Iona College Honors Pope John Paul II at Memorial Mass
New Rochelle, NY - The Iona College community celebrated the life
of Pope John Paul II at an outdoor memorial Mass on April 5. Alex Eodice,
PhD, dean of the School of Arts and Science, and Sarah Dayton, a senior
English and religious studies major, offered reflections during the Mass
and several students served as lectors and Eucharistic ministers.
Pictured above is Father Jack Replogle, the Iona chaplain, offering Mass
beside a painting of Pope John Paul II.
Dayton spoke of the Pope’s “unique and dynamic relationship with
the world” and her experience seeing the Pope during a high school trip
to Rome. “Let us carry his message with us,” she urged the more than
two hundred people in attendance.
”For those of us who work in the academic environment of a Catholic college,
Pope John Paul II was especially inspiring and impressed upon us the special
responsibilities that go with educating in the Catholic tradition,” said
Dr. Eodice, who also spoke of the way the Pope died. “What impresses me
most is the final punctuation of his Papacy, that is, how he died. He chose not
to return to a hospital, but to be with his followers and to die publicly. The
universal song of praise that has been sung in this man’s death gives us
hope for our collective future,” he stated.
Members
of the Iona bag pipe band, above.
“Like a cathedral, peace must be built patiently
and with unshakable faith”
- from a 1982 homily given in Coventry, England
©"L'Osservatore Romano photos from the book John Paul II:
A Light for the World.
(-30-)
For questions or more information please contact:
Meghan Finn
Public Relations Office
Iona College, 715 North Avenue, New Rochelle, N.Y. 10801
tel: 914 633-2005 fax: 914 637-2711
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