Message for October 12th

Every year the HLS law students and lawyers meet for the “Red Mass” and brunch with the Cardinal. He is at the Synod, so we had the presence of Bishop Mark O’Connell with a rousing homily. Of the c. 50 law students there, we had 32 I’m told, a great reflection on the energy and with of our CSA officers!

Harvard’s new president is a familiar and welcome face, formerly Dean of the Faculty, Prof. Claudine Gay. Sadly her dear mother died just as she was named president. It seemed to me so very sad, amidst the joy. I had let her office know that we would offer Mass for her mother and for her, and we did so - most recently on the morning of her own inauguration here…and there she was at our 8:00am daily Mass, on the busiest day of her life, honoring her dear mother! We prayed for all our mothers as well - as we always do, including all of your intentions (…even if you’re visiting Yale…which seems very wrong.)

The night before her inauguration as Harvard’s 30th president, the whole campus was invited to an arts performance in Sanders Theatre and then a great reception in Annenberg Hall. As you can see, I’d a chance to thank the 29th for his service: indeed, Larry and Adele Bacow each got COVID several times.

He also provided us a painful and invaluable education for our consciences by the jarring presence of a railroad boxcar in Harvard Yard, just in front of the steps of the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library. The explanatory panels shared the chilling details of Jews being jammed into them by the Nazi’s, only able to stand up during a trip of many days, no facilities supplied. The details came home even more frighteningly with stark facts that President Bacon’s own dear mother had been subjected to just this very torture twice!

Such injustices and indeed massacres are not of other ages only. Let us end them and protect against them in our own!

God Help You in Discerning the Signs of the Times, as one must.

Father George