Tag Archives: Pilgrimage

Why We Minister: John Zack

July 2018, , ,

John Zack, University Sacristan

“What do you do at Notre Dame?”  This is the question I am asked the most when people find out I work at Notre Dame. I would try to explain to them what I do, but every explanation that I would come up with was lacking. I would list my duties, and try to explain what they entailed but this was met with puzzled looks and many, many follow up questions.  I’ve tried over the years to simplify my answer as best I could, sometimes just giving the definition of a sacristan right out of the Merriam – Webster dictionary, “a person in charge of the sacristy and ceremonial equipment.”  This approach didn’t work and nothing I could come up with seemed to adequately describe what I do at Notre Dame.

Even now, after thirty-one years of being a sacristan at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, I still think about how to explain my job to someone. I’ve begun to think about a different point of view to explain what I do, a personal point of view.  Not just the description on a job posting. What do I think I do at Notre Dame?  How do I answer this question when asked of myself?

University Sacristan John Zack lights the Paschal Candle in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

I unknowingly began to answer this question for myself three years ago while on a pilgrimage to France.  Throughout the pilgrimage, we visited churches large and small from LeMans to Paris. A few of the churches we visited were in small, out of the way villages, farming communities.  At these small village churches, we were warmly greeted and welcomed by the parishioners.  We would visit the church, have Mass with the parishioners and then there would be a reception for us in a parish building, or sometimes in the church itself. Food and drink were offered to us, even though they had never met us.  There was very little in the way of verbal communication, they spoke no English and the majority of us spoke little no French, but we did communicate.  A smile, a handshake, a polite nod towards the food and drinks, the raising of a glass in thanks and the return acknowledgment.   We didn’t have much in common except our mutual faith.

After I returned home from the pilgrimage to France, I saw my work at the Basilica in a new and different way. Besides focusing on the day to day tasks and whatever special service we were having in the Basilica, I started to think about the people coming into the Basilica. I remember how good it made me feel to be welcomed into a strange place.   How at home I felt in a foreign place from just a handshake and a smile.  Most of the people I see coming into the Basilica are visitors, pilgrims, just like I was in France.  My work at the Basilica is a welcoming to these people.  The worshipers, the visitors, the pilgrims, everyone should be welcomed and feel welcomed in God’s house. 

As I go about my work at the Basilica, I really do enjoy the thought that most of the people I see every day are new to the Basilica and the University.  I have the opportunity to impact their visit to the Basilica and the University, for the good.

The Tomb: Where Jesus isn’t.

March 2017, , , , , , , ,

Erica Pereira, Anchor Senior Intern

This spring break, I was lucky enough to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land with Campus Ministry. I was so excited for this trip because we were going to the place where Jesus was! Where he ate, walked, talked, died and rose. I went to the Holy Land expecting to grow in intimacy with Jesus. I certainly did, but not in the way that I expected.

At the end of our trip, we had the opportunity to participate in an all-night Vigil at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The Holy Sepulcher is the church that contains both Calvary and the stone where Jesus was laid and rose. We celebrated Mass in preparation for our vigil and the priest helping to lead our pilgrimage reminded us in his homily that at the Holy Sepulcher we would be visiting the place where Jesus isn’t. I sat there for a minute to try and really understand these words. But wait; didn’t I fly thousands of miles to be closer to Jesus? To be in the place where he was?

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher / David Swenson

Once we arrived at the Holy Sepulcher, my friend Marissa and I decided to wait in line to see if we could enter the tomb. As we inched closer and closer to the small and low entrance to the tomb, my heart began to race as I approached the place where Jesus isn’t. We entered the small, dark space, and we were with the stone where Jesus was laid. Then I deeply understood. He isn’t here. He is alive! My heart was like fire burning within me as I was filled with the joy of the Resurrection. Seeing the empty tomb made the Resurrection even more of a reality, and my joy overflowed. I could hear the angels saying, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen!” (Luke 24:5).

I came to the Holy Land thinking that I would be moved by seeing the places that Jesus was and is. But the place that most struck me was where he isn’t: the empty tomb.

