Welcome
The Prep’s New Alumni Chaplain
Sixty-five and a half years after leaving Fordham prep, i
have returned. it is a strange feeling to realize that where
i began my Jesuit vocation, there i shall end it – at least,
that latter scenario seems to be secured. in between, i
have traveled the world, to the east and to the west, from
Helsinki to Bangkok, and to the north and to the south,
from reykjavik to Bogota, with a twenty year stop in
micronesia. And yet now, it is as if i never left my Hughes
Hall days at Fordham prep.
At our fiftieth and sixtieth reunions, we classmates picked
up the conversations we had begun on graduation day.
At least, that was our impression! When you grow together
from childhood to young adulthood, a bond is formed
which cannot be dissolved. When at our most vulnerable,
our lives were intertwined, never to be unraveled, even
when separated by many years. Fordham prep years are
an experience which will never be duplicated.
And so it was with great joy that i said ‘yes’ to Fr. Chris
Devron’s invitation to return to Fordham prep as Alumni
Chaplain. As a child, my family moved so often that, over
the comings and goings of the years, it was the Fordham
campus that became the mooring anchor of my life.
As i watch this younger generation race and laugh
through the halls, i recall my own years, and i pray that
their futures in service of this undeserved planetary gift
entrusted to us by a loving god, will be as full of joy,
amid inevitable sorrows, as mine has been. it is good
to be home!
Joseph Bilotti, SJ ’50
Alumni Chaplain
Spring / Summer 2016 | 9