June 2007

'We are pilgrims'

So many times was this refrain uttered on the Marianist Educational Associates pilgrimage to the holy Marianist sites. There was the nine-hour bus ride over the Pyrenees with no stops for food or water. There was the French squatter toilet outside St. Front Cathedral in Periguex, France, birthplace of Blessed William Joseph Chaminade. There were 16-hour days full of constant motion and the 4 a.m. wake-up call for the flight back to the States on a day that lasted 30 hours.

As pilgrims, there also was time for reflection on how the holy sites and extraordinary people we were meeting would affect our lives back at UD. This reflection time including morning and evening prayers, when possible, uttered in quiet churches and noisy airports. On the bus back from Zaragoza, Spain, where Chaminade received his inspiration while praying to Our Lady of the Pillar, engineering dean Joseph Saliba led the day's reflection with the Gospel story of the wedding at Cana, with Mary telling the servants, "Do whatever he tells you"; those words became Chaminade's creed.

Saliba also led a layered reading and sharing of Pope John Paul II's prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes, the next stop on the pilgrims' path: "Hail Mary, Woman of sorrows, Mother of the living! Virgin spouse beneath the Cross, the new Eve, Be our guide along the paths of the world."

We have returned home but, on our path to enmesh the Marianist heritage and charism throughout the University, we continue as pilgrims.

by Michelle Tedford 06-29-07

Bordeaux

The pilgrims tripped along the same cobbled streets as the Blessed Father William Chaminade did 200 years previous as they visited in Bordeaux, France, the sites of the early Marianists including the oratory where Chaminade hid priests during the French Revolution and the very first Marianist school. The nondescript building -- unadorned limestone facades with closed shutters -- are now inhabited by other people in other professions.

Brother Tim Phillips, S.M., who translated from French to English the guide for walking in the steps of Father Chaminade, traveled with the UD Marianist Educational Associate pilgrims from Rome to Bordeaux and conducted the tour. While seeing buildings offers a connection to the past, it is other aspects of the trip that will survive in memory longer than limestone.

"It's not the places that are interesting, it's the people. And it's at these places you meet the people," he said.

Friday, those people included Patrice and Ghislaine de Bentzmann, whose very great auntie is Adèle de Batz de Trenquelléon, founder of the Daughters of Mary. The couple welcomed the MEAs to the family home in Feugarolles, France, of Adèle who, as a young girl, gave food to the poor gathered at the planked kitchen door. They greeted the pilgrims with hugs and ushered us into the family chapel for Mass, followed by a tour that included the high-ceilinged bedroom where Adèle was born. Like the sun that suddenly appeared during Mass and transformed a formerly gray day, their hospitality warmed us all the way home.

By Michelle Tedford 06-22-07

Lobster and laughter

"He played a good game."  

Steven Mopsick wasn't talking about Larry Hadley's athleticism on the basketball court, penchance for wind sprints or international reputation as a sports economist known for analyzing America's greatest pastime. ''I was Jewish, liberal, Eastern.   He was the eldest son of an American Baptist minister, a star basketball player in high school, a big, strapping 6' 4'' athlete,'' eulogized Mopsick, Hadley's Rutgers University college roommate, at his best friend's funeral on June 15. ''He was one of the most gentle souls I've ever known. He had deeply religious feelings, but he never judged another."

Hadley, professor emeritus of economics who taught and conducted research at UD for three decades, died in his sleep on his 62nd birthday following an evening of lobster and laughter with family and friends. A debilitating disease robbed him of his physical abilities, but not of his faith or his sense of humor. ''His family leads me to believe, would want you to know, even at his funeral (if he has failed to tell you himself) that he played basketball at Rutgers on the same team with Jimmy Valvano. And listen to Larry's carefully chosen words he was 'once on the same court as Bill Bradley,''' said Father Chris Wittmann, S.M., in a homily.

Just weeks ago, Hadley said, "'Someday I will walk again.' And I suspect Larry would be the first to give credit not to himself, but to the grace and mercy of God which gave him faith, which raised him up, and helped him live such a loving life,'' Wittmann said.

