Amid the bustle of the new school year, the Georgetown community took time on Sept. 1 to participate in an 800-year-old tradition for Catholic schools -- the Mass of the Holy Spirit.

The Mass of the Holy Spirit gives students, faculty and staff a chance to start the academic year with prayer and reflection and allows them to ask for God’s blessings on Georgetown and its work.

“This is a good time to come together as a community to ask for the wisdom and knowledge of the Holy Spirit,” said JoAnna Kyle (SFS’12). “It’s a way to center us at the start of the year.”

The Rev. John O’Malley, S.J., university professor of theology, served as the homilist and urged faith for the Georgetown community.
 
“We believe, and we are here celebrating that He dwells within us. The Holy Spirit dwells within us,” O’Malley said. “And what a difference it makes in everything we do. What a difference it makes in how we view ourselves. What a difference it makes in how we view everybody else.”

In a world where the paradox of love and evil confounds, O’Malley noted, it is not easy to believe in the “mystery of love and Holy Spirit amid the muck and mire of life.”

“Yet, that is what our Christian faith demands of us,” the Jesuit said.

Georgetown President John J. DeGioia told congregants that the Mass of the Holy Spirit reminds him of what tradition means, the act of handing over.

“God hands over to us the work of bringing about the fulfillment of God’s project on earth, and we hand over ourselves to God in making ourselves completely available for God’s work in the world,” DeGioia said. “By calling on the Holy Spirit in this sacred liturgy, we pray as a community that this mutual handing over may be fully realized in all that we do in the coming year.”

Georgetown celebrates Mass of the Holy Spirit on Healy Lawn, where the open-air service often draws in passers-by. Underneath a vibrantly blue sky speckled with clouds, songs of faith swelled from the congregation.

The Mass highlighted Georgetown’s diversity, opening with a traditional hymn from Swaziland and offering prayers in English, Spanish, Chinese, Persian, Samoan and Chinese.

“I have friends who aren’t Catholic or even Christian here today,” said Lara Ericson (C’11). “It’s a time for all of us to get back into the mindset of what it means to be at Georgetown. It’s a time to get back to our roots.”

As one celebration ended, another began. Immediately following Mass, Georgetown’s annual Welcome Back, Jack BBQ kicked off with a massive cookout that spanned Healy and Copley lawns. Throngs of students, faculty and staff gathered to nosh on grilled burgers and hot dogs during the last event of Welcome Week. Fall semester classes begin Sept. 2.

-- Lauren Burgoon

(September 2, 2009)