Easter Sunday, 2018

Fellow Pumas!

Christ is Risen, Alleluia!  This is the message the Christian world celebrates on this most special day.  It is a day that inspires hope and new life.

As I write this from the Student Residential Apartments where Br. Rob Reuter, Br. Tim Hemm, and I live, I stand outside and observe our beautiful campus.  I can´t help but feeling as though I was still locked in Holy Saturday.  We have gone through the death of the SJC that we all knew and loved…and are still waiting for the resurrection to occur.

I also mourn the empty campus, the lack of students, the rush and excitement of everyday activities.  The uncertainties about the future.

Yet, at the same time, I stand in trust and in the conviction that there will be a future for us.

We will be able to overcome the obstacles and challenges of today as we work towards a future.  As was the case on that first Easter morn, Mary of Magdala and the disciples found the empty tomb.  But still no sign of Jesus.  The angel assured them that He had risen and that He went before them into Galilee.  There they would find him.

My fellow Pumas, we do not yet know what the future will look like.  Whatever it is, it will not look exactly like the SJC that we knew.  However, the Puma Spirit will live on.  The Puma Spirit is rooted in those ongoing relationships forged with fellow students, with profs and staff at the college.  The experience of our renowned Core program will live on in each one of us.  It doesn´t really matter that much what the container will look like, it is the Puma Spirit which matters and which will be embodied in the new creation which will inspire future generations.

A true Puma will take up our Puma past and—rather than use it for nostalgia or reproduction of the past—project it into vibrant new ways for the Puma to live and to be.  Every Puma is needed.  As we mourn a past that cannot return, we are grateful for what we lived and experienced.  At the same time, we look forward to an exciting future, yet to reveal itself.  Let us join our forces to make that hope a reality.  As Pope Francis is fond of saying, “we need roots, because without roots we don´t know where we come from, but we also need wings so as to create that future we all await.”

We invoke our Saints to guide and protect us:  St. Gaspar, Founder of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, St. Joseph, our Patron, and St. Katherine Drexel who reached out to the underserved in her time,  Pray for us!

Easter Joy and Hope!

Fr. Barry Fischer, C.PP.S.

Rector and Puma Forever