 Good morning. Welcome to this mass continuing the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. A very warm welcome to our regulars who have been attending the mass streamed from the Jesuit Chapel for these past few months. And a very special welcome to our graduates of Fairfield University this year. Both undergraduate graduates and graduate graduates. You regulars to this mass notice we are in a different venue. We stream regularly from the Jesuit Chapel but with the significant increase in participants with our graduates we needed to move from our small chapel where you were not physically present to this larger space to accommodate a larger number of attendees who are also not present. The technology demanded that we have more space. This mass is streamed to you organized by Father Michael Tony the superior of the Jesuit community and Father Paul Rook the director of campus ministry. I am Father Tom Fitzpatrick and I'm assisted by Father Michael Doody and Brother Jonathan Stott. Again a very special welcome to all our graduates. This would be the day of your graduating ceremony. There are decisions being made for an alternative date for graduation and a baccalaureate mass. But we have the opportunity today to pray together. In the disappointments arising because of the trauma of the coronavirus we are praying. Let us pray well for God's grace and love. All of us attending this mass up are dispersed in all directions. We are very far away from one another. But God's presence is not deterred by distance or time. So let us be gathered together in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The grace and peace of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Father we put ourselves in your gaze. We are your daughters in your sons. Look upon us graciously. Do not look upon our sins but our faith. Care for us. Love us. Forgive us all of our sins. You were sent to heal the contrite heart. Lord have mercy. You came to call sin is Christ have mercy. You are seated at the right hand of the Father to intercede for us. Lord have mercy. May Almighty God have mercy on us. Forgive us our sins and bring us to life everlasting. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will. We praise you. We bless you. We adore you. We glorify you. We give you thanks for your great glory. Lord God heavenly King. Oh God Almighty Father. Lord Jesus Christ only begotten Son. Lord God Lamb of God. Son of the Father. You take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us. You take away the sins of the world. Receive our prayer. You are seated at the right hand of the Father. Have mercy on us. For you alone are the Holy One. You alone are the Lord. You alone are the Most High. Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit and the glory of God the Father. Amen. Let us pray. Grant Almighty God that we may celebrate with heartfelt devotion the days of joy which we keep in honor of the risen Lord and that what we relive in remembrance we may always hold to in what we do. To our Lord Jesus Christ your Son who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit one God forever and ever. King from the acts of the apostles. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Christ to them. With one accord the crowd paid attention to what was said by Philip when they heard it and saw the signs he was doing. For unclean spirits crying out in a loud voice came out of many possessed people and many paralyzed or crippled people were cured. There was great joy in that city. Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God they sent them Peter and John who went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For it had not yet fallen upon any of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy. Shout joyfully to God all the earth. Sing praise to the glory of his name. Proclaim his glorious praise. Say to God how tremendous are your deeds. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy. Let all on earth worship and sing praise to you. Sing praise to your name. Come and see the works of God. His tremendous deeds among the children of Adam. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy. He has changed the sea into dry land. Through the river they passed on foot. Therefore let us rejoice in him. He rules by his might forever. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy. Here now all you who fear God while I declare what he has done for me. Blessed be God who refused me not by prayer or his kindness. Let all the earth cry out to God with joy. A reading from the first letter of Peter. Beloved, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope. But do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good that that be the will of God than for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God, put to death in the flesh. He was brought to life in the spirit. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Alleluia, alleluia. Alleluia, alleluia. Whoever loves me will keep my word, says the Lord, and my Father will love him and we will come to him. Alleluia, alleluia. The Lord be with you. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Jesus said to his disciples, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate to be with you always. The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him because he remains with you and will be in you. I will not leave you often. I will come to you. In a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me because I live and you will live. On that day, you will realize that I am in the Father and you are in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and reveal myself to him, the Gospel of the Lord. We Americans are a people oriented to the future. A significant example of this is how much we are planners. We seem to be always at least a few steps ahead of ourselves. You may be at a meeting and you are thinking of the next meeting or lunch. In class, we may be attentive to a point, but thinking of the exam and tomorrow's class. You are attending this mass and thinking you want to text a friend to see if she too is watching this old priest. A symphony conductor said once, he is aware that people listening to Beethoven's symphony are there and not there. They are down the road a bit, thinking of the tickets that must be bought for next year's season. In our busyness, we are off in the future. One deficiency here may be that we lose in the appreciation of the present. Georgia O'Keefe, a noted American painter of the last century who painted flowers or sections of flowers in an exaggerated size, was asked why she painted flowers so large. She answered that flowers are all around us and we are so busy, we do not notice them. People cannot but help notice my flowers. In this