UD Christmas on Campus....
Dec. 7th, 2004 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poltr1Every year, at around this time, the University of Dayton -- UD for short -- holds their "Christmas On Campus" celebration. It started off, 40 years ago, as a way for students to give back to the community and raise funds (and collect gifts) for needy families in the area. It's since become a campus-wide event, led and organized by students. It culminates with a Christmas mass on the evening of December 8 (for you Catholics out there, it's the Feast of the Immaculate Conception - a holy day of obligation).
Now, before you start saying "Separation of Church and State!", UD is a school run by Marianist Catholics, and thus, a private institution. Marianists put a strong emphasis on Mary, mother of Jesus. Mary is the closest person Christians have to a Goddess figure. (Although Mary Magdalene runs a distant second, thanks to years of obfuscation, corruption and/or suppression of her story, and neglect.)
I started participating in '93. The choir director at the church I used to attend (and sing in) is also the director of music ministries at UD. He invited all of us in the choir to join him for Christmas on Campus. It was quite an event. Several thousand of us -- students, alumni, and parents -- were packed in the Frericks center (the old school gynmasium), and about 300 musicians (both choir and orchestra). It was the biggest mass I ever attended. For the next several years, I was part of the choir, and purchased tapes (and eventually CDs) of the mass. I drifted away from it a few years ago, since I was growing weary of the heavy Catholic bias, and was moving away from Catholicism and moving toward paganism.
I went to a public university (SUNY/Buffalo), so this was never part of my college career. However, because of the sizeable Jewish population, the local chapters of Hillel and Chabad House managed to provide for these students. In the fall, there was a sukkos in the area near the student union. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were school holidays. And for Hanukkah, they had a large 20' one with oil lamps in the main plaza. It was curiously intriguing to see one of the rabbis in the bucket of a cherry picker, lighting the oil lamps.
Updated 23:13: It was great to be part of a multi-cultural holiday celebration. I miss that here, in southwest Ohio -- or what I've come to call "Goys' Town USA".
This year, I'm going back to sing, just out of sheer giveaway. Even though I'll openly wear my pentacle, I'm sure there's a few people that will dismiss it (and still think I'm Catholic), not understand the symbol, or be spooked by it. (Although Catholics aren't as spooked by witchy stuff as the fundamentalists.)
Now, before you start saying "Separation of Church and State!", UD is a school run by Marianist Catholics, and thus, a private institution. Marianists put a strong emphasis on Mary, mother of Jesus. Mary is the closest person Christians have to a Goddess figure. (Although Mary Magdalene runs a distant second, thanks to years of obfuscation, corruption and/or suppression of her story, and neglect.)
I started participating in '93. The choir director at the church I used to attend (and sing in) is also the director of music ministries at UD. He invited all of us in the choir to join him for Christmas on Campus. It was quite an event. Several thousand of us -- students, alumni, and parents -- were packed in the Frericks center (the old school gynmasium), and about 300 musicians (both choir and orchestra). It was the biggest mass I ever attended. For the next several years, I was part of the choir, and purchased tapes (and eventually CDs) of the mass. I drifted away from it a few years ago, since I was growing weary of the heavy Catholic bias, and was moving away from Catholicism and moving toward paganism.
I went to a public university (SUNY/Buffalo), so this was never part of my college career. However, because of the sizeable Jewish population, the local chapters of Hillel and Chabad House managed to provide for these students. In the fall, there was a sukkos in the area near the student union. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were school holidays. And for Hanukkah, they had a large 20' one with oil lamps in the main plaza. It was curiously intriguing to see one of the rabbis in the bucket of a cherry picker, lighting the oil lamps.
Updated 23:13: It was great to be part of a multi-cultural holiday celebration. I miss that here, in southwest Ohio -- or what I've come to call "Goys' Town USA".
This year, I'm going back to sing, just out of sheer giveaway. Even though I'll openly wear my pentacle, I'm sure there's a few people that will dismiss it (and still think I'm Catholic), not understand the symbol, or be spooked by it. (Although Catholics aren't as spooked by witchy stuff as the fundamentalists.)
