Leaning In: Praying Peace of Mind and Heart
By Kathy Coffey-Guenther, PhD, Senior Mission and Ignatian Leadership Specialist
These past few days, our Marquette family of students, alumni, parents, faculty and staff have been returning home to campus. For the first time since those scary days of March and the arrival of the pandemic, our campus is once again filled with smiles behind masks, goodbye hugs to parents, long hauls of belongings into dormitories and apartments, and visits around campus. There are new friends to meet, supplies to organize, and new limitations on gatherings and spaces in addition to daily temperature checks to report.
Despite the new rules of engagement necessary due to the Coronavirus, life on our campus continues. Despite students and families arriving from areas of wildfires and drought, shark sightings and impending hurricanes, Covid in the news and Covid in our families - despite all that the past few months has thrown at our Marquette family, here we are!
It makes me think of the statue of Pere Marquette, located in front of the Joan of Arc Chapel on campus.
Like Ignatius, Pere Marquette stands with one foot raised, a reminder that Ignatius wanted his Jesuits to stand ready for the next step, the next call, the next frontier with which to explore and serve the greater Glory of God.
As our Marquette family returns to campus, each one is taking that next step into the unknown, this new territory of living among a dangerous pandemic. Each individual and family discerned carefully when and how they could engage with their academic vocation, in person or online, whether they be faculty or students. Each individual and family carefully discerned the risks and benefits of trusting themselves, trusting the institutional and public health regulations in effect, and trusting the common good that the Marquette community has been called to these days- to sacrifice some for the benefit of all.
I have spoken in the past about an older Jesuit who once remarked on a retreat years ago that “the only thing that we can be sure of is that we are all in tiny boats in big seas.” He went on to remind us that, hopefully, most times, those seas may be still and clear and beautiful, and those times of still seas and clear waters will help to strengthen and prepare us for the times when we are tiny boats in stormy seas. The stormy seas help us to remember that we are not in control and sometimes all we can do is to hang on, trusting that God is with us in the boat, trusting that God is with us in the seas, and trusting that God is holding all with love and tender care.
These past months, no matter where we have been, has been a time of deep challenge, to trust and hang on amidst fear and time and threat and lengthening struggle and discomfort. And yet the call is to hang on, to remember the times of still and clear sailing that will come again, to remember that we aren’t in our boats alone- that God is with us and that we always have companions in the seas with us.
Today we want each of you to remember that our Marquette family is with you. This Marquette family of alumni and students and faculty and staff and parents and friends around the world is with us. Today, we hold up our suffering and discomfort, our fear and confusion, our exhaustion, and we ask God to protect this family, to guide us wisely, to whisper to us and surround us with God’s love and care, to remind us that we are never alone. We ask God to bring the angels on earth and in heaven to help give us what we need this minute, this hour and this day to take the next step and the next breath to be safe and courageous and smart. We ask God to send each of us people of faith to hold us in those moments when we do not feel that our faith or will to believe in the Good is strong enough to hold us in hope. We ask God to hold us and our families in God’s love, that this experience may draw us closer to one another and to our communities. We ask God to help in our grief for what may be lost, and we ask God to help us grow in our imagination for what is to come.
And we give thanks, for the life and love, the inspiration and hope that fills our campus and our hearts this day!
May we lean in. May we share our peace of mind and heart with our blessed Marquette family… with one foot raised.
AMDG!