strangest of times of the coronavirus, someone has said recently, we are now forced to be contemplatives. Maybe with the disruption of our plans, we have to pay more attention to the present. More attention to God's presence now. Well, I have another tact on the future, stimulated by the Gospel reading. In the seven verses of the Gospel you've just heard that I read, the future tense occurs 11 times. Specifically, Jesus is speaking of the coming of the Spirit after his death and resurrection, the way he will continue to be with us. But in this whole Easter season, there is a radical orientation toward the future. Resurrection is offered out there for everybody. Jesus will not be with us in the way he is now, but he will be present in the Spirit and he will come again. If any body of people are oriented towards the future, we Christians are radically oriented to the future. This future orientation permeates our whole religious history, going back to the earliest stories in our Scripture. Abraham, father of the three monistic religions, is instructed by God to go up from the city of his origin or and move out toward a far away strange unknown country. Moses led his people from slavery in Egypt and leads them towards a promised land, dragging them along within all sorts of complaints. God's people, slaves in Babylon are freed through the grace of God and led into a new life in Jerusalem. These stories are stories of movement into the future. These are foreshadowings, metaphors of our faith journey. We are moving toward full life in the resurrection of Jesus forever. We are people of the promise, a people on the way, a people moving toward full life. This is a future orientation expressing the deepest meaning of our lives. In this pandemic, all our lives have been significantly disrupted. Our futures have been disruptive. Some of you graduates may have jobs. Perhaps numbers of you graduate graduates are continuing on in a job. Give thanks. Some of you may have had jobs pinned down but now are unhauled because there are questions about the job. And some of you graduates may have been in the process of getting a job and the whole process has been shut down because no one is hiring in these strangest of times. There is uncertainty, worry, anxiety. Your future in our workaday world may be very unclear. But I am pointing out here that there is another layer of your life and future that is much deeper and always beckoning no matter what the practical circumstances. And that is that we are a people of hope, a people of promise, a people of life, a people of the resurrection, a people of the dream. God loves you and he is always inviting you into life. He is pulling you forward to himself. I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered death and was buried and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. I believe in one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Let us pray. Father, we are your children, your sons and your daughters, gathered together in your gaze this morning. Look upon us graciously and hear our prayers. We pray for the Church that it may be a sign of hope and reconciliation in a world of division and despair. We pray to the Lord. Lord, hear our prayer. We pray for all of those who have been affected by COVID-19 that they may find healing and hope in the midst of trial. We pray to the Lord. Lord, hear our prayer. We remember all of our healthcare workers on the front lines of this pandemic, especially members of our Fairfield family that they may be safe and receive the supports they need. We pray to the Lord. Lord, hear our prayer. We pray in thanksgiving for the outstanding contributions to the life of the university made by all of our graduates. We pray to the Lord. Lord, hear our prayer. We thank God for the countless acts of generous service to our community, nation and world done by our graduating students. We pray to the Lord. Lord, hear our prayer. We pray in thanksgiving for the selfless work of our faculty, staff, administration and alumni. May God bring all their work to fruition. We pray to the Lord. Lord, hear our prayer. We give thanks to God for all the beautiful memories of our time together at Fairfield, for love and friendship, for joy and laughter, for learning and wisdom, and for a thousand and more moments of wonder and awe at the gift of being alive and young in the company of those we love. We pray to the Lord. Lord, hear our prayer. We pray for all those discerning their future that God may give them wisdom and patience. We pray to the Lord. Lord, hear our prayer. We pray for all those seeking work. We pray they may find what they seek. We pray to the Lord. Lord, hear our prayer. We pray that the spirit may bring to completion and fulfillment the good work begun in the lives of our graduating students. May they know God's love ever more deeply and may their lives be a blessing and a beacon for the world. We pray to the Lord. Lord, hear our prayer. We remember all those who have died, especially members of the Fairfield community. We remember in a particular way, Dan Callahan, a graduate education student in the class of 2020 who died suddenly this last week. May he and all the faithful that departed rest in peace. We pray to the Lord. Lord, hear our prayer. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and shall be. World without end. Amen. Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. For through your goodness we receive the bread we offer you, fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life. Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation. For through your goodness we receive the wine we offer you, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. It will become our spirit to drink. Pray that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God the Father Almighty. May our prayers rise up to you, O Lord, together with the sacrificial offerings so that purified by your graciousness, we may be conformed to the mysteries of your mighty love through Christ our Lord. The Lord be with you. Lift up your hearts. