About 250 students joined together to sing “Whom Shall I Fear?” at the first Catholic Gators Mass on the Grass for All Saints’ Day.
Catholic Gators, a student group from St. Augustine Church, hosts Mass on the Grass two to three times a year, but this was the first time they held the event for All Saints Day, said Campus Minister Sandy DeTeresa. All Saints’ Day is a holy day of obligation in the Catholic church to celebrate all Catholic saints.
Father David Ruchinski, 48, a priest and the director of the Catholic Student Center, said the group decided to hold the event on campus to draw out more students and keep with the Pope’s wishes.
“It is a holy day of obligation, and so we would normally try to make Mass available for as many people as we can,” Ruchinski said. “Keeping with Pope Francis’ call to go out to meet people where they are, we thought having Mass on campus would be more effective.”
Ruchinski said he saw more students Wednesday than in past events for Mass on the Grassbecause the program as a whole is consistently growing.
Kristy Minno, a 20-year-old UF health science junior, said she enjoyed celebrating the holiday and asked St. Francis of Assisi and St. Joseph of Cupertino to pray for her.
“People going to class do stare, which I think is great because they get to see a glimpse of the Catholic Church and the love that Christ has for all of us by becoming present to us in the mass,” Minno said.
St. Francis is Minno’s patron saint, and St. Joseph is known to help with exams and tests, so she asks them for prayers often, she said.
“Just like we ask our friends on earth to pray for us, as Catholics we ask the saints in heaven to pray for us too,” Minno said.
During the Mass, Ruchinski talked about the joy of celebrating with everyone who is in heaven, both canonized and unnamed saints.
“The beautiful weather only enhanced the sense of celebration,” Ruchinski said. “As if all the saints in heaven were smiling down upon us.”
