As the end of the semester approaches, a fun-filled event is coming to help students de-stress and unwind as they begin studying for finals.
Loyola University’s annual Mass and Pancakes is an event organized and led by the Office of Mission and Ministry as well as the Residence Hall Association. The event takes place each semester right before final exams begin.
On Dec. 11, Loyola’s ministry will have 9 p.m. Mass in the Audubon Room. Directly after the Mass, students are encouraged to stop by the Orleans Room for a nighttime breakfast. Students are also able to receive free t-shirts, but these items run out fast.
The fun tradition was started over 30 years ago by a former staff member in Student Affairs who saw it as a good opportunity for students to come together to pray in thanksgiving for the semester and to celebrate the end of the semester with
each other.
Ken Weber, university minister for liturgy and music, sees this tradition as a time to come together as a university as well as cultivate the Jesuit values that the university, as well as the students, hold dear.
“Mass and Pancakes embodies so well our Catholic, Jesuit culture here at Loyola because the Catholic Mass is the central celebration of the Catholic religion, and to follow Mass with a meal is a practice that goes back to the earliest Christians, who inherited the practice of combining a religious ritual with a shared meal from our Jewish ancestors,”
Weber said.
The theme for the Mass and Pancakes event is always chosen by the Residence Hall Association. This year’s theme is “Finding Dory.”
Teddy McDermott, sociology sophomore, is looking forward to the event.
“I think that since I’ve never been to Mass and Pancakes, the best moment of it for me would be the fellowship aspect with friends and classmates. And pancakes—because who doesn’t love pancakes,” McDermott said.
McDermott may be surprised when he learns there are no pancakes at the event—the univeristy discovered that pain perdu, which is like French toast, keeps better than pancakes under heat lamps early in the event’s history.
