Annual Fund Appeal

All gifts to the CTU annual fund are important and have a tremendous impact on the academic and spiritual life of the school, regardless of their size. If you would like to make a gift, please contact Anne Marie Tirpak, Director of Development, at atirpak@ctu.edu, 773.371.5417 or access our secure, on-line giving option. Donations can also be sent to Catholic Theological Union at 5401 S. Cornell Avenue, Chicago, IL  60615.

Please find Father Donald Senior’s Easter appeal message below:

Office of the President
Lent 2012

Dear Friends,

A short time ago I received a call from a friend who asked if I would talk to a woman who was distraught because she had just lost her only daughter. The mother’s question to me was simply this: “Is there any place in the Bible that can assure me that I will see my daughter’s face again?” It was not an academic question for her at all, but one posed with the fierce intensity and near desperation that only such a painful loss can kindle in a person’s heart.

Her question was not academic for me, either.  Two years ago this Lent, I lost my little sister, Miriam. She was a dear. She had Down syndrome and lived a happy and full, if too brief, a life. In her later years we were blessed that she was a resident of Misericordia Home, a place of incredible beauty and warmth.

Although I had experienced the kind of family losses we all go through as we mature in years − parents and, in my case, another sibling − the loss of Miriam remains particularly intense for me. I was her legal guardian and we spent a lot of time together. She had a mischievous sense of humor and a trusting innocence combined with a surprising wisdom. I miss her more than I ever anticipated.

So … what about it? Can we find some biblical text that guarantees for people of faith that we will be reunited with our loved ones and see their dear faces again? As I tried to express to the woman who had posed her tortured question, there are some biblical quotations that come close. For example, at the Last Supper in John’s Gospel, Jesus seems to reassure his disciples on just this point: “I go to prepare a place for you... I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.” And, “So you also are now in anguish. But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.”

But even more fundamental for Christian faith is Easter itself. The “ground zero” of Christian faith is the belief − in the face of all odds − that Jesus Christ truly died and truly rose from the dead. Even more, we believe that the destiny of Jesus, the beloved Son of God, is also our destiny: that we, too, through the power of God, will overcome death. We believe that the human body-spirit that is made in God’s image and in which we share − along with all our loved ones − will not be utterly destroyed but, through the life-giving power of God, will be transformed and live forever. 

It is this faith that tempers our grief and gives us ultimate hope. This Easter faith also makes all the difference in how we view the world and its anguish. Human life and the world in which we exist are sacred. The sufferings inflicted on innocent people − violence, poverty, injustice, exclusion − are the harbingers of the death we want to overcome. Not just in the ultimate future, but here and now.

It is this kind of Easter faith − daring and comprehensive − that undergirds our mission at Catholic Theological Union. The future religious leaders we are preparing − seminarians and lay women and men − can only do their work if they believe in the breathtaking promise of Easter; otherwise the vast weight of human suffering will overwhelm them. 

Proclaiming the Christian message of hope in an effective way is not a simple task. People need to know how to communicate well; they have to know the full complexity and beauty of our Catholic heritage; they have to learn the skills of counseling people in distress; they have to know how to mediate conflicts and mobilize for social change.

That is what we do here at CTU. Preparing people who will be messengers of hope has its everyday practical costs: enlisting qualified and dedicated faculty and staff; maintaining our facilities; providing scholarship support for our students; and so on. This is why we turn to you in this sacred season of Easter. Please help us continue to do our mission in the right way. Given Easter faith, it is truly a matter of life and death.

For you and all your loved ones, those present and those who have gone before us, may this Easter be full of joy and deep hope.

Sincerely yours,

Fr. Donald Senior, C.P.
President

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