I woke up the other day to realize that I had been on the faculty at Notre Dame for thirty years. That was immediately followed by an appreciation of how rich those years have been.
Pilgrimage is as venerable a theme in Christian literature as it is a pillar of Muslim practice.
Fortunately, and notably in the decades succeeding Vatican II, our Catholic perspectives were increasingly enlarged to embrace a world church. We could feel proud to be Catholic, and sought different ways of giving those global realities flesh on our campus and in our curriculum. It is here that our pattern of living in residence halls with students of so many nationalities has come to make a profound educational difference. It seems to have been part of Moreau's ethos, communicated and fostered by Edward Sorin, to assure that faculty members always occupy themselves with some direct pastoral work, alongside their teaching or other ministry at the university. As a result, we have tended to create ever smaller communities with students, where by sharing their living situations, informal mentoring can supplant formal instruction to complete an education in faith.