Rome: The Matteo Sachman Theology of Pilgrimage Seminar
The Matteo Sachman Theology of Pilgrimage Seminar is endowed by the Sachman Family to offer deserving students with limited means the opportunity to participate in this Magis program. Below, you’ll find a message from the family to the student recipients, as well as the speech delivered at Matteo’s Celebration of Life on February 24, 2024.
For more information about the seminar, please visit the Magis Immersion webpage.
Pictured here, Matteo Sachman on a family trip to Alaska in the summer of 2022.
The Matteo Sachman Magis Immersion Seminar and Pilgrimage
Dear Matteo Sachman Magis Immersion Endowed Fund recipient: Congratulations! You are about to embark on what we hope will be one of the more meaningful experiences of your Georgetown career. Our family wanted to provide you with some context about Matteo and the purpose of this fund. Matteo died in a tragic accident on January 1st, 2024. He was 19 years old and had just finished a very rich first semester in the College at Georgetown. He loved everything about it and cherished being part of a Jesuit community. Our family decided to endow this fund in his name to honor him and the values that he represented in perpetuity. The speech below was delivered at his Celebration of Life held on February 24th, 2024 at St. Paul’s Church in New York City. We hope that it provides you both insight and inspiration. He was a truly beautiful human being.
Warmly,
The Sachman Family
CARING FOR OTHERS-SELFLESSLY
Good afternoon: Before I begin my formal remarks, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who came today to this Celebration of Life for our beloved son Matthew Sebastian Sachman. I also want to express my tremendous gratitude on behalf of Alexia, Julia and Nicholas for the outpouring of love, compassion and grace that we have received. It’s this Love that Keeps Loving that will continue pushing us forward through this heart-wrenchingly difficult time of profound sadness and grief,
Many of you knew Matteo as the gregarious, big-hugger. The guy with the twinkle in his eye that lit up every room he entered. The irreverent prankster leading the cheering section at home basketball games until he was blue in the face. The intellectually curious student who loved reading transgressive Japanese literature and studying history. The die-hard skier who loved tearing up fresh powder in the Back Bowls with Julia and Nicholas.
Today I’m going to talk about another aspect of him that I’m especially proud of as his father—the selfless caring for others that he demonstrated almost effortlessly. Matteo was a young man who lived a life of deep empathy and truly cared for other people-whether he had just met them or had known them for years.
I want to roll the clock back to the fall of 2020–about 7-8 months into COVID. Thankfully, Collegiate High School was back to school in person and figuring things out. But everyone’s world was still pretty upside down. Around November, I stumbled upon an ad in the paper soliciting donations for the Bowery Mission in this time of great need. The Bowery Mission has been providing shelter and meals for men and women who are down on their luck for nearly since 1879. Instead of simply writing a check, I suggested to Matteo that we consider giving our time and volunteering to prepare and serve breakfast to folks who weren’t always in a position to have a proper meal or a warm roof over their head. As many of you know, community service is an important component of a Collegiate education, so this idea of voluntary service was both timely and top of mind for each of us.
On the day of our first visit, I woke Matteo up around 615 (not an easy task getting him out of bed at that hour). We headed downtown to the Mission where we were buzzed in and given our marching orders—setting up tables, pouring cups of juice and coffee, sorting and preparing various breakfast items and then ultimately serving dozens of men and women who weren’t particularly used to having a decent meal in a warm, well-lit dining hall. And remember–this was also in the midst of COVID. Masks, rubber gloves, fear in the air. On our way home, after this first visit, we were talking about what we had just experienced and Matteo remarked to me—“I really liked doing that. Everyone really appreciated it.” What he saw and experienced on that first day and every subsequent day was a recognition of the dignity in other people, no matter how down on their luck they might be–even if they can’t see the dignity in themselves. All too often we fail to acknowledge the common humanity that we share with others. Matteo was able to see this shared humanity and it meant something to him. He truly cared for others.
We went back many times, and each day held meaning for both of us. The memories of him in the food line greeting every single person with a friendly “good morning” and “have a nice day” are rich. Everybody got 2 bagels, not 1, 3 packets of jam, not 2. He especially liked the back door service. After the regularly scheduled indoor service was finished for folks that had spent the night in the Mission dorm, the remaining food and coffee was offered to a sizable contingent of people who gathered outside the backdoor each morning. Matteo relished heading out into the cold with his tray of hot coffee and food bags and loved the act of making people’s lives just a little less harsh.
After he arrived at Georgetown in the fall and attended the club fair, he called us bubbling with excitement. One of the clubs he was most excited about joining was HOME—the Homeless Outreach Meals and Education program sponsored by the Center for Social Justice. He joined immediately and began his Friday nights preparing and passing out meals to the homeless with his fellow club members before embarking on more traditional Friday night college adventures. And he loved it! He was particularly thrilled when he called mid-semester to tell us that he was one of two freshmen elected to a leadership position with the group. We were thrilled for him and so proud of what a fine young man he had become.
It’s in this spirit of selflessness, of caring for others, of trying to make the world a slightly better place that our family created the Matteo Sachman MAGIS Immersion Endowed Fund at Georgetown to honor his memory.
MAGIS is a really special concept at Georgetown and for Jesuits. It means doing more, doing the deeper thing, making extra effort, going the extra mile. These are things that Matteo embraced and loved doing not only in his work at the Bowery Mission and with HOME but also with his large group of friends whether in Georgetown, NYC or Nantucket. Whether it was warmly welcoming a newcomer to his extended friend group, looking after a friend that may have imbibed too much alcohol during a spring break trip to the Bahamas, sending a comforting note to a friend who was struggling in the wee hours or patiently serving an indecisive flower customer at Arrowhead Nursery, He… Really… Cared. And He lived this caring.
Each spring break, Georgetown offers a number of MAGIS immersion retreats where a small number of students travel to sacred places such as Rome, Athens, Jerusalem. They are called MAGIS because they are experiences of going further, going deeper—of enabling students to engage more deeply with issues of faith, culture, history and justice through immersion and reflection. Students walk away from these experiences with an enriched sense of the power of faith and community—ultimately helping them find a greater connection between the intellectual and the spiritual life. The ultimate goal being to take this experience and help make the world a better place in some way.
Matteo was really excited to do a MAGIS retreat to Rome during his sophomore year. This fund will honor Matteo’s memory and his deep faith in God and his love of Georgetown. It will provide deserving students with limited means the opportunity to participate in these programs in the years to come. We don’t think there is a more fitting tribute to our beautifully selfless and compassionate son. Thank you again for being here with us today.