The Fordham University community celebrated the Feast of St. Ignatius in honor of the founder of the Society of Jesus with Masses at the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses on July 31.
Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, celebrated Mass at the University Church on the Rose Hill campus and Robert Grimes, S.J., dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center, celebrated Mass at Blessed Rupert Mayer, S.J., Chapel in the Lowenstein Center. Both Eucharistic celebrations were followed by receptions.
“We Jesuits consider it the greatest blessing and honor that you are our colleagues in ministry or, more precisely, that we are your colleagues in ministry,” Father McShane told the congregants. “Therefore, this is, in a very special way, your day. This is your feast day. So on behalf of all the Jesuits at Fordham, I wish you a happy feast day. And by the way, if you run into Jesuits today, they will not say hello … . They will say, ‘Happy feast day.’ Please understand that we mean that because this is your feast day.”
The annual Feast of St. Ignatius commemorates the death of the saint on July 31, 1556, in Rome, some 16 years after founding the Society of Jesus. At his death, it said that St. Ignatius implored his followers to find God in all things, and in all things to bring glory to God.
In his homily at the University Church service, Vincent Duminuco, S.J., outgoing rector of Fordham’s Jesuit community, described the turbulent times in which St. Ignatius founded the order and reminded congregants of the saint’s call.
“All of us are strugglers, sinners, prodigies, failures, successes and all the rest,” he said. “That is to say that we are … followers of Jesus. We remain the perpetual students, always conscious of finding God in all things.”
