*Please Note: With the start of the 2011–12 academic year, the ND Report website will no longer be updated.

Invocation

Loving God, we thank You for allowing us to reach this day, surrounded by those we love and who have supported us throughout our journey. Please bless our families and friends, who believed in us even when we may not have believed in ourselves. Bless our professors, advisors, and other members of the Notre Dame community whose contagious enthusiasm for learning and noble quest for truth continue to inspire us. Be with those loved ones unable to join us here today, but whose presence we forever hold deep in our hearts.

Help us, oh Lord, as we prepare to depart from Notre Dame and embark on new challenges. May we always remember the great love You have shown us, and may we strive to imitate this perfect love with each person we encounter. As we set out to do Your will, help us to be mindful of those most in need, those burdened by poverty, injustice, and oppression. Help us to live lives of compassion and to see Your face in the faces of those we serve.

Please guide us as we continue to discern Your call for us, and aid us as we strive to answer that call. Help us to live lives of abundant faith, steadfast hope, and undying love, following the example of Notre Dame, Our Mother. And may the words of Blessed Father Basil Moreau, founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross, inspire us as we go forth from here “to make God known, loved and served” in our world.

We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, Your Son. Amen.