Xavier Celebrates Service

The Christian Service Program seeks to prepare students to exercise Christian attitudes in today's world. On Tuesday, April 12, the Xavier community gathered in the gymnasium to recognize and celebrate the importance of service to local and global communities through several different channels.

This spring there are 256 seniors at 136 different sites around the city, Westchester, New Jersey, and Long Island, completing more than 18,400 Christian service hours as a class. When combined with the sophomore and junior year classes, more than 25,000 hours of Christian service will be completed this academic year.

Founded on the cornerstones of community, simplicity, prayer, and service, CFX trips provide students with a communal experience of Church as a center of reflection and prayer while working with those most in need.

A record 197 students along with 36 administrators, faculty, and staff, eight alumni, and three faculty family members participated in CFX during the 2014-2015 school year—including 14 students who recently completed the first-ever CFX Dominican Republic trip.

“While these numbers are certainly impressive, it is not in the numbers that I see the value of our service programs,” said Paul Wendel, Director of Ignatian Service Programs. “It’s when I witness a student make a connection on a CFX trip with someone from a community radically different from their own. It’s when I get a phone call from a site supervisor thanking me for sending young men who go above and beyond their responsibilities in Christian service.”

Peter Thomann ’16, one of 11 current seniors who traveled to Ecuador for the junior year immersion trip, shared the impact that CFX had on him.

“Pedro Arrupe defines a man for others as one who lives simply, takes no unjust profit, and changes unjust structures,” said Thomann. “The men and women for others ethos, which is such an important part of Xavier’s mission, is more than just doing something for a buddy. Participating in a CFX trip allows one to witness and become the full meaning of being men and women for others.”