Dear Friends,
The Spring season has been busy and enriching. Some students traveled to Nicaragua and France over break to help their neighbor and deepen their Catholic faith. Other students traveled to Chicago to join with students from nine campus ministries across the country for the annual ESTEEM (Engaging Students to Enliven the Ecclesial Mission) conference. Students from each group spoke about the experiences of these trips at a Sunday dinner after Easter.
During the second semester, we had a full slate of challenging and informative lectures. Dr. Patrick O’Connor spoke as part of our Catholic Faculty Series: Life as a Scholar and a Believer. Cathleen Kaveny ‘90 J.D. ‘91 Ph.D. and Hon. Guido Calabresi ‘53 ‘58 L.L.B. continued their dialogue begun during the tenth anniversary celebration entitled “Life, Love and the Law: Continuing the Conversation.” The lecture for The Fay Vincent, Jr. Fellowship in Faith and Culture by Rev. James Martin, S.J. was attended by over 300 people, while 317 people viewed the lecture from home via livestream. Sr. Kathleen McManus, O.P. delivered The Rev. Richard R. Russell Lecture and Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P. delivered The Thomas E. Golden, Jr. Fellowship Lecture in Faith and Science. Promoting a Catholic intellectual life on campus remains a high priority for us.
The season of Lent offered members of the community a chance to write a daily reflection and share it through e-mail. The Easter Triduum was again the liturgical high point of the year. Two adults were baptized in the immersion font and five others were received into the full communion of the Catholic Church through a profession of faith and Confirmation. The beautiful Exsultet on Holy Saturday night was written by Julian Darius Revie ‘02, our Composer in Residence and included an ancient Syrian Christian Chant melody attributed to the fourth-century Syrian composer and theologian St. Ephrem. This was also the first Triduum that our choir (and our tech-savvy congregants) used the Center for Music and Liturgy’s Cloud Hymnal and sang hymns from their smart phones and tablets.
You can learn more about some of these events in the following pages. As you read, I hope that the Spring 2017 issue of the STM Magazine will be a source of inspiration for you.
Please know that your support makes a difference here every day.
As you prepare for the feast of Pentecost on June 4, I pray that the fifty days of the Easter season will be a time of blessing for you.
Fr. Robert Beloin
Chaplain
