Mission Matters

Heritage Week provides a great opportunity to take the time to see how the Spiritans are involved on campus in ways that we may not even realize.

Ten students and two members of the Spiritan Campus Ministry staff will travel to a Spiritan mission in San Juan de la Maguana, Dominican Republic, on Saturday, Aug. 2, to run a day camp for 80 children as part of the seventh Cross-Cultural Mission Experience (CCME) in the Dominican Republic.

Spiritan Campus Minister Kate Lecci, who participated in the migrant farmworker experience in Florida, shares how Duquesne students, faculty and staff share of themselves and learn about others over spring break.

For the eighth consecutive year, the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) is helping needy families in Pittsburgh obtain turkeys for their holiday meals.

“Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use words.” These words, often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, provide a framework from which to understand how Fr. Ray French, C.S.Sp., recently appointed vice president for mission and identity, will approach his new University position.

The University mission informs and enlivens every aspect of University life, but when engaged in daily tasks it’s easy to forget how the mission can manifest itself in the most commonplace ways. Resident Director Adam Wasilko reminds the campus community that living the Spiritan mission is not only achieved through grand gestures, but also through the smallest of everyday actions.

Cross-cultural mission trips provide students with an opportunity to become immersed in a different culture and experience life in a new way. After going on a Spiritan Campus Ministry spring break mission trip, sophomore Kayla Alborg expresses her appreciation for how the city and its people changed her life forever through a letter to the city of New Orleans.

Drawing inspiration from the themes expressed by Pope Benedict XVI in his Apostolic Letter, Campus Minister Linda Donovan invites the Duquesne community to walk through the door of faith and be transformed by the traditions of the Lenten Season. 

As Advent transitions into Christmas, the music of the Chapel Choir sets the tone for the spirituality of the season. Senior Brendan Barker, choir member and a music education major, shares how the season’s music enables him to enjoy peacefulness amid a busy season.

Each year, Spiritan Campus Ministry presents opportunities for students to become involved in the fair trade movement both on and off campus. As Fair Trade Week concludes at Duquesne, senior Alyson Nolte reflects on her experiences and how joining a community committed to a more just society fulfilled her in unexpected ways.

As we head into a season of great thankfulness, junior Mary Henningsgaard writes about her memories of her mission experience in the Dominican Republic. The next cross-cultural mission experiences sponsored by Spiritan Campus Ministry will be over spring break, with students returning to New Orleans, Immokalee, Fla., and Pineville, W.Va. The greatest part of my cross-cultural mission experience to the […]

At the 2012 Founder’s Week activities, Luci-Jo DiMaggio, assistant director of Spiritan Campus Ministry, discussed how students live out the mission of our founding Spiritan congregation. These are excerpts from her remarks: If you ask any student who knows a Spiritan, most would tell you that the Spiritans love to tell stories. Very often, these stories are of time spent […]

On Jan. 1, 2012, Spiritans in the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere in the world will mark the 50th anniversary of the death of 20 Spiritan confreres–19 Belgians and one Dutch–in Kongolo, Congo, with prayer and remembrance.

The struggles of refugees and immigrants were revealed during Founders Week 2011: Refugees, Migrants and The Spiritan Tradition. Through powerful multi-media presentations and in-depth stories, the featured speakers illustrated the challenges and hopes of the thousands of people displaced from their homelands because of political, cultural or religious persecution, economic hardships, wars or natural disasters.