Since the start of the construction of the Sports Center this summer, I have made it a point to go over there to monitor its progress. Whenever I make my rounds at the construction site, I am always struck by the hard -- and dangerous -- work that the construction workers engage in, rain or shine!

      Looking down from the Primary Grade School Building, I cannot help but realize one important truth: We are not all born equal. We are not all born with the same talents or even similar opportunities to develop them. Those of us who belong to the Xavier Community have been born and have grown under circumstances better than those of the construction worker. We could very well have found ourselves working "down there" instead of watching them "up here."

      That we find ourselves "up here" watching them work down below.that is not something that we deserve. It is not an entitlement. It is grace..pure gift, a gift that God has chosen to give only to some of us and one that must lead to greater compassion for those less fortunate.

      Far from being a mere source of inconvenience, the construction of the Sports Center, the site teeming with people working under the sun or the rain, can provide a graced opportunity for all of us here in the Xavier community, if we let it. May the ongoing construction lead not only to the building of the Sports Center, but also to the building of hearts and minds of "men and women for others."