- Being Mercy
- A Sinner Whose Sins Are Forgiven
- He Can't Take His Eyes Off Us
- I Don't Always Say Thank You
- The Parable of the Merciful Father
- Reflections on a Trip to the Holy Land, Part 1
- Reflections on a Trip to the Holy Land, Part 2
- Hearing the Confessions of the Confessors
- Getting It Right
- Way Beyond Merit
- Accepting Mercy from an Enemy
- A Mission to the Pacific Northwest
- An Unforgettable Stop along the Way
- The Day I Got to Embrace the Holy Father
- To Be Continued
- Praying with Everyone
- God’s Non-Stop Mercy
- Notre Dame Story Nights
- Mercy, Faith and Sexual Orientation
- Everything Belongs
Fr. Joe Corpora--A Notre Dame Priest Tells His Story from VideoND on Vimeo.
“My great-grandfather went to school here. And then my grandfather and my father. And now me!” “I never heard of Notre Dame until my guidance counselor in high school mentioned it to me.” “I was in a high school program called Avid. It’s for high-performing, economically poor students. And through a program called Questbridge, I learned about Notre Dame.” “My high school English teacher was an ACE teacher. I learned about Notre Dame from him.” “All my siblings have gone to Notre Dame and I was determined to go somewhere different. And here I am, happy as could be.” “I was sitting in my AP math class and I got an e-mail telling me I had been accepted.” “I was waiting desperately for news from Notre Dame. For several days my mom and I would wait at the mailbox for the carrier to bring the mail. Then the day came. The BIG envelope. I opened it. I had been accepted. I started to cry. My mom was crying and so was the mail carrier! We all hugged each other and cried some more.” As I listen to each student’s story, I feel like the mercy of God is flowing in and out of everyone in the room. These young, wonderful students truly listen to each other. I am aware that every story is holy, is of God, and that we are all standing on holy ground. It’s easy to see how God moves and acts and prompts in our lives. And the older I get the more I know that all anyone really wants in life is for someone to know a piece of their story. Notre Dame Story Nights are an opportunity for our wonderful young people to share a piece of their story with other students who represent the growing diversity of Notre Dame. Athletes, DACA students, international students, students from wealthy families, shy students, gregarious students, first-generation students, students working on campus so as to send money to their family in Texas. After everyone tells their Notre Dame Story, we all say our names again and then we pray a Hail Mary together. One night a student asked, “Can we all pray the Hail Mary in our native language?” We prayed together that evening in Spanish, English, Lithuanian and Swahili. So beautiful. On the first Saturday of May I invite all the students who have taken part in a Notre Dame Story Night for Mass and lunch. Of the 170 who will have participated, approximately 120 will come. It’s a wonderful event each year. These nights are an opportunity to practice what Pope Francis consistently calls the “culture of encounter”: You have something good to give to me and I have something good to give to you. I think the students leave my room having experienced the culture of encounter. Each one has received something good from the others. And each one has given something good to the others. As I clean up and haul out the trash, I think about how our country and our world might be enriched if people from different backgrounds sat down with one another and told part of their story. We would have a very different world. Rather than building walls, we would all be building bridges. As I say so often, one thing is obvious — we all stand in need of the mercy of God. For sure the mercy of God unites all of us in our diversity. The mercy of God is all-inclusive._Father Joe Corpora, CSC, is the director of the "Catholic School Advantage":https://ace.nd.edu/catholic-school-advantage/ campaign within Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program and associate director, pastoral care of students, in the Office of Campus Ministry. He is one of 700 priests whom Pope Francis appointed in February 2016 to serve as Missionaries of Mercy._