Est. 1853
ALL CAMPUS LITURGY ADDRESS Most Rev. Bishop Mark L. Bartchak Bishop of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown
Sept. 21, 2017 — Athletic Convocation & Wellness Center
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REMARKS OF MOST REV. BISHOP MARK L. BARTCHAK
Bishop of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown
Good afternoon everyone. It’s a joy and an honor to be here at Mount Aloysius and to celebrate this Mass with you. I always have fond memories of coming into this building because I had the privilege of blessing this fine facility before its grand opening. You know if I would have credits at the bottom of the screen as disclaimers where the sources for my material come from, in case you’re interested before you fall asleep, my homily is borrowed from some insights from Dr. Foley and a three-year-old — I gave you first credit, President Foley — and many, many young people, about your age and circumstances. I’m sure most of you are aware of the tragedy of the opioid crisis across our country today and it is even hitting hard in small towns in this part of Central Pennsylvania. It’s affecting people of every economic and social class.
Among the consequences of addiction to this type of drug is that persons from good families and with all the opportunities that one could want, including a college education, a good job, a nice house, etc., have lost everything they had in order to buy more drugs. I read of the tragic experience of young women, your age, who became prostitutes in order to make money for their drug habit. When some of these young women made it to rehab, they were asked, “Is there anything you needed most and couldn’t get?” With sadness and tears, they all gave the same response consistently, “What I needed most was someone to listen to me. Someone who cared enough to listen to me.” You might be wondering why I started with this illustration. Before I explain that, I want you to know that I hope that you will listen to me for just a few minutes.
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Notice that I didn’t say, “You must listen to me.” That would be presumptuous and maybe even arrogant. Also, the truth is, I prefer to engage people by listening to them. I absolutely value the common wish of those young women who said at the beginning of drug rehab, “I wish someone would’ve just listened to me.” They needed someone who cared enough to listen to them. I was visiting a young married couple recently at their home. They have a three-year-old daughter and are expecting another child in about six months. These parents are attentive to their daughter. I have seen them in action one on one with her or together when they read her stories, play a game with her, and when they respond to her questions. During my recent visit, the parents and I were having a conversation. The daughter asked her mother a question; not in any rude way, but in the needy way that a threeyear-old would ask. The mother kept her eyes on me while she responded to her daughter.
but her words were strong and clear. She was verbalizing the need of every human person; not just young women addicted to drugs and caught up in prostitution, and not just three-year-olds who depend on their parents. She was verbalizing the need of every person to be listened to; to be acknowledged for their Godgiven human dignity, regardless of whether they are unaware of it or they struggle with embracing their own God-given human dignity. I am aware, from Dr. Foley, that the theme on campus this year is Authentic Discourse. And I am aware that discourse —in an academic sense — focuses on the formal and orderly and often extended expression of thoughts and ideas on a subject. In a more familiar way, discourse may be understood as the exchange of ideas, opinions, and even feelings in a conversation between two or more persons. In both formal and informal discourse, listening is as important, if not more important, as speaking.
The daughter was not satisfied with her mom’s response, so she placed her hands on her mother’s cheeks, looked her right in the eye and said, “Mom! You need to listen to my words!”
To be authentic, the discourse needs something that young adults like you often tell me. It needs the truth. You want the truth. And you often tell me that you can tell when someone is not speaking the truth, even when that truth is not something exactly that you want to accept.
The three-year-old didn’t shout,
It does not matter if you or I
might disagree on some issue, but if the willingness to speak the truth and search for the truth is missing from a conversation, young people often tell me it’s the one thing that will turn off your participation in any discourse. It will bring the conversation to an end. Why is the truth so important? In order to answer that, let me go to the Gospel reading we just heard. Two discourses take place in this Gospel reading. The first one is simple, direct, and it has an immediate effect. Jesus walks up to a man named Matthew who was doing his job as a tax collector and speaks to him. You need to know that for the Pharisees and other religious elite of that time, Matthew was as morally depraved as a prostitute or
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drug addict. Matthew was Jewish, but he worked for the enemy. He worked for the Roman government that had occupied the land of the Jewish people, a land that was given to them by God. Matthew collected taxes that paid for the Roman occupation.
