University Life as a Pilgrimage in the Jubilee Year – Fr. David S. Koonce, LC
On December 29th, I had the opportunity to visit St. Peter’s Basilica and cross the Holy Door for the first time in this Jubilee year. While accompanying a small group of pilgrims from the United States, I shared with them a thought that I often repeat. It is a reflection that I read many years ago on a plane, in a now forgotten magazine. The unknown author defined a pilgrim as “Someone who leaves home to go elsewhere, to return home, someone else.”
In this Jubilee year, Rome is preparing to welcome many pilgrims, who will surely have a transformative experience. But I wonder: how can we, who live in Rome, live this Jubilee year with the spirit of pilgrims, even while staying at home? Moreover, as part of a university community here in Rome, I wonder how all of us – professors, students, staff – can deeply live this Jubilee year dedicated to being pilgrims of hope. Certainly, it is not a matter of leaving our duties and traveling far from Rome! On the contrary, we want our academic community to become more and more that “house where truth is sought” (Benedict XVI). At the same time, the Jubilee is an invitation to step out of our comfort zones and to direct ourselves with our minds, hearts, and hands towards the existential peripheries, where the serious questions about the meaning of the Christian proposal in a postmodern world are found. Becoming pilgrims means setting ourselves in motion, not staying with the usual answers to old problems, but trying new solutions to the new challenges of our time. An academic community on an intellectual pilgrimage sets out to become more and more a “pole of excellence” and to activate “processes of regeneration” (Pope Francis, Veritatis Gaudium).
At the beginning of this Jubilee year, the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum (APRA) renews its commitment to place itself at the service of the Church, of pilgrims, and to become a community on a pilgrimage. While remaining in Rome, we set ourselves in spiritual motion, with the hope of becoming what we are called to be.
David S. Koonce, LC, is a priest of the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ and holds a doctorate in theology. Originally from the United States, he has been a professor of theology in Rome at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum (APRA) since 2011, where he currently serves as academic vice-rector.