Every August, new students pour in with a mixture of thrill and anxiety characteristic of newcomers leaving home; returning students are exuberant about reconnecting with their classmates. The year is full of possibilities, the energy infectious, but in April and May students are mentally checking out, focusing mainly upon what’s ahead this summer.
Seniors are more melancholy about graduation than they care to admit, and, even though they are likely to return for visits as alums, it’s sad for me to say goodbye, especially to the RAs that have been on my crew all year. Only mountains of trash are left behind along with an eerie stillness in an abandoned building. Everything comes to a crashing end. In this respect, it’s my least favorite time of the year.
But it mirrors the dynamic of death and resurrection that characterizes this season. A few days before was Good Friday, but yesterday was Easter. We know the end of this school term will lead in just a few months to a new cycle of welcoming, growth, new friendships, and unknowable opportunities.
Our Constitutions declare that “Resurrection for us is a daily event” (VIII.119). Our lives are a series of endings and new beginnings, and time marches only forward no matter how much we might wish to cling to what we have loved. Easter is a reminder that hope is eternal no matter what we have left behind, and whatever has passed pales in comparison with what lies ahead with God, the source of all our hope.
Fr. Jim King, C.S.C.
Published on April 21, 2025