Jesus knew all that. Yet, he did not condemn Matthew. Instead he called Matthew to become his follower. The Gospel reading only used two words: “Follow me.”
sinfulness. He spoke with them and listened to them. Jesus treated them like human persons who are made in the image and likeness of God.
Matthew did get up and follow Jesus.
Then the anti-truth crowd showed up. The same people who would have complained about Jesus interacting with Matthew, now started to criticize Jesus for spending time with such unsavory people.
Now for the second discourse.
That’s not all. It was fairly common for a tax collector in Matthew’s position to add on a surcharge to the Roman customs tax. That additional money would go in his pocket.
The next thing that happens is that Jesus got invited to Matthew’s house for dinner. And it says in the Gospel reading that other tax collectors and sinners were there as well.
So basically, Matthew was an enemy sympathizer, which is like being a traitor against his own people. And Matthew was a thief. It’s bad enough that the Jewish people had to pay the Roman tax, but he was skimming a little extra for himself at the expense of his own people.
The tax collectors and other sinners ate with Jesus and his disciples. And something else went on. They talked with each other. And there is clear evidence that their discourse was authentic. The truth was out on the table that they were notoriously bad people. But Jesus went beyond their
They entered the discourse at that table in a manner that was not authentic in word or in action. They crashed the party, so to speak, because they wanted to discredit Jesus in the eyes of his followers by pointing out that he eats with tax collectors and sinners. The Lord Jesus was aware of what they were up to when he said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.” Jesus was not denying the fact that the tax collectors and other sinners, which included people like prostitutes, engaged in behaviors that are inconsistent with their God-given human dignity. Instead of focusing on their sinfulness, Jesus focused on the person. Jesus tells them, and he tells us, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Then Jesus informs the Pharisees how they need to go and discover this truth. Jesus tells them, “Go and learn the meaning of the words, I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
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When he says, “Go and learn the meaning of the words,” Jesus is talking about searching for the truth. And the truth about God, being exchanged in this discourse, is that God desires mercy. Mercy is a charisma that illustrates this higher education institute.
Imagine that. The truth is that Jesus came intentionally to meet and talk and have dinner with tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners. He came to show — by his words and actions — that He comes seeking the truth by listening to the stories of the people whose lives are not where they should be.
It reminds me what Pope Francis has said about this. He said, “God Even though you have been has a name and his name is mercy.” listening to me do all the talking for the past few minutes, there is This mercy which is what the one more important truth that I Lord Jesus desires more than any need to share with you. This whole sacrifice, is best understood in time, and in fact every moment of the definition given by Father your life, the Lord Jesus has been James Keenan. He is a Jesuit priest and continues to listen to you and who teaches Theology at Boston to every person as we seek the College. truth. Father Keenan says that mercy is the willingness to enter into the chaos, the messiest part, of another person’s life.
And remember that Jesus listens with the most merciful ears. The ultimate sign of the Authentic Discourse that we are invited to have with the Lord Jesus is
found in His death on the cross at Calvary. He laid down His life so that you and I may have eternal life. And as a sign of the continuing effect of His gift of salvation, Jesus continues to guide us with the truth that is contained in the Sacred Scriptures. And He feeds us with his own body and blood in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. The Lord Jesus is always truthful, always authentic, always speaking, and always listening to us, every one of us. He would love to hear you say, like that little three-year-old girl, “Lord, you need to listen to my words.” He will. And the Lord Jesus is even better at listening to your heart.
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this is the first one he’d ever had one addressed “To God.” He decided to open it and found the following — “Dear God, as you know this has been a particularly tough year and we are not able to get any gifts for our son Jimmy. If you could see the way to sending us $10 that should be more than enough to ensure a happy Christmas for Jimmy. Thank you.” And it was signed. The postman was so moved by this letter that he took out another envelope and wrote “From God” on it and took all the money that he had in his wallet — which was six dollars — and put it in the envelope and stuck it in the mailbox.
REMARKS OF THOMAS P. FOLEY President of Mount Aloysius College
You can imagine the next day how excited he was to see if there would be any response. He opened the box and sure enough there was a letter to God and in the letter it said “Dear God, thank you so much for listening to our plea and reaching out to help us. Though I know I asked for $10 I want you to know there was only six in the envelope. And I know exactly where the other four dollars went, those son-of-a-guns at the Post Office.”
