Sunday Night Lights

By Mark Piper

Sunday nights can be a drag at any campus. They hardly seem like a weekend, with Monday morning and classes looming only hours away and with all the catching up on reading and studying to make up for Friday and Saturday’s procastination.

Despite all that work that has to be done by Monday, many students still find the time to go to the weekly student mass at McDonough Chapel at 8 p.m. This past Sunday, the chapel was overflowing with students and community members as it was the blessing of the spring athletes.

As I near the end of my four years here at SXU, the student mass is one of the things that has changed the most.

The student choir has grown from a few singers to about a dozen students accompanied by drummers, trumpeters and violinists. The number of students who attend mass and participate in ministries has gone up, as has overall student satisfaction. And this past Sunday, for the first time, there was a blessing of the spring athletes for men’s and women’s basketball, track/cross-country, men’s volleyball, baseball, soccer, other athletes and coaches..

Some things have stayed the same too. SXU’s resident Padre-in-Chief (Father Bob Barry, O.P.) continues to give his well-rehearsed and well-intentioned homilies. Almost as important as the homily is the hospitality after mass, where dozens of students stay to eat some treats and catch up with people they probably won’t see until they take their exam on Wednesday, or go to practice on Thursday.

If you ever want to know what’s going on at Saint Xavier for the coming week, you’ll find most everything in the student announcements and in the bulletin. From student organizations to retreats to spiritual activities and a plethora of other goings-ons at SXU, you can just see how busy and involved people are that you see in the caf or library.

Despite last Sunday’s slightly-longer than usual mass, Sunday nights at 8 p.m. in McDonough Chapel serve a great need for the SXU student community; even if it is just as simple as taking a break from an evening of study, or praying that the Cougars may be victorious.

Mark Piper is a senior political science major with a minor in pastoral ministry. He is from Stoughton, WI and is president of the Student Government Association. Consideration for the student bloggers is provided by Saint Xavier University.