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Stress Relief

May 12th, 2011 armare12

I was on my way to the library today, in order to prepare for my exam on the Uncanny in Women’s Writing tomorrow, when it started to drizzle. This afternoon, the temperatures in Ireland seemed to drop and clouds darkened the sky, making it seem like we’re in the middle of October, not halfway through May! On my way over, I ran into Fr. Peter, one of the other chaplains on campus, waiting in the rain outside of the Examination Hall.

I don’t recall if I ever told you how I met Fr. Peter, but the story really only attests to what an incredible person he is. It was in my first few days of Trinity that I decided to make the effort to completely and totally pre-empt homesickness. My plan was that if I reached out to outlets that had always comforted me at Holy Cross, I could at least partially avoid it! I immediately knew what my first outlet would be—the Chaplain’s Office. Being a part of Liturgical Ministries at Holy Cross is one of the things I love most about HC—and it’s also one of the things I’ve missed the most this year. It was not long, then, before I found Fr. Paddy and Fr. Peter’s email addresses and sought them out, not knowing then that they would shape my entire experience abroad. Fr. Peter had then invited me to lunch in the Chaplain’s Office—and, alas, my bond with the TCD Chaplains Office began!

As I was chatting away to Fr. Peter, he informed me that he was waiting outside the Exam Hall to greet a student who he knew had been stressed out and under a lot of pressure in taking this particular exam, wanting to make sure that he had made it through okay. I’ve known all year what an amazing resource the Chaplain’s Office is, but I have to say that it never fails to amaze me when I see a member of TCD’s staff—whether faculty, chaplain, administrator, etc.—pause to reach out to one individual student. This is something that would never even cross my mind as a surprise at HC; I have to admit that this is truly a commonplace experience for people at HC know faces and names, because the campus is so small and homey.

However, on a campus of 16,000 students, to see Fr. Peter take the time to stand in the rain, to source out one individual reminded me of what an amazing place I’ve been a part of, a place where individuals truly care about the well-being of each and every student.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 12th, 2011 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.