Staying Alive: 100 Years of Prayer (Summer 2003)

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Fr. Dennis Gallagher, A.A. '69, Vice President for Mission

Staying Alive: 100 Years of Prayer (Summer 2003)

This issue of the magazine graciously recognizes the contributions of the Assumptionists during the century-long existence of the College. It is hardly an easy task to establish an order of importance to those contributions over such a long stretch of time. In the recent observance of the 50th anniversary of the great Worcester tornado, the vision and determination of Fr. Armand Desautels, A.A. ’30 were often cited. Without the combination of Fr. Armand’s force of will and trust in God, one is hard pressed to imagine the new foundation of the College on Salisbury Street. At the further risk of naming names, one is similarly reminded of the intellectual depth and spiritual wisdom of Fr. Denys Gonthier, A.A. ’44 and Fr. Ernest Fortin, A.A. ’46, as well as the pastoral presence and care of Brother Robert Francis Beaulac, A.A. HA’80.

Topping my list, however, would be the persistent, day-in and day-out prayer offered by the religious community over the course of Assumption’s history. In recent years, that prayer has been enhanced by the presence and witness of our sisters, the Religious of the Assumption. This is a prayer always open to the wider College community and focused on the spiritual needs of those whom we serve. Its daily rhythm of praise and thanksgiving helps to provide a point of orientation for all of the activities of the College’s day.

Fr. Denys Gonthier deserves special mention for keeping alive the witness of public prayer on campus. When the Assumptionist community decided to have a house built on Old English Road in the early 1970s, the decades-long practice of daily public prayer on campus was discontinued. Fr. Denys lamented that turn of events and was so committed to the principle of that prayerful witness that he could be found, often by himself, praying the divine office in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit. Call this idiosyncratic stubbornness, as it was viewed by some at the time—it might better be called a prophetic gesture anticipating the return of an Assumptionist community in the mid-1980s to Emmanuel House. Returning common prayer to the College Chapel was a principal raison d’etre of this new community.

There may be an even deeper reason for recognizing the significance of this common prayer, linking it more closely to an essential aspect of the College’s mission. Our founder, Fr. Emmanuel d’Alzon, placed special emphasis on the unity of truth. All truth has its origin in God and points toward God; as such, the pursuit of truth aims, in the end, not so much toward apprehension as toward the loving gaze of contemplation. This is why Catholic liberal education finds its completion in liturgical action. We gather, always in the mode of listening and reverent awe, to receive that which we cannot give ourselves. An Assumption education is a form of wakefulness, rescuing students from the snares of a soul-deadening culture. According to its fullest realization, it leads toward prayer, the most heightened form of wakefulness.