Dear Members of the USF Community,
As we experience spring’s glorious arrival, we are approaching the closing weeks of the academic year and planning for commencement ceremonies and celebrations. It is a time of longer days, light, and renewal — and a time of reflection, preparation, and change.
For many in our diverse and inclusive community, faith, prayer, and celebration are a central part of these spring days, marking important religious and cultural holidays. After Ramadan’s month of daily fasting and prayer, Muslims celebrated Eid. Holi brought the Hindu community together. Vaisakhi marks the birth of the Sikh faith and commemorates the traditional harvest festival. Jews are commemorating Passover this week. Members of the Baha’i faith are preparing to celebrate the 12-day festival of Ridván.
In the university’s Catholic tradition, six weeks of Lent — focused on prayer, fasting, and service — precede Good Friday, when Jesus was persecuted, suffered, died, and then rose from the dead. Easter is about light, transformation, and hope triumphing over darkness. This year, the calendars of the Eastern and Western churches align, allowing Christians across the globe the relatively rare opportunity to celebrate on the same day.
“The Wreck of the Deutschland,” a masterful work by Jesuit priest and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89), has been on my mind this Easter. Hopkins’ account of and reflection on the 1875 sinking of a passenger ship that took the lives of five Franciscan nuns who were fleeing persecution and seeking sanctuary in the United States includes these closing lines:
Let him easter in us,
be a dayspring to the dimness of us,
be a crimson-cresseted east.
At a time when there is much uncertainty and worry in our nation and our world, I pray in gratitude and I rejoice in all you do to bring light and hope — “a dayspring to the dimness” — to our beloved community.
Sincerely,
John P. Fitzgibbons, S.J.
Interim President and Chief Mission Officer