The Mass of the Holy Spirit marks the opening of the academic year at John Carroll. The new university president, Robert Niehoff, SJ, was the presider and homilist at the well attended 12 noon celebration in the DeCarlo Varsity Center on September 1. John Carroll's leader said he intended his homily to be a reflection on the challenge of the academic year ahead. Instead, he spoke of the “images of incomprehensible pain and devastation.” and reflected: “ Our human temptation is to pretend that we are in control and that we know God's plan for the world. Tragedies like the ones we have seen this week do remind us that we do not know God's plan and that life is very precious.”

Fr. Niehoff spoke of the imminent arrival of students from the University of Loyola of New Orleans on John Carroll's campus. Each of the nation's 27 other Jesuit institutions of higher education has agreed to admit students from the University of Loyola of New Orleans as a “transient” student for the fall semester. Details are still being arranged but the principle of the automatic transfer of credits has been accepted by all the members of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU), and John Carroll is mobilizing its resources to extend hospitality.

As of Friday, September 2, approximately 15 displaced students, most of them freshman, were in the process of making arrangements to take classes at John Carroll this semester. Two of those were from Tulane University , which is also in New Orleans . One student from Japan had visa issues that were being pursued. Another expected is from Nicaragua . Several were in the process of moving into the residence halls. It is inherently a fluid situation and the numbers may go up or down in the days ahead, but university officials said every effort is being made to accommodate students displaced by the hurricane.

In his homily, Fr. Niehoff said: “As a community, I pray that we might be conscious of the human care that each of us can provide, realizing that this is how God will be present for that person in this moment - listening to the story, inviting them to join in some enjoyable activity, sharing coffee, a walk. All healing follows similar paths. Our role is to be welcoming and compassionate and to demonstrate that we are willing to accompany those who have suffered loss in their journey.”

Campus Ministry and the Center for Community Service jointly organized a Relief Response Coordinating Team that will meet weekly for the foreseeable future. The team's threefold purpose is to: “communicate with the John Carroll community about the status of our response efforts; coordinate collective charitable efforts; and prepare to send teams of volunteers to assist with clean-up and reconstruction efforts, if and when that is deemed to be appropriate.”

The first step in the “collective charitable efforts” was a collection taken at the Mass of the Holy Spirit and the lunch on the Quadrangle that followed. Approximately $2,400 was collected for the victims, to be channeled through Catholic Charities and the Red Cross. That initial collection will be succeeded by others at various campus locations in the days and weeks ahead.

The names of faculty and friends of the community who are in the disaster area are being gathered; a prayer service for the victims of the catastrophe is scheduled for Thursday, September 7.

Loyola University New Orleans did not suffer major physical damage from the storm, but its immediate outlook is, nonetheless bleak. Its president, Rev. Kevin Wildes, SJ, released a statement saying, “ We all know that we have suffered a terrible loss in Hurricane Katrina. But I want you to know that we are working, as quickly as possible to resume operations. While it will be some time before we will be at work again on St. Charles Avenue , we can continue our work while in dispersion. …” Additional information about Loyola University at New Orleans can be gained at www.AJCUnet.edu, the Web site of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. There are several posted documents as well as a blog rich in messages from faculty and staff members of the Loyola community.

Spring Hill College in Mobile , Alabama was not severely affected and it exists in an area that, simply by virtue of its smaller size, is not facing as daunting logistical issues, although Mobile was certainly not spared by Katrina. Mark Lewis, SJ, who last year was the interim director of the Institute of Catholic Studies , e-mailed colleagues at John Carroll, saying: “I got back yesterday (September 1) p.m. The airport was running normally but you see the damage as you drive towards the city. Electricity came back last night and I am staying in the Jesuit residence right now. We should be in shape to take the students back on Sunday, and the bridge over the Mobile River on US 98 has been reopened. The offices are in good shape, though the old admin building had damage to the roof. They will replace it. We just had a faculty meeting and will begin accepting students from Loyola, Xavier and Tulane as transients until those schools get back on their feet. We will make up the classes missed on a couple of Saturdays and of course Labor day. Tell people at JCU that many of our students have lost everything at home and will be living with us (maybe even with their parents!), and we will probably be using Murray Hall now for overflow from N.O. so there is going to be some real need.”

