can touch, the justice they can deliver, the urgent needs they are uniquely prepared to meet. We can imagine the husbands and wives they will become, the children they will raise. And we are a little sad that they are leaving because we come to love them.

But then just two weekends later, you come back—living lives like those we hope our new graduates will live: No longer an idealization. You concretely live the dreams of our youth in your families and careers, in your neighborhoods and communities, in your parishes and dioceses.

No doubt that since the last time you were here, there have been many changes in your life. Children have been born – your own, perhaps those of your children. Some have left for college. You have celebrated baptisms and first communions, confirmations and weddings. You’ve started new jobs, retired from long careers. You’ve coped with loss. You have mourned. You know the tragic dimension of the human condition. Your classmates may have grayed or grown a little thicker or thinner. This campus has changed.

One aspect of your lives has not changed. It hasn’t changed since your time on this Hilltop. It won’t change by the time of your next return here. It is no different for our recent graduates as it was for you on the day of your commencement. And that is what happens here. In this moment, whenever we gather together, like this, and celebrate the Mass.

In these moments we come together to remind ourselves of the most incredible dimension of our faith – that God is here – right here, right now, present in our lives. We come together to witness to one another, to be there for one another, to strengthen one another. In the tradition upon which this University is built, we believe that God is here, right now, present here among us, and has always been present, the Spirit at work here throughout our two centuries.

In these moments we recall other moments during the course of our days – perhaps a moment many years ago, during your days here on this Hilltop, perhaps in a lab where a discovery gave you a glimpse of the deepest realities of our world, or while reading a text, when all of the ideas and nuances and subtleties seem so apparent, and the confusion and doubt seemed to fade away, a moment when you were in touch with truth. Or perhaps on an athletic field or in community service, or in listening to a lecture, a homily, and especially when coming together just like this, in moments of consolation. We believe that in every one of these moments, God is present.

Our hope for everyone who has ever lived on this Hilltop is that during your time here you are able to deepen your self-understanding of these moments. And as you move through the next decades of your life, when you are in need of sustenance and consolation, when you struggle and doubt, and when you look into your own soul, may you always be able to find yourselves right back here, on this Hilltop, remembering this feeling, a feeling you may be having in this very moment, a feeling you may have had at different moments during your years here.

The tradition upon which this university is built has a vocabulary for describing such moments. We call these moments of grace. Here, we sustain a tradition that attempts to give meaning to these moments…that attempts to provide us with a capacity to experience them more deeply. In this tradition, we believe that one way of deepening this capacity is to come together, just like this, and together feel this presence and to find sustenance from each other in these moments.

Lots of stuff can get stirred up during weekends like this. These weekends can have a way of “crystallizing” years of our lives. We are reminded of our successes and disappointments, of our victories and failures. We are reminded of the bonds forged long ago when we were all much younger and of the needs we have to hold onto these bonds. Tomorrow we will return to our jobs and families, hometowns and responsibilities.

But remember, in our tradition there is something we believe – that the Spirit is present and can be present wherever we are, wherever we may find ourselves. And whenever we do find ourselves feeling the Spirit, when we know we are in the presence of God – it may be in the smile of a loved one, or it may be in a moment of unimaginable suffering – a moment that demands a deeper reservoir of courage than you have ever been able to summon, or it can be in the most humble and simple moments – like the moments when we gather just like this – in these moments, like all of those who came before us here and all those who have followed us, in these moments, you will be right back here, back here on this Hilltop.