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is truly right and just. Our duty and our salvation always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, Holy Father, Almighty and Eternal God through Christ our Lord. For by His birth He brought renewal, and by His suffering cancelled out our sins. By His rising from the dead, He has opened the way to eternal life. And by ascending to you, O Father, He has unlocked the gates of heaven. And so with the company of angels and saints, we sing the hymn of your praise as without end we acclaim, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of your glory, Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. You are indeed holy, O Lord, the fount of all holiness. Make holy therefore these gifts we pray by sending down your spirit upon them like the dewfall so that they may become for us the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. At the time He was betrayed and entered willingly into His passion, He took bread and giving thanks, broke it, and gave it to His disciples saying, Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my body which will be given up for you. In a similar way when supper was ended, He took the chalice, and once more giving thanks, He gave it to His disciples saying, Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me, the mystery of faith we proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your resurrection until you come again. Therefore, as we celebrate the memorial of His death and resurrection, we offer you, Lord, the bread of life and the chalice of salvation, giving thanks that you have held us worthy to be in your presence and minister to you. Humbly we pray that partaking of the body and blood of Christ we may be gathered into one by the Holy Spirit. Remember, Lord, your church spread throughout the world and bring her to fullness of charity, together with Francis our Pope, Frank our Bishop, and all who serve. Remember also our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection and all who have died in your mercy. Welcome them into the light of your face. Have mercy on us all, we pray, that with the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, with Blessed Joseph, her spouse, with the Blessed Apostles, with St. Robert Bellaman, and all the saints who have pleased you throughout the ages, we may merit to be co-heirs to eternal life and may praise and glorify you through your Son, Jesus Christ. Through Him and with Him and in Him, O God Almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours forever and ever. Let us now pray, as Jesus himself has taught us to pray, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil. Graciously grant peace in our days, that by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles, peace I leave you, my peace I give you. Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your church, and graciously grant her peace and unity and accordance with your will, you who live and reign forever and ever. Let us offer a sign of Christ's peace. Lamb of God, behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world, blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb. Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed. May the Word of Christ give you safety. Let us pray, Almighty ever-living God, you restore us to eternal life in the resurrection of Christ. Increase in us, we pray, the fruits of this paschal sacrament, and pour into our hearts the strength of this saving food through Christ, our Lord, Father Paul Rook. I'd first like to thank all who have made this mass possible, thanks to Father's Tony, and Fitzpatrick, and Duty, and to Brother Jonathan Stott, to Casey, and to Joe Barbieri. And I'd also like to thank Father Jerry Blaszczyk, who expressed his thoughts so beautifully in his letter to the class of 2020, which I encourage you, if you have not yet read it, it's a beautiful letter and really worth praying over, reflecting on. He says, encourages you to, even though you don't have the ritual of commencement, to continue the work of commencement, of really going back in your mind's eye and gazing intently at the persons, the places, the events that made up your fear-filled years. And he also encourages you, and really all of us, in a spirit of gratitude and greatness of heart, not to play small. Don't play small, he says, let the Spirit of God dwelling in you work wonders in and through you. That's Father Blaszczyk. I don't know whether everybody realizes it, but there's really nobody who works harder for this university. He's a person who's incapable of partial commitment, and that letter is really just a testament to that, so I encourage you to read that letter if you haven't already. Thanks also to our president, Dr. Nemek, from whom you will hear also today and for all that he does. But above all, thanks to God, and to the gift of God, we celebrate in all of you who are graduating this year. I can't of course thank all of you by name, but I do thank you, and I know that we all thank you, and that we're filled of gratitude when we think of you, and of all that you do, to make fear-filled what it is. We know also that this is not the way any of us would have chosen to celebrate this special moment in your lives. We also know that God willing, we will have the chance to celebrate in person at a future date, and you've just learned of that date. It's understandable that you may feel robbed of some of this special time, but if we hand ourselves over to God, nothing will ever go to waste, nothing. This experience, nothing that we've suffered will go to waste. We are blessed. I wish we could have more voices here in the chapel. I wish we could have our beautiful choirs, but of course we can't. But we are blessed today to have one of our graduating seniors, Joe Barbieri, with us. Our beautiful music this Sunday, our instrumental music, as with so many Sundays over the last four years, is Joe's gift to us, and especially to his classmates. I think it's appropriate that we have a talented jazz musician with us. Jazz is the music of improvisation, the creative response to the unexpected. A jazz musician can take a familiar sound and on the spot make it into something completely new, but that creativity and improvisation can only occur after endless hours of preparation and practice. Graduates of the Class of 2020, very few of you may be jazz musicians, although there are some others, but throughout your years at Fearfield, you have spent those hours, not just in class, but in the school of life, preparing for the unexpected. You have learned so much, and you have the sight and sound and rhythm of so many beautiful memories. You're ready to improvise. You're ready to make music. You're ready not just to respond to the new normal we are entering. You're ready to shape and inspire it. None of us can choose the time we're given, but we can't choose how to respond to it and how to find meaning in it. This is your time. Having gotten to know more than a few of you, I have every confidence, every confidence, that you will make music with it and that that music will inspire us and inspire the world. May God bless you. May God keep you safe and keep bringing you back to us. For Fearfield will always be your home. Let us pray. May Almighty God bless you. May his face shine upon you. May he be gracious to you and give you peace. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Mass is over. Go in peace.