There is a significant but not large group of alumni in the Gulf area. Efforts will be made to contact them and provide whatever assistance is needed and possible, but as of this date, September 2, communications are too problematic to make that effort successful.

From the homily of the Mass of the Holy Spirit
By Rev. Robert Niehoff, SJ,
John Carroll University
September 1, 2005

 In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we are, this afternoon, conscious of our colleagues at Loyola in New Orleans, at Spring Hill College in Mobile and at other colleges and universities in the South where people experienced such suffering this week. Every time we see the news, we are served images of incomprehensible pain and devastation.

We pray for the families who have lost loved ones, for those whose homes, positions and livelihood were wiped away in the course of a few terrible hours. It is difficult to imagine how one can reconstruct lives after such a loss.

We welcome those students who have joined us these last days because they had planned to study in New Orleans . More may join us in the coming days as we attempt to be as responsive as possible in assisting students whose lives and plans have been disrupted.

Although I had other plans for today's message, that reflection can wait. Today, we need to pray for the victims of this terrible storm. I suspect that we are all struggling to understand why such things happen. Unfortunately, I cannot find good answers to those questions.

When today's scriptural readings were selected, we intended them to help illuminate our prayers for God's blessing on our community, our learning and our service in the coming year. As is always true of the power of scripture to move us, God's message comes to us in our concrete reality, where we live and have our being.

In this moment, as we ask God's blessing upon the people who have suffered losses in this disaster, it is quite appropriate for us to ask: what does this mean for us and where might we find God in these events?

When I last contemplated today's scriptural readings, my head filled with the images of New Orleans and with the horrifying images of the bridge in Baghdad filled with the plastic slippers of the hundreds lost in that stampede, I felt drawn to new paths of reflection.

In the reading from the first Book of Kings , the prophet teaches us that God was not found in powerful events: in the wind, in the earthquake, in the fire. But after the fire, there was a tiny whispering sound. When he heard this, Elijah went and stood at the entrance to the cave. God passed by in that moment.

In Saint Paul 's Letter to the Romans, he suggests that all creation is groaning to birth the coming of the fullness of the Kingdom: “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance. . . .The Spirit itself intercedes” for us. (Romans 8)

The Emmaus story from the Gospel of Luke is one which is well known to us. Often we quickly skip over the response Jesus had to the disciples' inconsolable dejection at his death. The Lord says to them: “ Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things. . .?" Then, beginning with the story of Moses and continuing through all of the prophecies that prefigured the coming of the Christ, he interpreted for the disciples the words of scripture that prepared the way for him.

"Stay with us, [the disciples said after hearing him] for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning (within us) while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?" (Luke 24:13-35)

In these days, we ask the Lord to explain to us what has taken place. Like the disciples we gather together to share the body and blood of the Lord Jesus and we hope to recognize him, together, in the breaking of the bread. It is quite appropriate that we come together in hope to break bread and pray on this day.

***

What might this tragedy mean for us? Until yesterday, I never imagined that students who lived through the storm might be joining us. Now that this is a reality, we will welcome them. At the same time, we will be conscious that they have experienced a trauma, a wound that is by no means healed. These experiences will be a part of them. We are called to listen to them, to express our care, and some of us will be called to accompany these individuals in their healing.

As a community, I pray that we might be conscious of the human care that each of us can provide, realizing that this is how God will be present for that person in this moment - listening to the story, inviting them to join in some enjoyable activity, sharing coffee, a walk.

All healing follows similar paths. Our role is to be welcoming and compassionate and to demonstrate that we are willing to accompany those who have suffered loss in their journey. When the Lord is present in our ministry of companionship, we may have cause to reflect later: “did not our heart beat within us,” as we experienced the flow of compassion in us.

Our human temptation is to pretend that we are in control and that we know God's plan for the world. Tragedies like the ones we have seen this week do remind us that we do not know God's plan and that life is very precious.

My friends, today we pray for those in need, and we ask for God's blessing on this community, on this year which has begun, and on all the children of God near and far.