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The Mass of the Holy Spirit is a special occasion for the Catholic University
community to assemble each year.
It's fitting that we should welcome our chancellor in the Apostolic Nuncio.
I want to thank our faculty and staff for their attendance
and to our new students that are returning sophomores and juniors and
seniors
welcome to the campus and we're delighted you're here.
I say that this is an occasion for our community to assemble
but community is an overworked word these days.
We use it to denote almost any collection of people the education community, the
immigrant community, the fishing community,
the recidivist community, groups like these are not properly speaking
communities because their members though they share some trade in common in interest
in education or fishing, have no necessary relation to one another,
no internal coherence. How different a real community is
through what Saint Benedict uses the word often. In the prologue Benedict says
that he means to establish a school
for the Lord's service and he speaks about calling the community together for consultation,
about times for community meals, about clothing and footwear for the community,
about community order and so on. In the community
in this community Benedict says seniors call their juniors brother or sister
and juniors address their seniors as "Nonnas
Father" or "Nonna Mother." When a guest arrives
the members of the community the rule says should hurry to offer a welcome
with warm-hearted courtesy. In a famous phrase
which appears over the windows in our living room
Benedict directs that any guess should be received just as we would receive
Christ Himself
because He promised that on the last day He'll say, I was a stranger
and you welcome me. In chapter
72 of the rule, Benedict sums up the spirit that should inspire monastic life.
Members of the community he says should try first to show to respect to one another
with the greatest patience in tolerating weaknesses about your character
no one should aim at personal advantage but rather should be concerned for the good of others.
The Catholic University of America is not
a monastery, but it is another kind of school for the Lord's service.
Like the monks who withdrew to Monte Cassino we see around us a culture in turmoil.
In Benedict's time the Goths and Huns, Vandals and
Ostrogoths preyed on a collapsing West,
in our own society whose power
and influence invites comparisons to the Roman Empire we see a kind of
degeneration from within. Institutions like the neighborhood, the family,
the Church, the building blocks of political society, seem to be crumbling.
It's a worrying prospect those who love our country
wonder how we can rebuild a culture whose foundation stones
have lost their strength. I think this University is part of the answer.
Benedict's rule was a plan for one small community
but it was a pattern so successful that it was
repeated hundreds of times all over Europe and beyond.
In the end as Cardinal Newman said of Benedict and his followers
he found the world in ruins and his mission was to restore it.
With the hotty aleric or fierce
atilla had broken to pieces these patient meditative men
brought together and made to live again. This University
is another small community but its graduates will go into the world
formed in intellect and virtue to apply what they learned here.
Its example can inspire imitation in other institutions.
It can, as Cardinal Wuerl said,
change the world. Within our community we have a set of rules not unlike Saint Benedict's.
Last spring we adopted a community pledge for the members of the University
and invited all students and faculty and staff to sign.
Last week we incorporated the pledge in our freshman orientation.
You see in it echoes of Benedict's
chapter 72, the monks undertake
to show respect to one another with the greatest patience in tolerating
weaknesses about your character. We ask our students to be tolerant of others
building a community where everyone is treated with respect. We require this tolerance
not only with regard to weakness as Benedict did,
but also with regard to the other differences that can separate us,
race, creed, orientation or class, all
are created in God's image and likeness
and are worthy of respect. This is as it turns out a resolution all of America
is focused on this week.
Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington
at which the Reverend Martin Luther King delivered his famous
"I have a dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
At many colleges and universities around the country the anniversary has invited
discussion about
the value diversity and the virtue of tolerance.
The thought I want to leave you with is this: Dr. King
expressed the hope that all God's children would one day work and pray together.
If we take Saint Benedict's example seriously this community
should lead not follow in building that
better world. On behalf of the entire University
community I'd like to extend a special thanks to Monsignor Walter
Rossi, Monsignor Vito Buonanno, Father Michael Weston and the staff
of the National Shrine for collaborating with us on today's
liturgy. We're always grateful for their hospitality and generosity at
this magnificent Basilica. I want to thank all of you
again for coming and may God bless you all this year.