Maybe you spent your Christmas break hanging out at home or working or traveling – or all three. I’ll tell you what I did while you were away. I visited your predecessors, our alums, and you might find my trips strangely connected to you.

At the beginning of the New Year, I traveled from our campus with the Archabbot to St. Marys for a gathering that included current and former students. On the way there he told me how this exact same route was traveled 160 years earlier by Saint Vincent founder Boniface Wimmer. He came the 110 miles to St. Marys to establish one of the first mission houses of Saint Vincent. And get this – he came to St. Marys by horseback.

I asked the Archabbot how long the trip took. He said it depended on how hard Wimmer and his companions lashed the horses. The Archabbot and I didn’t travel by horseback – we went by Chevy Impala. And with Fr. Paul Taylor at the wheel (a St. Marys native and our Vice-President of Institutional Advancement), we were able to get to St. Marys a tad sooner). Incidentally, along the way I saw Punxsutawney Phil – he came out and waved to me. He was in a sports shirt with a six iron in his paws. So while it is a little early for Groundhog Day, my guess is that we’ll have a short winter (but brace yourselves this weekend – yikes).

But back to the story. Think about this: If Abbot Wimmer hadn’t endured the hardships of such a long trip and established a Benedictine presence in St. Mary’s, would Fr. Paul be a Benedictine priest today? I sort of doubt it. Would Steve Leuschel, EJ Crowe, Kim Meier, Rachel Gregory, and Chad Meholic have chosen another college instead of ours? Who knows?

My bet is that in a mysterious way the destinies of Fr. Paul and the St. Marys students who grew up in the shadow of Benedictine spirituality and call Saint Vincent home were somehow hidden in the long horseback journey of Wimmer. I think it works the same way as when you look at a married couple with children and you realize that their children were hidden in the exchange of vows that took place on their wedding day.

During break I also ran into some students in Newark. Nine of your classmates had chosen to spend part of their break helping inner city high school students at St. Benedict Prep (and one of the students, Michael MacConnell, is spending spring semester there). The nine likely would not have been at St. Benedict’s Prep in January 2008 if Abbot Wimmer had not sent monks to Newark to form the Abbey that still stands and supports the school and is transforming so many young men’s lives.

Our students also would not have been in New York City last week on the night we had an alumni gathering at Kim and Jason Isaly’s beautiful home on East 17th Street. What a memorable night that was. Kim graduated in 1992 and she and Jason opened their doors to our students and a whole host of graduates and guests. Brother Norman and I and a group of four Saint Vincent students arrived to the party site an hour early and so we killed some time and strolled the streets of Manhattan (and along the way discovered Pete’s Bar, an old pub where O. Henry wrote The Gift of the Magi. Before you ask, we didn’t have time to go in, so there’s no “President Towey and Senior Monk out drinking with Saint Vincent students” headline for you to read in The Review!).

But when we circled back and arrived at Kim and Jason’s home, we had no idea that so many people would come and it would be so much fun. Mark Rossi, class of 1978 and a member of our board of directors, and his wife Maureen, were there with a whole array of graduation classes represented. Everyone had a blast. No one wanted to leave.

And none of us would have been in that gorgeous setting together were it not for the succession of monks, faculty, administrators, and staff at St. Vincent who, year after year, have offered up their lives in faithful service, and in the process, bound us together.

Last night I was in Raleigh, North Carolina at the home of another very successful alum, Don Haile, class of ’63 and also a board member. Not only did Don open up his home to area alums – and we had a nice turnout of about 20 people – but his wonderful wife Mary was pressed into service (even though she had been terribly sick for days and was not feeling well), as was their visiting daughter Kate (“Welcome home, beloved daughter and now please help prepare food for 25 people!”) and niece Alyssa Haile Lytle, class of 1996 (and huge fan of Fr. Rene).

During the gathering I spoke with one alum, Bill Brown, who as an African-American student found himself in the late ‘80’s as one of eight minority students on campus. It was not an easy ride for Bill. He said that when people asked if Saint Vincent was a predominantly white college, he would reply, “No. It is a white college.”

Well, it’s not anymore. We have over 100 minority students and our Admissions office is continuing to recruit for diversity so that you aren’t surrounded by classmates who all look like you, worship like you, think like you and vote like you.

On Monday we will have a Dr. Martin Luther King Day celebration and I hope to see you at events throughout the day in the Carey Center lounge and at the dinner at 5 pm and the prayer service that follows it (you can still sign up for dinner – it will be held in Placid A and B, across from the main dining room, and if you want more information, contact Marlin Payne of the Minority Student Coalition who, with his colleagues, has planned a great program for the day).

As we celebrate Dr. King’s legacy at Saint Vincent, we also will remember the Bill Browns who pioneered a path for minority students on our campus and in the process enriched the education and formation of the rest of the student body.

You probably have heard the expression of a person being “self made,” but the truth is that none of us is.

In the mysterious will of God we are connected and dependent upon each other and those who went before us. We have a responsibility to cultivate a better world, to give and not simply receive, and to sacrifice for other people whom we may never know.

As I watched Don and his family in the kitchen late into the evening cleaning the dishes and clearing the trash from the party, I thought that Don probably learned a good bit about selfless service and giving and sacrificing when he was at Saint Vincent – and he and his wife have passed it along by example to others. And so it goes.

Each of you has a choice: to gather or to give; to serve or be served; to plant seeds or sit in the shade.

Abbot Wimmer spent his life for others. Dr. King lost his life for others. What will you do with your life?

I hope Saint Vincent is helping you discover the answer.