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 Carrol Muccia ’58 hadn’t been back
to Holy Cross in nearly 10 years, when he and his wife, Margo,
a 1961 graduate of Newton College of the Sacred Heart, decided
to come to campus for the “Lift High the Cross” weekend
in September 2001. They were moved by what they found.
“We were very impressed with what we saw
and heard, with how much Holy Cross had grown physically
and how it strove to maintain its Catholic identity as well
as the quality of its academic programs,” says Muccia,
who earned a degree in economics. “We came back from
that weekend and decided that we wanted to do something (for
the College) in a major way.”
That was Sept. 9. Two days later, the world
changed. Muccia picked up the phone and began brainstorming
with the Development Office about a major gift. “We
knew we wanted to do something with a religious aspect,” he
says. “We just weren’t sure what it should be.”
Within three months, the answer became clear.
Muccia, a senior managing director at First Manhattan Company
in New York, and his wife, decided to donate $1 million to
endow the Carrol A. Muccia Spiritual Retreat Program, which
has a very simple goal: to allow any Holy Cross student to
go on retreat without worrying about the cost.
“Holy Cross’ retreat program is one
of the finest in the country, a model for many other schools,” says
Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J., president of the College. “The
Spiritual Exercises, in particular, have been a life-changing
experience for thousands of students. In recent years, because
we do not own a facility, the cost of making the Exercises
has grown dramatically. Because of budget limitations, we
have had to pass part of that cost on to students, which
has prevented some who wanted to make the Exercises from
doing so. Mr. Muccia’s gift will allow us to reduce
the cost of the Exercises, and also will support expanding
the retreat program and developing new alternatives to meet
students’ spiritual needs.”
Muccia says he was struck by the gap between
the religious experiences of today’s Holy Cross students
and those of his own generation.
“The Chaplains’ Office said that
for many students, a retreat is ‘the most significant
religious experience of their undergraduate years, and for
some it’s the point of entry into an exploration of
one’s faith journey,’” says Muccia, who also
earned an M.B.A. from Wharton in 1961. “That was surprising
to me. In my day, students came to Holy Cross with a strong
knowledge of their faith and were already well on the way
toward a personal relationship with God. If the retreat program
can offer just one person the opportunity to grow in his
or her faith, then this gift is worth it, because that person
will help others … and so it multiplies.”
A graduate of Xavier High School in New York
City, Muccia says he was quite familiar with the Jesuit philosophy
by the time he moved into Campion Hall as a first-year student
in the fall of 1954. “We had a number of retreats in
high school, as well as overnight at Mount Manresa, a retreat
center on Staten Island. We had daily Mass. We had epistemology.
All sorts of logic classes. We were on retreat the whole
time, basically!” he says.
At Holy Cross, he began teaching religious
education to Worcester public school children; by his final
year, he was running the program. “I saw firsthand how
young students began to ask questions, seek answers, and
discover their own spirituality,” he recalls. After
graduation, he continued to teach CCD at St. John and St.
Mary Parish in Chap-paqua, N.Y., where he lived for 30 years
with his wife and four children before moving to Rye a few
years ago. He is also an active advisor to Immaculate Conception,
an elementary school in a disadvantaged area of the Bronx.
And, he and Margo have been touched by their
experiences as a Knight and Dame of Malta: “When we
have been on pilgrimages to Lourdes with the Order of Malta,
we’ve seen the sick come away with an experience of
hope, their lives changed. They see the power of prayer,
of community.”
Taken together, Muccia says, these impressions—as
well as those gleaned through involvement in other lay organizations
that support the Catholic Church—are what inspired and
informed their decision to endow the retreat programs at
Holy Cross.
“One of my favorite feasts is Pentecost—when
the Holy Spirit gave the Apostles not only the gift of tongues,
but also the courage to spread the good news and the message
of Christianity,” says Muccia. “The retreat program
at Holy Cross is not only the spreading of Catholicism, but
an awakening and strengthening of personal spirituality.
“Our purpose in funding this endowment
at this time is to make the retreats available to as many
students as possible, because it is critical to the College’s
mission,” he continues. “God has been great to
us. Our hope is that this gift will go a long way toward
helping to preserve the Catholic identity of the school.”
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