It is my assignment in these last five minutes to tell just a little of the story of the Sisters of Mercy, who never stop First, let us thank this choir. They sounded pretty good for putting metaphorical dollars into our envelopes—and who a group that had exactly 20 minutes to practice with Music brought us to this very place today. Let me start with a Director Nancy Way!! We thank you, Nancy. Thank you to few words about their biggest fan, Pope Francis, who has our instrumental musicians and of course many thanks to our choir. Special thanks to our Executive Director for Mission Integration and Community Engagement Christina Koren and Amy and the rest of her team for organizing a terrific week of Mercy-related activities, with focus on a different founding Sister of Mercy each day!! Second, today’s reading mentions many gifts — gifts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience—all gifts central to our appreciation of authenticity — and the Gospel was the ultimate story of reaching out across the aisle to the other — the parable of the tax collector. I want to spend a few minutes focused on these gifts of mercy, service and voice represented in these readings and brought to this College by the Sisters of Mercy. But before we get there, just a quick story. A postal worker comes across a letter that is addressed to God. He was fairly used to getting letters addressed to Santa Claus but
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turned the word Mercy into a verb with his frequent references to Mercy-ing as a way of life. Two years ago, I was part of a national conversation among Catholic college presidents on the impact of Pope Francis on our campuses and our students. Some presidents pointed to specific quotations from the Pope, including, “shepherds should smell like the sheep” and, “our shoes should have dust on them.” Now I thought that those were some pretty funny lines—smelling like sheep. Next thing I will be feeding the cows over at Valewood Farms!! But the import of these lines is clear — leaders need to be out amongst their people if they are truly going to be leading (and that means if you are a shepherd, you ought to smell like your flock). I am not sure what I should smell like if you all are my flock, but I will settle for the notion that sometimes we need to travel “unpaved” roads—get a little dust on our shoes — to fulfill our missions.
I think those lines have real meaning here for Mount Aloysius as an institution, those words are central to the Mercy experience as these Sisters have lived it on our campus and I think these words have personal meaning for many of our faculty and staff. Mount Aloysius provides unique opportunities for a diverse array of students and in our own way I think, if we don’t exactly “smell like sheep,” we are at least getting “dust on our shoes.” In the Presentation of the Gifts, we sang and prayed for those who have a longing in their hearts, for those who want justice and suffer hate, for those who need courage and fear weakness, for those who seek light out of darkness, for those who feel sorrow and seek peace. In the prayer after the gospel, we thought about all those caught in the crossfire of conflicts around the world; for all those who suffer the devastation of natural disaster and we prayed for all at home here on our campus. We prayed that we might embrace the spirit of the words from another gospel, this one from
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and further afield. And in all of this, we seek to imitate the example of the Mercys. You know, there are almost 9,000 Sisters of Mercy in the world today, serving in 47 countries, in over 1000 cities and towns and villages across the globe, in places like Guyana and Guatemala, Panama and Peru, Chile and China, Uganda and the United States, and of course where it all started on Baggot Street in Dublin, Ireland. In the Americas alone, there are 2900 Sisters of Mercy, another 3,000+ Mercy Associates and over almost a thousand Mercy Volunteer corps alums who live out the gospel. The Sisters of Mercy do that by founding and operating almost 100 schools from Australia to Belize and from Ireland to the United States, including our own College—and 16 others like it in this country. Matthew, whose words are very simple, very emphatic and very Pope Francis— “Whatever you do for one of these least brothers of mine, you do for me.” You all know these words. I’m not sure there are more powerful words anywhere in the gospel. “Whatever you do for the least of my brothers or sisters, you do for me.” Kindness is truly the universal language. Kindness is also the language of the founders of this institution, and at the very core of their, and our, mission. Mercy and justice, service and hospitality—they frame the lifework of the Sisters of Mercy and they are the core values in our own Mission Statement. We are in the midst of Mercy Week on our campus, when we celebrate the history and emulate the accomplishments of an incredible group of women. They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery, and all week, we have been honoring the accomplishments of the Sisters of Mercy by trying to imitate them. At Mount Aloysius, we celebrate the extraordinary commitment of these remarkable women by performing acts of service on our campus and in our community, as part of our Connections classes, on our sports teams, in our clubs and organizations. Last year, our students volunteered over 23,000 hours of service, worked on over 500 different volunteer projects and helped out over 400 different non-profit organizations in our community,
They also live out today’s gospel by founding and operating more than 50 full service health care systems, more than 60 homeless shelters and orphanages, and dozens of long term care facilities and other social service networks that tend to the needs of the “least” of my brothers and sisters. These modern day angels of
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more than 150 years ago. More than two thirds of those spent some part of their ministry with us on these grounds, and many others as well. And we have had over 500 students receive Mercy Service Grants at Mount Aloysius, and 269 of our students have won Mercy Presidential Scholarships, 32 of whom are in the audience today. It is a remarkable body of work that deserves our praise, our adulation, our emulation. Sister Guiseppe DaBella, Sister Benedict Joseph Watters, Sister Eric Marie Setlock — would you please stand. Sisters, we thank you for showing all of us how to get dust on our shoes, and maybe once in a while, as Pope Francis says, to smell like sheep. Thank you.
