With classes and activities in full swing at this point in the semester, Campus Ministry will be holding “Sabbath Week,” a time for students to take a break from meetings and

activities and use that extra time to re-center.

From Oct. 20 to 25, most Campus Ministry programs, such as Wednesday Night Fellowship, Thursday Night Bible Study and Habitat for Humanity will be canceled for the week.

According to Greg Baker, director of Campus Ministry, students are encouraged to take this time to focus on what is what is most needed for them- whether it is spending time with a friend they have not seen in a while, reading a Bible or holy text or just catching up on sleep.

“Basically what we’ll continue to offer are Mass and sacraments and a few meditative things. We won’t be doing any extra meetings,” Baker said.

The idea for Sabbath Week, which in various faith traditions is traditionally a day of rest or time of worship, originated in Campus Ministry last year, when Mercyhurst switched from 10-week trimesters into longer 14-week terms.

“We came up with it as a staff and part of it was the idea for transitioning into semesters,” said Baker. “We thought it would be healthy to have some time off during those terms.”
Last year, Campus Ministry had a year-long theme of Sabbath.

This year, Campus Ministry staff will be inviting its 60-plus student leaders to a Sabbath Week dinner to thank them for their hard work.
Mercyhurst Student Government will be participating in Sabbath week as well.

The MSG general meeting on Monday Oct. 20 will be canceled, and none of the committees will be meeting that week, according to Michelle Farley, Student Ativities Council Chair on the MSG executive board.

“We were contacted by Campus Ministry and after they explained what it was about we thought it was a great initiative,” Farley said. “Our Senate and Board work really hard and they deserve that break, and we wanted to support Campus Ministry.”

Although Sabbath Week has only been a tradition in Campus Ministry so far, Baker says it could potentially expand to other offices throughout the university.

“There may be a time when doing this will be a more campus wide thing. We can’t shut down our operations but there may be other things we can do,” he said.

In accordance with the spirit of the approaching Sabbath Week, Baker’s message to students is:
“Don’t always let what you do define who you are.”