Alumni Memorial Mass: Reunion Weekend 2002

No doubt 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. Your classmates may be a little grayer, a little rounder, perhaps a little 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. And that is what happens here in this chapel, whenever we gather together, like this, here in Dahlgren.

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.

Today, we gather with a special purpose—to celebrate and commemorate the lives of those we have lost—and there have been many this year.

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

We also lost someone who deeply touched so many lives, Father Royden Davis. Royden didn’t just live among us—he helped to make us who we are. Roy was not merely committed to the Jesuit idea of 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 t 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.

This morning, in our own quiet and humble and intimate way, we gather together as we have for more than two centuries, just like this, in the presence of the Spirit, to commemorate and celebrate the lives of men and women who have touched us and who helped to make us the people we are today and we remind ourselves that at our deepest level our tradition teaches us that our community includes those who are now living and those who have shared fully their lives with us, and who now precede us in the presence of the Lord.