Santa Clara University

Excerpts from remarks of Paul Locatelli, S.J., President of Santa Clara University

Upon the dedication of a rose corner and permanent plaque at the Mission Church on September 25, 2002

These four roses are being dedicated to those who lost their lives or were affected by the attack on the United States and the world on September 11, 2001.

The Peach Sunset Celebration rose commemorates Deora Bodley, Santa Clara student, class of 2003, who died when Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania. She was on her way back to Santa Clara. We are pleased that Deora’s mother, Debbie Borza, and her father, Derrill Bodley, have joined us today for this ceremony.

The white Pascali rose honors Capt. Lawrence D. Getzfred, USN, class of 1971, killed in the attack on the Pentagon.

The red Mr. Lincoln rose commemorates the relatives and friends of Santa Clara students, faculty, staff, and alumni. We remember especially Christopher Duffy, the older brother of sophomore Caitlin Duffy.

The pink Our Lady of Guadalupe rose honors all others who died or were injured, especially the rescue workers at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

A common tragedy helped us all realize that we were united in vulnerability and also in shared grief. Most Americans did not personally know any of the 3,000 people murdered on September 11, but almost all of us shared a kinship of mourning with the families and friends who had lost loved ones. Naturally, that initial sense of community bound by tragedy and threat has faded somewhat as we recovered and returned to some changed sense of normalcy, but it continues to tell us something about what is important in life, especially, family and friends.

We learned again two important lessons: the first is the importance of being engaged citizens who seek the common good.

Last year, we saw the community join in harmony which we often take for granted in times of prosperity. We saw a common good binding us together, as sisters and brothers across the typical boundaries of race, religion, sexual orientation, age, and national origin.

Our immediate response to tragedy and suffering is to connect with others, to come together in prayer, to reach across ethnic and religious lines to affirm that we are all in this together. Some of the best things in life happen only when we share them in common: conversation, family, friendship, art, education, celebration and ritual. That common good is richer and more rewarding than the pursuit of our private good. It calls us to tend to the fabric of our society, to the personal and institutional ties that bind us.

An appreciation of the common good should lead us and our leaders to see that the United States can not and should not go it alone in the world. Since our decisions resonate throughout this single moral ecology, we must understand ourselves as citizens of a global community whose decisions shape the world.

The second, more important, lesson is the experience love... love brings us together as community and friends, as family and neighbor.

Love bound families and friends even closer together. And those of us who knew one of the victims or their families reached out with love even when at times, we felt feeble in our efforts.

In the end, it is love that will lead nations to beat their swords into ploughshares, and people to love tenderly and walk together humbly with their God.

In the spirit of Micah, may we hope and pray for a peace founded on justice and truth, compassion and love.

*

Debbie Borza, mother of Deora Bodley ’03 read

from the book of Micah:

In days to come

the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established

as the highest of the mountains,

and shall be raised up above the hills.

Peoples shall stream to it,

and many nations shall come and say,

"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,

and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He shall judge between many peoples,

and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;

they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war any more;

but they shall all sit under their own vines

and under their own fig trees,

and no one shall make them afraid;

for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.