2007 Baccalaureate Homily
By Rev. James J. Miracky, S.J.
The year is 2057. The occasion is the Golden Jubilarians Ball during Reunion Weekend. As you mingle among your septuagenarian classmates in the pavilion of the Michael C. McFarland Sports Arena, you cast your mind back to Senior Week of 2007. What exactly do you remember of those final days of your college career? Most likely not a single word of what I am about to say! Aware that I am probably carrying out a fool’s errand, let’s forge ahead and see if something in this homily will stick in your memory. Who knows? – by fifty years from now, perhaps one of you Bio/Pre-Med majors will have invented an instant recall drug that will allow you access to all that you see and hear in these days!
My central point is this: with your hearts rightly full of pride at your accomplishments in your time here at Holy Cross, the celebration of these last days is meant to honor you, but it’s not all about you. Don’t get me wrong – we are here to rejoice in your many successes: your academic honors, your athletic triumphs and artistic endeavors, your generous service to the community, and so on. However, as you have already heard about your impressive achievements at awards dinners and honors ceremonies (and are likely to hear about more of them in speeches tomorrow morning), I would like to cut to the chase and talk about why these days and this celebration of your Jesuit education are not all about you. But for that I need some help from our gospel reading.
The passage we just listened to, from the 17th Chapter of John’s Gospel, is from Jesus’ Farewell Discourse at the Last Supper, what is, in effect, his valedictory address, and his words are apt for our reflection in this baccalaureate moment. In the Discourse, which stretches for several chapters, Jesus not only offers his final advice to his disciples as he readies himself for the events of the Passion, when he will take up his cross and give his life out of love for God’s people; Jesus also offers words of encouragement and prayers of hope for the future. In his remarks before the verses we just heard, Jesus has already done three things: he has presented the image of the vine and branches as a metaphor for his intimate connection to the disciples, he has called them friends and promised a place for them in his Father’s house in heaven, and he has vowed to send the Holy Spirit to bring them peace and guidance after he is gone.
The words of today’s gospel are essentially a prayer, and what’s amazing is that, at a time when Jesus might most need and deserve it, his prayer is not all about himself. Consider the context: after only three years of public ministry, Jesus has accomplished incredible things: astounding miracles, brilliant sermons, powerful healings, and courageous prophesies. In fact, he has been so inspiring and successful that they want to make him King! Yet, on this occasion, his Last Supper before death, when he might either bask in his triumphs or appeal to his past successes as a kind of bargaining chip to avoid the suffering that was coming his way, Jesus makes the moment, not about himself, but about others. And what is the substance of his prayer? Jesus wishes for his disciples, and others like us who will come to believe in him, that they might grow as a community united in faith and bathed in God’s glory and love. All of the relationships that Jesus has experienced and all of the things he has accomplished, he sees, not as his personal achievements, but solely as gifts from God, gifts that he is impelled to return by sharing them with others in love. Of course, this event, the prelude to Jesus’ ultimate act of sacrificial love on the cross seems focused on Jesus, but in his words and actions, he directs attention towards those whom he loves, motivated by a desire that they be led to God, the source of all gifts. I cannot conceive of a better way of thinking about the spirit of our baccalaureate commemoration.
So, taking a cue from Jesus’ words and actions, if our celebration of your four years at Holy Cross is not all about you, than about whom? The first part of the answer is easy: it’s about those people who brought you to Holy Cross in the first place and whose efforts have allowed you to stay here. Chief among them are your parents, whose love birthed you into the world and whose sacrifices and much-depleted wallets have sustained you here. Joining them are your past teachers and counselors, the benefactors of your scholarship funds, and, of course, your indispensable college loan officer, who plans to stay in close touch as you move out into the world. Our celebration extends to all those who have provided and enabled your educational opportunities while you have been at Holy Cross: faculty and administrators, advisors and mentors, coaches and trainers, chaplains and student life personnel, classmates and lab mates. Special mention is due to those people at Holy Cross who may have remained largely invisible to you but who have made your journey into the life of the mind physically possible: those who cooked your food, cleaned your toilets, shoveled your walkways, and prevented your computer system from crashing…well, most of the time! Be sure to thank as many of them as you can before you leave.
