Dedication of the McCooey Chapel

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you,
because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.

Brothers and Sisters in the Lord:

That refrain, familiar to us from Lenten devotions, evokes a spirit of authentic piety. But for me, at least, the associations are even more extensive. The memories of that Lenten invocation are irrevocably linked to my experience as a second grader at St. Hedwig’s School in Milwaukee. That was the year when I first understood that my mother, who has always taken Lent seriously, used Ash Wednesday as the day to call the dentist and schedule appointments for the whole family. My appointments were generally after school on Friday. During Lent, our school day on Friday concluded with Stations of the Cross; and as soon as the service ended, I trudged down Brady Street to the dentist with this beautiful refrain in my heart. But in the pit of my stomach, there was the unremitting dread of multiple cavities and slow steel drills that were the experience of every child in the years before fluoride toothpaste and painless techniques. A lot has changed in the half-century since those memories were formed, even dentistry (thank God!), but the familiar verse still stands as invitation to pause before the cross and to remember all it means. Circumstances change; the cross of Jesus endures.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.”

Today we celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross—a feast whose date is linked with the dedication of the basilica of the Resurrection in the Holy Land in A.D. 335. Those were the latter years of the Emperor Constantine, who had seen a vision of the cross in sky many years earlier on the eve of a battle. Near the cross he saw the words “In this sign you shall conquer,” –In Hoc Signo Vinces—the motto of our college. And so Constantine took the sign of the cross as an emblem for his causes; he accepted Christianity, and ended the Roman policy of persecution. The dedication of that basilica, on the place where Christ was believed to have been placed in the tomb, was a marvelous sign that the Church, after three centuries of blood and martyrs, could serve its mission without violence. It’s impossible for us to recapture the spirit of joy and pride our forbears in the faith must have felt on that day, but we can imagine it. And we can echo it today as we rededicate this beautiful space of worship here at the College that bears the name of the cross.

Of course, this is not the first dedication in this building. The St. Joseph Memorial Chapel was built in 1924. It was designed to be a memorial to the College’s war dead, including Father William F. Davitt ’07, who was killed by a stray shell on the morning of November 11, 1918 and so became the last American officer to die in World War I. Bishop William O’Leary came from Springfield to consecrate the upper church in a ceremony that lasted for five hours. (Bishop Reilly told me before Mass that he thought he could improve on that record. But he didn’t say which way!) Meanwhile, this downstairs space was used as an auditorium until the Second World War, when Navy men used this space for military drill during inclement weather. There was even an anti-aircraft gun in the balcony! After the war, the space reverted to an auditorium until 1955, when rising enrollments prompted the rector, Father William Donaghy, to claim the hall for student worship. Stained glass windows representing the mysteries of the rosary, and a prominent statue of Our Lady, lent solemnity to what was now called the Mary Chapel.

The Mary Chapel was used heavily over the years. For a long interval, it was the principal place of Sunday worship; students and celebrants appreciated the intimacy of the space and the soft formality it provided. But after forty years, the Mary Chapel was also showing its age: the infrastructure offered weak lighting, banging steam pipes in the winter, and a relatively inflexible space whose dimensions duplicated the chapel upstairs. After four decades, the Mary Chapel badly needed attention, particularly because the place was sacred. And so the renovation was linked to the “Lift High The Cross” campaign; plans were drawn up; and John and Patti Figge provided a substantial gift to enhance these chapels with new life, stipulating only that a portion be dedicated to the memory of Bob McCooey ’52. Bob’s widow, Mary, and Patti Figge are sisters. Now it has come to pass: the larger chapel in the center remains the Mary Chapel; the weekday chapel in the front will be known as the McCooey Chapel.

In rededicating the space today, we join ourselves to the generations of Crusaders who have found inspiration, hope, and consolation in this place. Who but God knows how many prayers have risen within these walls? Who but God could name the young women and men who have found the courage of their convictions here? Who but God could number the moments of insight by which members of this community have found the means to take the first steps, or the next steps, in living out the ideal of being persons for others? In this space, proposals of marriage have been extended and accepted. And in this space, we were celebrating the Mass for the Dying for Father Hart at the very hour he went to God. Today, we ensure the fact that the process will go on, that the Mary Chapel and the McCooey Chapel will remain places where people will find strength, and wisdom, and love from God.

The process will go forward, as it has since 1843, because we are Holy Cross. Athletes chant it at their games; we express it more solemnly this morning, and the gospel points the way. The centerpiece of the passage is John 3:16—a verse made famous by individuals who display it on placards and signs at almost every sporting event shown on TV. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that anyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” It’s a verse that puts everything in perspective—our ultimate destiny, God’s saving love, all extended through the Son of God lifted up on the cross. All of us could spend our whole lives pondering that verse, and understanding it ever more deeply as we gain experience and wisdom.

But there is more. John’s invitation here is to look at the cross from both sides. Most of us were brought up well to see the cross from our side. It comes naturally to us to gaze up at Our Lord hanging there wounded and bloody, and to feel remorseful and contrite that our selfishness and our sinfulness are implicated in his suffering. This is a good response. The insight is full of truth, and offers a powerful motivation to amend our lives with the help of grace.

But if this reaction is helpful, it is also incomplete, for it by-passes the other side of the cross, Jesus’ side. What do we look like to him, as we stand here? What is he thinking? What is in his heart? One option would be to suppose that he looks at us with regret, that he sees our limitations and human weakness, and gives himself to death because it is the will of his Father and this is the only way we can be saved. But if that were the dynamic represented by the cross, Our Lord would have died somewhat in vain—died for people who didn’t get it and weren’t completely worth it, could never understand it, and could never be more than halfway members of His kingdom.

We know that Jesus did not die in vain. From his perspective, something very powerful was going on. If we think about it, something absolutely defining had to have been in his heart as he saw humanity from the cross--this vantage point unique in all of history. The astonishing thing is that he looks down upon us from the cross with love. He’s aware of our sinfulness, but he wants to associate with our struggles to be generous. He sees goodness in us that he wants to claim, to find a way to keep that goodness alive forever. He claims our worth and our value even at times when we are filled with doubt and confusion. We stand at the cross, aware of our limitations; he looks down at us, arguing for our potential. He dies not to condemn us, but to save us, not as our accuser but as our champion. Nobody, nothing argues so powerfully for human goodness and the potential for good as Christ on the cross. And therefore Paul writes in Galatians that “we should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Its message, vindicated by God in the Resurrection, is absolute.

Brothers and Sisters, we are Holy Cross. The name of our school and the identity it implies are singular privileges. Today, as we re-dedicate this chapel, we commit ourselves to everything our name says—about God, about ourselves, about our world and our place in it. The triumph of the Cross is, ultimately, the triumph of God’s love. And therefore, the Cross is our victory as well.

“We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you; because by your Holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.”

Amen.