End of Year Message from Fr. Jim Lies-

Dear Parents, Guardians, and Families of Duncan Hall,

Since arriving in Duncan Hall, after six years in London for Notre Dame, in the fall of 2023, I’ve been grateful to share life with your sons, but this is the first time I’ve written to you at Christmas. Thank you for the many ways you support your sons and, through them, the life of this hall. Please receive this note as a small expression of my gratitude for you and for the young men you have entrusted to our care. After forty-three years in different cities, it's a pleasure to live near my brother, Bill, who is in his eighth year as Provincial Superior of the U.S. Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross (even as he remains my little brother... by eight minutes!).

My days at Notre Dame are divided mostly between the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, the Keough School for Global Affairs, and Duncan Hall, which I am grateful to call home. At Nanovic, I help support faculty and build partnerships that engage Europe in all its complexity. In the Keough School, I’ve especially loved teaching a course on the Psychology of Diplomacy, walking with students as they wrestle with how people lead, think, feel, forgive, and sometimes fail on the world stage.

Each evening I head back to Duncan Hall, where I live as priest-in-residence with 232 good-hearted young men — including your sons. Their motto, Community, Brotherhood, Respect, has become a daily examen for me. In a noisy world, it’s encouraging to see them try — imperfectly but sincerely — to live that out in their friendships, studies, leadership, and even in how they handle the ordinary frictions of hall life. It is a privilege to pray with them in our chapel, to hear their worries about classes and relationships and the future, and simply to share the everyday life of this community. Thank you for the gift of entrusting them to our care.

These years have brought a fair bit of travel again, mostly for the Nanovic Institute. I’ve visited Milan, Verona, Vienna, Rome, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Zagreb, Sofia, Lublin, Warsaw, and Malta. A couple of other treks in other directions took me to Sydney and Fremantle, Australia (as part of an external review committee for the University of Notre Dame Australia), and Santiago, Chile (where I serve on the Board of Directors for St. George’s College, a very fine Holy Cross educational institution). Closer to home, I still make regular trips back to Minnesota, to family and to our cabin near Little Falls, Minnesota, our hometown.

In the past three years, our family has also said painful goodbyes, especially to my brother Mark (2024) and my sister Mary (2025). I miss them. I’d be grateful if you would remember Mark’s son, Ben, and Mary’s husband, Joe, in your prayers — and know that I stand with you in your own losses as well. Pray, too, for my sister, Laurie, and her family. Laurie is living with a degenerative brain disease, but maintains a spirit and joy that is both astounding and humbling. Please never hesitate to reach out to us with your prayer intentions.

Living and working at Notre Dame keeps me close to Our Blessed Mother, who held both joy and sorrow in her heart and somehow never stopped saying yes. She has been a steady companion in these years. My prayer for your sons — and for you — is that this Christmas brings a glimpse of Emmanuel in your own lives, and that the new year draws us all a bit closer to the person God is calling each of us to be.

Wherever this note finds you, and whether or not we share a common faith, you and your sons are part of the communion of people who have shaped my life, and I am profoundly grateful. I will remember you, and the men of Duncan Hall by name, in prayer at the Grotto this Christmas season.

With love and prayers,
Fr. Jim