All Reunion Mass 2009

It is fitting to end our Reunion Weekend at a Mass, because it is the celebration of the Eucharist that is at the heart of all that we do—and have always done—at Georgetown. As I told our newest graduates two weeks ago, it’s because “when we gather together in prayer, in the sacrament, in celebration, in community, then we know we are loved. We are loved by a God, a God who ‘is love.’”  

That’s why it’s also especially fitting that we meet on Pentecost—for this feast is truly a celebration of God’s love. He so loved us that He would not leave us to struggle and survive, alone, after the Son had returned to the Father.  He sent the gift of the Spirit to “renew the face of the earth.” [Responsorial Psalm]  And it is through the celebration of the Mass that the Holy Spirit manifests the Lord continually in his church.  As the second reading from Corinthians tells us, “No one can say that Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.” [Corinthians 12:3b-7]  And it is this manifestation—this moment of grace to paraphrase St. Ignatius Loyola—that occurs every time we gather as a community to attend Mass on the Hilltop.

Pentecost also reminds us that the Spirit—of truth and wisdom and inquiry—animates and infuses everything we do at Georgetown:  our scholarship, our service, our engagement with one another.  And the desire to know the truth—about ourselves, our world, our ideas—is another expression of the Spirit.  As the Gospel tells us without hesitation, “when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.” [John 16:12-15]  And in our Catholic tradition, any movement towards meaning and truth—the foundation of what we do on this Hilltop—is movement towards God.

Finally, there is also a great lesson of solidarity in the feast of Pentecost.  As the first reading tells us, “When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.” [Acts 2:1-11]  Unlike the gathering with Jesus some fifty days before in that small upper room in Jerusalem, here the apostles clung to one another, unsure, confused, afraid…behind the barred doors.

But blest with the gifts of the Spirit, the Church would not—and could not—ever again hide behind the barred door in the shuttered room.  The true beginning of the church’s mission to the entire world began that day.  As Pope Benedict XVI noted on Pentecost last year, “Pentecost is the Baptism of the Church, which carries out her universal mission starting from the roads of Jerusalem.”… 

…And just as those earliest apostles went out into the world and preached to “Parthians, Medes, and Elamites,” [Gospel reading] alike, we are also called to engage without distinction.  As the Pope proclaimed on Pentecost 2005, “She [the Church] must open the borders between peoples and break down the barriers between class and race.”  We are that church.  This is our lesson.  This is our challenge.  It is a challenge to build bridges between faiths, and cultures, and peoples.  And to answer that call is to answer the call of the Spirit…and to remain true to everything we have believed and taught at Georgetown since our founding.

All of us here today have been blest with many gifts—including the extraordinary gift of a Georgetown education.  We gather at this Mass, as we have for more than two centuries, to celebrate these gifts—and each other… to renew our ties as a community—and as a family…and to ask that the Spirit—the Spirit of love and truth and solidarity—work through us and in us.

Soon, like the apostles scattering from Jerusalem in all directions, we will all leave this common home and return to other homes.  But we do so having not just experienced moments of laughter and remembrance, but one more opportunity to celebrate the Eucharist together.  And it is this sharing of the Eucharist that—above all— makes us on the Hilltop one family.

To all the members of the Georgetown family, I hope that you will return to us, often…for there will always be a place for you, here, at this table.

Goodbye and Godspeed.