UIW Celebrates start of the Academic Year with Mass of the Holy Spirit

San Antonio – Come, Holy Spirit fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, that the face of the earth may be renewed.

In keeping with a long tradition dating from the founding of the great European universities in the Middle Ages, the University of the Incarnate Word (UIW), celebrated the Mass of the Holy Spirit on Wednesday, Sept. 4 in Our Lady’s Chapel. The Mass of the Holy Spirit is celebrated at the start of each academic year and in UIW tradition, the Mass began with a procession of faculty members representing the University disciplines. Each member offered a symbol of their school and placed it in the sanctuary where, during the liturgy, we asked for the inspiration, guidance, and presence of God's Spirit on all our campus activities.

In the homily, offered by University Chaplain Fr. Tom Dymowski, O.SS.T., shared that we, the Church in the University of the Incarnate Word are generously gifted by the Holy Spirit. “Let us never cease to pray before the work of each day begins that before all else in what we do we are shown to be a people who care, willing to suffer with and even for the “poor” of this world. Begging the Lord to empower us for the ministry that is ours, we repeatedly pray, “Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, that the face of the earth may be renewed.”

Presider for the Liturgy was Fr. Leo Almazán, OP and concelebrated by Fr. Thomas V. Thennady, CMF and University Chaplain Fr. Tom Dymowski, O.SS.T.