Alumni Memorial Mass 2002

We gather this morning to celebrate and commemorate the lives of those we have lost—and there have been so many this year.

Those who died on September 11 in a great national tragedy that has torn us apart emotionally, yet also has brought us together spiritually. The University family lost 24 members on that day, including a faculty and a staff member, 10 alumni/ae, and family members.

Father Royden Davis, who didn’t just live among us for a big part of his life—he helped make us who we are.

Roy was not merely committed to cura personalis. He was cura personalis. He lived and breathed our tradition. Every part of his being, his voice, his walk, his humor, his judgment, embodied this care for each individual person who came into his sphere of influence.

We have been given the gift of living in a community in which a tradition, a way of proceeding, has been sustained by men like Royden Davis, who give life and form to the abstract ideas and concepts that guide us. Two distinguished scholars I know are studying the characteristics of great universities. One question they ask when they visit campuses is “can you take us to a place where you feel the culture, the spirit of the place, is powerfully captured?” For me, an answer to that question for nearly a quarter century would have been Roy’s office.

Joseph Wesner, class of ’77.

This morning, we are drawn together by a bond forged, for many of us, long ago on this Hilltop. In the hope and optimism of youth, we anticipated lives of promise, all the while forming a deep love and connection to this university. And despite the different paths our individual lives have taken, that common bond still unites us.

Together, we have shaped a community uniquely animated by a power that moves among us. Sometimes subtle, sometimes implicit, that something—the Holy Spirit—is always present.

The Georgetown community is shaped by the Ignatian tradition, a tradition we live in this Memorial Mass…a tradition that offers both consolation and strength…a tradition that is available to support us today.

In this weekend that celebrates community, let us not forget that our Catholic faith offers us a broader understanding of community, which includes those who are now living and those who precede us in the presence of the Lord.

Today we give voice to our sorrow at the loss of loved ones, but we temper that sorrow with our belief and our trust that they have been born into Eternal Life. We grieve at their passing, but find comfort knowing that our loved ones have become whole.

The presence of death never fails to remind us of our own mortality and therefore the precious gift of our lives. We pledge anew to use the time and strength and health that we have to be in service to each other.

Line very thin between this world and the next.