April President’s Pen: “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.”

Apr 22, 2021 | President’s Pen

On May 1 we will hold our annual Founders’ Dinner.  The event will be virtual and last just over 20 minutes – but those minutes are jampacked – we have alumni, students, and others sharing uplifting stories.  Fr. John P. Foley, SJ will also be joining us since 2021 marks the 25th anniversary of the Cristo Rey movement; the silver anniversary of the opening of our sister school, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago – the first of now 37 Cristo Rey schools nationwide and growing.

Appropriately, the theme of the Founders’ Event is “Silver Linings” and it is all about finding bright spots of light and hope during this dark and cloudy pandemic.  Not surprisingly, the bright spots for CRSM are our people.  Tough times bring out the best in some people.  Our Principal Mike Odiotti has been quoting the famous coach, John Wooden who said, “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”  Attitude is such an important factor in our ability to endure, survive and prosper in the face of challenges or disappointments.

I am so proud of how our school – students, faculty, staff, donors, and Corporate Work Study job partners –has collectively responded to the COVID crisis.  They really have embodied the term “Persons for Others,” people who turn outward to be present and assist those around them, rather than turning inward in despair.

In order to have silver linings, there must be clouds.  Darkness makes any light seem even brighter.  Goodness shown in bad times is valued even more, precisely because of its rarity.  Our Campus Minister Jim Dippold has been and continues to be an absolute hero over this last year.  He has shown himself to be one of the silver-est linings amid all the virus fallout, organizing food distribution drives with the Northern Illinois Food Bank and rallying our student volunteers.  The distribution events continue every other week in our parking lot – feeding 1,000 families at a time.  It is both heartbreaking because so many people are in desperate need and heartening because we can do something to help.  Jim sets a wonderful example by staying focused on what we can do rather than what we cannot.

Another area where CRSM is shining is in being able to host vaccine clinics for the greater community.  We are so grateful to all our donors who made our current campus possible.  Without the large parking lot and the beautifully finished inside space of the old Kmart, our efforts to assist would have been greatly curtailed. Over the last couple months we hosted events that allowed 2,500 first-responders, healthcare workers, essential workers, and persons over 65 years to get both doses of the Pfizer vaccine.  Starting just last week and running every weekend until August, we partnered with the Lovell Veterans Hospital and Naval Station Great Lakes to provide enough Moderna vaccines for almost 14,000 veterans and their caregivers, active duty personnel and their families, and base workers to get immunized.

A number of articles have come out recently discussing the mental health traumas that people are experiencing during the lockdown, especially teenagers.  Many CRSM students are expressing feelings of increased depression, heightened anxiety, concern for their families’ health and welfare, and loneliness.  They are not alone.  Our faculty and staff are experiencing much the same.

Being able to make the best of COVID by serving others in need and supplying vaccines to combat the virus are a couple ways we can try to fight off the negative toll of this pandemic.  They are by no means a cure but they help strengthen our mental resilience.

The Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda wrote, “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.”  One of the gospel readings following Easter Sunday recalls how two disciples are walking to the town of Emmaus, completely demoralized after Jesus’ crucifixion and death and disillusioned that this human manifestation of Christ died after promising eternal life.  They meet a man on the road who feigns no knowledge of Jesus.  As the disciples describe Jesus’ life and teachings to the stranger, the fire Jesus sparked in their hearts when he was alive is rekindled.  That evening they invite the stranger to supper and, in the breaking of the bread, they recognize that this stranger is Jesus risen from the dead.  As soon as they recognize him, he disappears from their eyes.  We are those two disciples.  COVID has brought suffering and demoralizes us but in small gestures like food distribution, vaccines events, caring for one another, we have the opportunity to recognize God at work through us, in us, and with us.  In those brief moments, we are invited to rise above the suffering and remember that we belong to one another.

Yes, many flowers have been cut and, yes, many clouds still hover over us; but spring is coming, COVID can’t stop it; there are silver linings to be found; and God is with us even at this very moment – inviting us to reveal him to others in small gestures of love.   God bless you and yours during this wonderful season of hope and thank you for supporting CRSM.  ¡Viva Cristo Rey!