OLLU celebrates Spirit Day on Wednesday, joining hundreds of other Catholic universities across the world that begin their academic years with the celebration of a Mass of the Holy Spirit.
What is Spirit Day?
The tradition’s roots extend to the mid-16th century when Jesuit educational communities gathered in Mass to anchor the year ahead in the recognition that the work of faith and intellect are inherently intertwined. Both require one to cultivate the regular habit of making themselves available to how the Spirit is calling them to live in the service of creation.
Catholic universities across the centuries and in different cultural contexts have placed their own stamp on this tradition. Yet, the need to listen to and to discern the vitality of the Spirit in people’s remains as imperative as ever if they are to affirm their deepest humanity by fostering what Pope Francis has called a “culture of care,” or the genuine realization of their own interconnectedness with all of creation.
In short, Spirit Day is a time to ask for the Holy Spirit’s blessing and a reminder of everyone’s call to bless the Holy Spirit with their lives.
This year, OLLU’s 125th anniversary provides a particularly distinct moment for this work. It moves the community to prayerful reflection on how OLLU’s heritage of Providence spirituality gifted by its founding Congregation, the Sisters of Divine Providence, has guided the university’s history. At the same time, it invites the community to rededicate themselves to a life of trust in the plenitude of Providence revealed in the creative and imaginative life force of the Spirit.
As such, Spirit Day’s Mass of the Holy Spirit is also a time in which OLLU can pause as an institution to honor and to give thanks to those who have served the OLLU community for 10 years or more. This year’s 18 faculty and staff honorees have tenures at OLLU ranging from 10 to 40 years, with a total of 365 years.
The university community’s three physical campuses, online students, alumni, family and friends are therefore all invited to tune into this year’s Mass and recognition of honorees through University Ministry’s Facebook page, at https://www.facebook.com/ollu.ministry, beginning at 11 a.m. on Wednesday.
The community is invited to stay tuned to University Ministry’s Facebook page for “The Spirit of OLLU” series, in which some of the 2020 service award honorees disclose what in their time at OLLU captures the spirit of OLLU for them.