“It is such a wonderful time of year to come together and celebrate, particularly after these last few Christmases,” Tetlow said to more than 600 members of the Fordham community at Cipriani 42nd Street on Dec. 5. “The magic of being able to come together as a community is ever more apparent—of gathering at Christmas and Hanukkah with our families, those we were born to, those we have chosen, and seeing the wonder in our grandkids’ eyes at this time of year.” 

Awaiting the First Snowfall in New York

In her speech, Tetlow said that she’s excited to spend Christmas with her 10-year-old daughter, Lucy, in New York for the first time. This weekend, they plan on seeing the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, an 82-foot-high spruce that adorns the center of the city every year. They’re also excited about something that most New Yorkers take for granted: snow. 

“We’re waiting with bated breath for snow, which she has really only seen once in her life—in a layover in the winter at the Newark Airport. We let her go outside, probably not the most sanitary decision, but to play in the snow, outside of the airport doors. And for years, she’s spoken longingly of Newark,” Tetlow said, to laughter from the audience. “So we’re very excited for snow, and to see our golden retriever experience it for the first time and what his reaction will be.” 

Remembering the Religious Meaning Behind Christmas

Christmas comes at the darkest time of year when the nights are longest, Tetlow said, but by coming together and shining the light of the Fordham family, “we pierce the darkness with the light.” 

She said that during Christmastime, it’s important that we all take a moment to breathe and remind ourselves of why we do what we do, as well as remember the religious meaning behind the holiday. 

“At this moment, we celebrate the fact that God so loved us that he wanted to be human with us, and not to come as a great glorious king bathed in splendor, but as a tiny, fragile, humble little baby born to poor parents, trying to find a place to stay,” Tetlow said. “In that humanity, God wanted to experience everything that we experience with us.”

From Students to Alumni Who Live ‘Lives of Integrity’

She thanked the Fordham community for warmly welcoming her and her family into the Ramily. At Fordham, we are not only continuing to build on the legacy of St. Ignatius, but also helping students to find their meaning in life, she said. 

“Our students today from Fordham come from every corner of the globe and join every corner of the Bronx. They have such blazing talent, which our brilliant faculty get to invest in, get to tutor and teach and mentor, and help launch them into lives that matter … And you embody them,” she said, addressing the alumni in the room. “You were them, and you have now demonstrated to the world what a Fordham education can do … in careers that matter and in lives of integrity.” 

Father McShane told guests the wintry mix was no match against the spirit of New York City.

“The weather is not cooperating as we kick off the Christmas season, but the city certainly is. The city is sparkling already—and filled with the sounds of the season. Choirs are turning up everywhere,” he said, noting that Fordham’s own choir is preparing for the annual Festival of Lessons and Carols.

“This evening we find ourselves … looking backward and forward at the same moment. Looking backward at all the blessings and graces that God poured into our lives in the course of a year that is now winding down, and at the same time we’re looking forward to all the graces and blessings that lie in store for us at Christmas and throughout the new year.”

At Fordham, he said, the past year has given us much to be thankful for, including the completion of Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid. That financial aid “allows us to keep faith with the promise of our founding founder, Archbishop Hughes, and his vision, and it enables us to spark revolutions of hope in the hearts and lives of the students who come to us,” he said to the room filled with donors and supporters. “You made it happen.”

Looking to the future, Father McShane invited guests to be a part of the University’s next campaign, now in the quiet phase, that will be focused on enhancing the student experience at Fordham. The centerpiece of the campaign, he said, is a major expansion of the McGinley Center on the Rose Hill campus, adding that it will be a campaign for $300 million over five years. “And with this campaign, we will drive the amount of money that we’ve raised over the last 16 years above the billion-dollar mark,” he said.

Reflecting on the Christmases of his childhood, Father McShane shared a custom of his home parish. The pastor would ask families to take home a bit of straw from the nativity scene surrounding the crèche—or as he corrected, the crib. “We were New Yorkers,” he said. “We didn’t have crèches, we had cribs.” The mothers of the parish had responded to his invitation by taking off their Christmas corsages and leaving them before the Baby Jesus in place of the straw they took, he said. “It was a holy exchange of gifts.”

“And so tonight, as we celebrate the beginning of the Christmas season, I want you to take home a bit of Fordham’s Christmas. I don’t have straw, but I do have this, this golden star,” he said, holding up an ornament that was given to each guest. “Whenever you look at it, see in it two things: Fordham’s gratitude to you, who make every day Christmas through your generosity, and also, see in it the light that shines in the heart of all that Fordham does, the light that is derived from a love of God and manifest in his son, who comes to us on Christmas.”

In welcoming guests, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, listed some of the many joys of the season: greenery, greetings, angels, singing—and tourists.

“I know, I know, they don’t know where they’re going, they clog the sidewalks, they walk too slow, and they stop you when you’re at a sprint to catch a train, to ask for directions,” he said. “But I love tourists. You may say, why? … Why did God create tourists? The answer is a simple and very important one: Someone had to pay full price.”

More seriously, he noted that we should all appreciate tourists because “they see a New York Christmas with new and open eyes.”

Christmas Customs

New York does Christmas like no place else, Father McShane said. But it’s not just the city’s traditions that we celebrate at the start of the season, he said, it’s our personal holiday rituals as well.

He talked about his own family’s “great McShane Christmas custom,” in which he and his three brothers piled into their 1948 Pontiac when his father drove their uncle home to midtown Manhattan.

On the way back to their home in Marble Hill, they would drive by what his father thought was “the greatest hidden Christmas treasure in the city of New York,” the Star of Bethlehem that sat atop the tallest building of the Fordham Hill apartment complex.

“It just presided over the whole city in a very special way,” he said. “It is as steady as love itself.”

“When I look at it, it reminds me of that first love that set fire to the stars,” he said, recalling a line from Dylan Thomas. “It reminds me of the first love that we celebrate at this time of year.”

‘Be the Light’

Father McShane let all guests know that they would be receiving an ornament shaped like a Moravian star—a representation of the Star of Bethlehem.

Part of Fordham’s mission, he said, is to be a “source of light in darkness.” He told guests that he hopes when they look at the ornament, they will be reminded of their own responsibility and mission:

“Be light in the world. Be the light that people’s eyes seek in times of uneasiness, in times of sorrow, in times of fear. Be the light. Be the star.”