mercy and justice, of service and hospitality perform corporal works of mercy on behalf of the poor, the uneducated, the afflicted and the desperate. Science tells us that you can live for about 40 days without food, that you can live for about three days without water and that you can live for about eight minutes without air. But is very hard to live even one second without hope, and these extraordinary women who took up the cloth of Sister Catherine McAuley over 180 years ago have made it their business — their life’s work — to bring hope, now in 47 countries around the world, in 44 states here at home, in over 500 cities and towns in America. We in this College are among the most fortunate beneficiaries of these extraordinary examples of how to “live a life”—for the “least of my brothers.” Two hundred and two women have entered the Sisters of Mercy since the community in Cresson was founded
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Mount Aloysius College — Since 1853 Founded in 1853 by Sisters of Mercy from Dublin, Ireland, Mount Aloysius College is an accredited, comprehensive, degree-granting institution offering Associate, Baccalaureate, and select Graduate Programs where women and men of diverse cultural, educational, and religious backgrounds optimize their aptitudes and acquire skills for meaningful careers. Mount Aloysius graduates are job ready, technology ready, and community ready.
Mount Aloysius College is located on a beautiful 193-acre campus in Cresson, nestled in the scenic Southern Allegheny Mountains of west-central Pennsylvania. Convenient and accessible from U.S. Route 22; the College’s setting is rural but within easy access from State College, Altoona, Johnstown and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Mount Aloysius has earned accolades as a Best Value College, a College of Distinction, a Catholic College of Distinction, and a Military Friendly Institution. The College’s Nursing Division is ranked sixth among Pennsylvania’s largest and most prestigious nursing programs. The College is accredited by Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the Conference for Mercy Higher Education, and by 12 separate profession-specific accreditation bodies.
Four Traditions
Mercy Tradition
Catholic Tradition
We cherish and revere the charism and example of the Sisters of Mercy, our founders and inspiration. We make concrete the Mercy Values — mercy in all relationships among students, faculty, staff, and administration, justice in all our endeavors, with hospitality and service to all at Mount Aloysius and in the larger community in which we live. In pursuit of these values, our faculty and staff personally engage, care for, and mentor each student. In practice as well as in word, we help all our students — including those facing significant challenges — to pursue their objectives.
surmount economic and educational hurdles that inhibit their aspirations for productive and fulfilling professions. To this end, we recognize that responsibility is shared across the Mount Aloysius community. Our faculty acknowledge and promote the truth that learning for career and for life takes place both in and outside classroom settings. Our staff give daily support to students, enhancing the process that brings them to their graduation day. We require service of our students so that they will recognize that educational attainment and self-giving are inseparable components of the good life. We rejoice in the assistance and loyalty of trustees, alumni, and the larger community who contribute in multiple ways to our mission, modeling the conviction that fulfillment ensues as a result of generous living.
We affirm and embrace the Catholic heritage of higher education, seeking knowledge, and communicating truth from its manifold sources, and welcome people of all faiths. (60% of the student body comes from other traditions.)
Liberal Arts Tradition We challenge and empower students in all programs to attain the goals of a liberal arts education — character development, critical thinking, communication skills, a passion for continual learning — and to become responsible, contributing citizens.
Mount Aloysius Tradition We honor and sustain the Mount Aloysius legacy of being an “engine of opportunity” for all students, helping them