The Tomb / David Swenson

Since I saw where Jesus is not, I have a desire to see where he is. Throughout my pilgrimage, I continuously saw and continue to see where Jesus is. Jesus is in the multitudes of people that passed by us in the busy streets of Jerusalem. Jesus is in my fellow pilgrims who prayed alongside me. Jesus was in every Eucharist that I ate and every Blessed Sacrament chapel that I encountered. And he is there because of the empty tomb, because of the Resurrection.

I don’t have to go to the Holy Land to encounter Christ. I am already where he is: in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and among his people. At Mass, I receive the living Christ and he is alive in me. The life of each individual is witness to the Resurrection. We are to live as Christ lived: not in the tomb, but alive in him.

Come Holy Spirit

October 2016, , , ,

Kate Morgan, Associate Director of Communications, Office of Campus Ministry

On the seventh day of our nine-day pilgrimage to France, I had hit a wall. I was physically and emotionally drained and ready to make the journey home to my husband and my four-year-old son. I had nothing left to give. I was void of sympathy for anyone other than myself, including the students I was chaperoning, and unappreciative toward the beauty of the place we were visiting. I was done. Just done.

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The Holy Cross priest who was tasked with meeting us in LeMans had the flu and was unable to join us, and I, as a communications professional and first-time traveler to France, felt ill equipped to provide the guidance and pastoral care our students likely needed. With too many road blocks to navigate, I decided no longer to bother. There was no point. In my mind, it was time to go home.

I lagged behind the first part of the day, fussing and willing it to end. I slept on the bus on the way to Ahuille, the hometown of Fr. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., and sulked into the church, built on the site where our University’s founder had been baptized. Since our priest was ill and unable to join us, we were forced to cancel Mass. In an effort to make our time as prayerful as possible, our seminarian, Cathal Kelleher, C.S.C., asked each of us to share a prayer, hymn, song or other reflection that we used in our own lives to better connect with God. I went first and read from the book of James:

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith, but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food? If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’ Show me your faith without deeds and I will show you my faith by my deeds.”

I love this passage. In fact, I keep a copy of it on the bulletin board in my office above my computer. In my day-to-day life as a Campus Ministry communications specialist, I’m not as interruptible as I should be, so I like to look up and read it when I’m working and someone comes in my office to chat. It reminds me to put down what I’m doing and make time for the people who need me.

Reading James aloud to my fellow pilgrims reminded me that I was not in fact living out my faith through my deeds. I was doing the day all wrong.

I sat in the pew and thought about what I could do to make the day right. In that moment, it was to listen to the students; it was to give them my time.

One by one, each of the 20 students walked to the front of the church to share their prayers. They sang, they talked, they rapped, they read, they shared intimate stories and they brought with them the Holy Spirit. It was palpable. So infectious, in fact, that three French parishioners who were in the church (who didn’t speak any English), asked if they could sing their own song to give thanks to Our Lady.

Since then, I’ve tried to imagine a time when I felt as full with the Holy Spirit as I had in that moment. I cannot. Not when my son was baptized. Not at any Mass. Not in Rome. Not at the Grotto. Not even in Dublin on Palm Sunday when a church full of Irish children read the Passion of Christ. Not any time. Not anywhere.

Tears streamed down my face then just as they do now as I attempt to recount this moment. It was then I understood the true purpose of a pilgrimage: to encounter God during our most difficult, uncomfortable, unfamiliar times. It’s to see him through the things that go wrong. It’s to feel him when we feel hopeless and alone. It’s to rely upon one another for support, courage and strength. It’s to be together in prayer, and to share what makes our inner love lights shine.

I saw God in myself that day, as well as in my colleagues and in our bold, brave, beautiful students. I understood what it means to let go and let the Holy Spirit carry you through, and I witnessed what it means to have and to SHOW faith.

God is with us when it’s ugly; when WE’RE ugly. He manifests himself inside us and inside those who give us strength. The students didn’t need me nearly as much as I needed them that day and God knew it. They broke down my wall and showed me their faith through their deeds. I’m forever grateful to them for their openness and their willingness to share themselves with me. The Holy Spirit was with us all that day just as he’s with us every day. And through him, we all became true pilgrims, and I became a better version of myself.

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