It has been a tough first week of classes. On Mon­day, the temperature never rose above ten degrees. Last night a foot of heavy snow fell on top of the nearly two feet already on the ground.

I wasn't sure how many people I would find at our first weekly Eucharist of the term. Driving was impossible, even if one mustered the will to dig out one's car for the third time in three weeks. I walked over to the divinity school past piles of snow higher than my head.

But a hardy group of students, staff and faculty were milling around in the chapel, listening to the choir of two practice (one of the two had trekked to school in snowshoes). When celebrant Francis Clooney, a Jesuit member of our faculty, took his place at the altar, we organized ourselves into a congregation and stood to pray.