This week marked the Feast of All Souls and Dia de los Muertos. Jesuit Alumni Liaison Art Liebscher, S.J. ’69 penned a previous reflection on these traditions to the Alumni Board of Directors, the full text of which is below.
This month we celebrate the feast of All Souls, called the Day of the Dead in some cultures. In the Mission Church and a few other locations on campus, we can find Mexican-style altars of the dead—very colorful, even vivid, collections of images, photographs, and offerings for relatives and friends who have journeyed into the beyond.
In my mother’s Irish family, All Souls ranked as one of the major feasts of the year, religiously right up there with Easter and Christmas. It was a time the remember and pray for all of our deceased relatives. One simply did not miss Mass on Nov. 2.
Inevitably, life brings loss, and the longer we live, ever great numbers of our friends and family have gone before us. At every Grand Reunion, the Mass booklet includes the names of our departed Broncos from the classes in question—five year slices going back to the 1950s. Those listed were friends, classmates, people with lives, loved ones, and accomplishments. When we lose them, we have lost part of our Santa Clara family.
But, we remember them all with joy. When we serve the alumni, we also serve their memory and celebrate their friendship.
Lord, help us to live our lives, celebrating your gifts every day. Help us to develop the gift that is Santa Clara as we find ways to assist our fellow alumni and our current crop of alumni-to-be. Help us to be confident that what we do now helps build the future of our university and its alumni family.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.
Amen.
