University of Notre Dame President Fr. Robert Dowd welcomed students back to campus for the 2025-26 academic year at Tuesday’s opening Mass. Addressing the congregation in Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center, Dowd, wearing red vestments, emphasized the importance of Christian hope as the new school year begins.
The theme for this year’s Notre Dame Forum is “Cultivating Hope.”
“Today, as we celebrate this Mass, I invite you to reflect with me on two questions,” Dowd said. “What is hope? And more specifically, what is Christian hope? Second question, how can we be agents of hope on this campus and beyond?”
Dowd told a story about meeting a mother with three young children during his time visiting Brother Andre Hospital, a Holy Cross mission hospital in Nairobi, Kenya. The woman had recently lost her husband to complications from AIDS and was herself HIV positive, and she had just lost her job. Despite all that she had gone through, the woman was smiling from ear to ear. Dowd said that he was shocked at her ability to keep smiling.
“It’s almost as if she could tell that I was wondering this, and she suddenly said, ‘I am not afraid. I know God is with me. The people here are good to me, and they’re good to my children. I am not alone,’” Dowd said.
Dowd used this brief anecdote to expand upon the virtue of Christian hope. He called on the students in the congregation to be active, rather than passive observers. He asked them to be “agents of hope,” as the workers at Brother Andre were for the Kenyan woman.
“Just because Christian hope is in God’s promise, this does not mean that Christian hope is about waiting around for God, but for someone else to do something about the pain, suffering and injustice that there is in the world,” Dowd said.
He connected his call to action with the Gospel reading, from Luke 4: 16-21, which itself recalled the first reading, from Isaiah 61.
“Jesus reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and that same prophet essentially sums up his mission to announce good news to the poor, to free the captives, to bring sight to the blind, to announce a year of favor from the Lord,” Dowd said.
Dowd, presiding over his second opening Mass, said that he was excited to begin his “sophomore year as president.” He said he hopes that this year’s Notre Dame Forum will result in productive discussions.
“You know, cultivating hope, it can get reduced to a mere slogan, pious mumbo jumbo, a platitude devoid of any real meaning,” Dowd said. “To have any meaningful conversations about hope, we must take seriously the reasons why so many people find it difficult to hope. And this is the type of conversation that we need to be having here at Notre Dame, a conversation that takes seriously the struggles that so many people face.”
The Mass, which lasted approximately an hour and 15 minutes, featured a large choir with members from each of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart choirs, Notre Dame Chorale and the Glee Club. Featured hymns included “Taste and See” and “Pan de Vida.” The Mass concluded with a rendition of the alma mater, “Notre Dame, Our Mother,” and “Christ, Be Our Light.”
