Reunion Weekend Mass 2003

This is a very moving time of year to be here on the Hilltop. I can honestly say that after 28 years, nothing diminishes the emotional hold this time of year has on us. Just two weeks ago we celebrated commencement. This weekend we bring to a close this academic year by welcoming back to campus all of you who share in your 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 and leave here with lives of great promise and 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 that 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 have 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 since the last time you were here, there have been many changes in your life. Children have been born—your own, and 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. ou know the tragic dimension of the human condition. Your classmates may have grayed or grown a little thick 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 reunion 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 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. When we are asked about the nature of this institution, at the deepest level we hold that the Spirit is at work here, and has been at work in all of the hustle and bustle, chaos and confusion, the changes in fashion and culture, the demands and challenges that characterize a particular historical moment, in victories and defeats, in our friendships, in our classrooms and concert halls and athletic fields—in all that we do.

There is something mysterious about the presence of the Spirit. We don’t always have the confidence—the faith—in this presence. We don’t always have the words, the vocabulary, the syntax, the grammar to capture this experience. But, at different moments, sometimes in the most unlikely of times and places, we have a feeling, deep within ourselves, that we are not alone, and we have a feeling, deep in our bones, of consolation, of peace, of joy, the feeling of love and knowing we are loved.

Here, we sustain a tradition that attempts to give meaning to these moments. Attempts to provide us with this 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 you find yourselves, whenever you need it and whenever you find yourself feeling the Spirit, when you know you 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, or it may be at the moment of birth of a child, or a moment that demands a deeper reservoir of courage than you have ever been able to summon—in these moments, like all of those who came before you and all of those who have followed you, you will be right back here, back on this Hilltop.