Clark: Be disciples with hope

Welcome back to the new year! I want to especially welcome those of you who are first year students as well as our friend and colleague, first year president Fr. Bob Dowd, C.S.C. I pray for all of you that this year will be a year filled with joy, personal growth, healthy relationships, learning and one that draws you closer to your faith.

When Father Sorin and the six brothers who accompanied him stood on the hill overlooking St. Joseph and Mary lakes in 1842, he envisioned a university community that would go on to become one of the greatest forces for good in the world. Indeed, it has, as carried out by Notre Dame since 1842, Saint Mary’s College since 1844 and Holy Cross College since 1966. Knowing what I know about the education and formation you are receiving, whether at Saint Mary’s, Notre Dame or Holy Cross, I can’t help but be hopeful about the future of our country, the Church and the world.

In front of you lies an extraordinary opportunity to be formed as Catholic intellectual scholars for the common good, courageous citizens who place an importance of human flourishing in pursuit of truth and justice, virtuous leaders who possess the disciplines of the mind and heart to pursue excellence and impact, and passionate and hopeful disciples who go into the world as forces for good.

With this opportunity, you also have great responsibility. The most familiar line from Blessed Basil Moreau’s treatise on education, titled “Christian Education,” written in 1857, states that “the mind must not be cultivated at the expense of the heart.” From this mandate, the tri-campus community, in our own unique ways, seeks to form our students in both virtue and scholarship, balancing faith and reason, instruction and education, school and community, virtues and daily living, kindness and truth, justice and peace, and between the human condition and the transcendent.

As you begin this journey, know that you are in my prayers. I look forward to meeting you in person and to walking this journey with you. I also ask that you pray for one another, for your faculty and staff, for the administrators and volunteers, for the donors and benefactors, for your parents and family, for the priests, brothers and sisters of Holy Cross, for the South Bend/Michiana community and for the world. Let us collectively be disciples with hope to bring and continue the legacy as one of the greatest forces for good in the world.

Ave Crux, Spes Unica,