As the last few students and St. Joe’s community members gathered into the Chapel of St. Joseph, it was almost perfectly silent. All that could be heard was the consistent drip of water from the baptism font and the occasional turn of a page from pamphlets that were handed out to
each person that entered.
Then the blare of a shofar, an ancient musical horn, initiated the Jewish call to prayer. This signaled the beginning of SJU Prays: Inter-Faith Blessings For The New Year, which occurred on the morning of Jan. 23.
This year’s theme was “co-creating a hope-filled future.” After two more calls to prayer, one from the Islam faith and the other from the Christian faith, Teena Simon ’20 and Miguel Gonzales ’21, who guided the service, walked up to the pulpit together, addressing the crowd.
“We gather as a community of many traditions and expressions of faith to consider the power of hope within and beyond our community,” Gonzales told the crowd.
Six different faiths were represented at the service: Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and the Bahá’í faith.
Daniel Joyce ’88, S.J., executive director of Mission Programs, attended the service. He said the idea of hope is connected with all of these faiths.
“Most of the major world religions have a concept of hope and emphasize this virtue as connected to the divine,” Joyce said. Jenna Mangold ’20, who sat close to the front row, said that gathering different cultures with the overarching theme of hope is exceptional because it allows people to see other forms of worship.
“It lets us see how we’re all looking for the same thing through faith,” Mangold said.
Mangold also said that understanding each other is critical in order to break stereotypes, and an interfaith service is a good place to start.
“It’s important to understand the differences so that we have an understanding of the similarities that are underlying,” Mangold said. “When we are together in one universal space, we can understand the differences and get past them.”
Joyce had a similar mindset. He said the Jesuit mission requires St. Joe’s to engage in dialogue with world religions.
“Since 1540, the Jesuits have placed a priority on understanding different cultures and the many different religious beliefs that are a part of these cultures,” Joyce said.
Claire Fitzgerald ’21, who also attended the service, said the event was a good way to provide an inclusive space.
“As a Jesuit institution, we proclaim that inclusion and diversity are at our core,” Fitzgerald said. “There are many ways of going about that, but including different religions and battling different stereotypes allows us to see the similarities between us.”
Fitzgerald also mentioned she doesn’t regularly think about diversity of religion can be better understood and seen on campus through interfaith worship.
“I think I knew that there is diversity of religions at St. Joe’s but it’s something that I don’t think about on a daily basis,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s nice to have this serve as a reminder and show me that there is a lot more diversity on campus than I tend to think about.”
Toward the end of the service, Rev. Violet Cucciniello Little ’74, a pastor and developer of The Welcome Church, spoke at the pulpit. She closed her speech with words relating directly to hope.
“There will not be good in all things,” Little said. “Racism is not good. Homophobia is not good. Cancer is not good. The list can go on and on. You will not find good in all things, but still, there will be hope in all things.”
Editor’s note: The name of a source interviewed for this story was anonymized to protect them from online harassment.
