All 11 a.m. classes will be canceled so the entire Loyola University New Orleans community can attend the Mass of the Holy Spirit. Loyola President the Rev. Kevin Wm. Wildes, S.J., Ph.D., is the principal celebrant, and Edward Vacek, S.J., the Rev. Stephen J. Duffy Chair in Catholic Studies, is the homilist. 

Most Catholic schools, and especially Jesuit high schools and universities, celebrate the Mass of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of every school year. It is a tradition almost as old as the Society of Jesus itself, going back to the first Jesuit school in Messina, Sicily, in 1548.