By Teri Rizvi 06-21-07

Peter in seven parts

The bones of St. Peter are not in the box.

Brother Michael John McAward, S.M., assistant to the secretary general of the Marianists at their Rome headquarters, kept the jet-lagged pilgrims moving through St. Peter's Basilica with the story of St. Peter, rock of the church, in seven parts. It began with history as we were entering Vatican City, continued with intrigue at the tomb of St. Peter (the bones are actually four feet to the right of the tomb, which bears the inscription that identifies his resting place), and concluded outside with humor (the archeologist who took the bones home in a shoebox for safe keeping).

McAward for two days acted as tour guide to 11 UD Marianist Educational Associates who, with Father Paul Marshall, S.M., are on a 10-day pilgrimage to see the sites related to Blessed William Joseph Chaminade. Today (Monday), they met with the Daughters of Mary, learning of their founding Mother, Adèle de Batz de Trenquelléon. Tomorrow (Tuesday) the pilgrims travel to Bordeaux, the cradle of the Marianist order.

by Michelle Tedford 06-18-07

Reunion Weekend

Even Rudy Flyer joined the fun with more than 1,500 alumni and guests during Reunion Weekend 2007. Click here to see a slide show of the highlights.

by Michelle Tedford 06-14-07

A constantly magical place

At a June 8 news conference detailing plans for Citirama at UD, Frank Geraci Jr., president of the National Alumni Association, shared some thoughts about UD's student neighborhood.

"For those of us fortunate enough to have lived here, this is a magical place. The University calls this the 'student neighborhood.' Alums and students call it by a different name.
It is not the name, houses or boundaries that define this place, but the Marianist spirit that transcends the ages. The front porches and open doors symbolize a welcome more inviting than any doormat. This neighborhood provides for a network of values and relationships and has supported and affected thousands of students throughout the decades.
Here students gathered to recognize the end of a World War or to protest the Vietnam War. Here students celebrated an NIT or A-10 championship or mourned the loss of life -- from a campus fire or on distant campuses like Kent State or Virginia Tech. Here students huddled together trying to understand the events of September 11th.
Horseshoe games have been replaced by cornhole tournaments. Instead of students huddled around a radio, you may see them working on a laptop or watching a football game on a flat-screen TV.
The constant is that this is a place where people care for each other, learn life's lessons together and then move on to serve their communities. It is a place where people play together or pray together, sharing life's turns as community. Lifelong friendships are created in these homes, and lifelong lessons learned on these streets.
I wonder if John Stuart and those who founded UD -- the priest, the teacher, the gardener and the cook -- could have imagined all this, built on trust and a caring spirit, the soul of UD. Then again, maybe they couldn't imagine anything but this."

by Frank Geraci Jr. ’73 6-8-07

'They don't hand out too many of those’

Oh, those intramural championship T-shirts.
If you played women's intramurals during the last four years at UD, at some point you most likely either played for Pooch's Posse or went up against them. The Posse, whose members graduated last month, played more than 230 games and managed 14 championships in four years.
The summer issue of UDQ, now arriving in mailboxes, takes a look at their last days on campus before moving on to jobs, graduate schools and futures known and unknown.
In this UDQuickly supplement to UDQ, meet some of the Posse members. And, now that they've graduated, get the first-ever inside look at the top secret playbook that helped them win five flag football championships in four years.

by Matthew Dewald 6-5-07

Rudy's ready

How many Milano's turkey subs does it take to make alumni happy? What do 1,500 alumni, 12 golf carts and 75 pounds of coleslaw all have in common? It's all part of a by-the-numbers look at Reunion Weekend, coming up this weekend, June 8-10. It's still not too late for alumni to register, and you don't have to be in a reunion year to come.

Update: As of the afternoon of June 5, 1,803 people have registered to attend Reunion Weekend 2007. This figure includes 1,469 alumni and 334 non-alumni guests. In an internal e-mail message today, Courtney Deutsch ’98, Reunion Weekend coordinator, made a modest prediction: "With the additional registrations we'll get in the next 3 days, combined with all of the walk-ups we'll get, this number is going to blow any old attendance records out of the water."

by Matthew Dewald 6-5-07