Of course, your education has not just been advanced by the people who work at Holy Cross. It is indebted to your contact with the great minds of philosophers and theologians; the imaginative works of writers, artists and musicians; the discoveries of scientists and mathematicians; and the contributions of civic leaders and social reformers. Be grateful for the time your have spent with them. For many of you, your education has perhaps been furthered most radically by your encounters with those less fortunate than you: the boys you tutored at the Nativity School, the women you comforted at Abby’s House, the families whose houses you helped rebuild in New Orleans and Appalachia, and the emotionally rich but desperately poor women and men whose stories you shared in Mexico, Jamaica, and Kenya. All of these people have shown you a world that is much bigger than you and fostered an education that should not be just about you.
What then, of the future? Where will this education take you? Will it direct you to more than just fulfilling your personal desires and goals? Some social critics label you as part of the “Entitlement Generation,” in their words, growing up “accustomed to instant gratification” and “having been given it all”: cars, computers, cell phones, and more, with helicopter parents hovering nearby to provide all your needs and bail you out of trouble when necessary. These critics see you as going out into the world expecting prestigious first jobs, higher pay, flexible work hours, ample time off, and a standard of living even higher than the comfortable one in which you grew up, and all this for less work. With your Holy Cross diploma almost in hand, I prefer to think of you as the “Gifted Generation,” both in the sense of having been given and achieved much and in the sense that you realize that the talents and opportunities you possess are truly gifts from God, not entitlements. I hope that you are moved not to view these gifts as all about you – your career, your income, your lifestyle - but to give them back, to share them with others, especially with those most in need.
Besides, yours cannot afford to be the “Entitlement Generation,” since the world you are inheriting from us baby boomers, I regret to say, is in desperate need of your help. We are immersed in a war with no end in sight, one of numerous armed conflicts that are seemingly ripping our world apart. Tensions caused by opposing religious, political, and ethnic perspectives on the world make further conflicts likely. As we watch the gap between the rich and poor increase and the epidemic of AIDS escalate, our relationship to developing nations will call for increased generosity on your part. Global warming is no longer a debatable theory, and the depletion of our natural resources has made finding alternative energy sources a matter of life or death. The pace of technological developments has accelerated so rapidly that we do not seem to have the time for reflection on the just and moral ways in which to use them. Now, the enormity of these challenges may tempt you to take refuge under the buds of an IPod or to escape to the more manageable, virtual reality of MySpace, YouTube, and Xbox, but those responses would be a waste of the gifts and talents you have acquired in the past four years. Your education, your skills, cannot be just about you and your comfort zone – the world depends on you too much.
If nothing else, there are two words I am certain you will remember from this homily, words you will encounter innumerable times in the future: Holy Cross. You will type them on resumes and mention them in job interviews, you’ll drop these words in bar conversations and on first dates (you know you will!), and you’ll shout them out at homecoming games. You’ll read them on the cover of our alumni magazine and on those soon-to-be regular mailings from the Development Office. On one level, the words “Holy Cross” will refer to your alma mater, a highly-selective liberal arts institution nestled in a bucolic setting on a hill, which carries a reputation for academic excellence, fiercely loyal alumni and alumnae, and a strong tradition of athletics and the arts. However, if you take anything away from what I say today, realize that those two words are also a code for Jesus Christ’s act of sacrificial love (embodied in the Holy Cross hanging behind me), an event that centered on Jesus, but which he directed away from himself towards us and our salvation. In the last twenty or so hours you spend on this hill, during your late night libation, your sleep deprivation, and your official graduation, my prayer for you is that the two words “Holy Cross,” embossed on your diploma in Latin as “Sanctae Crucis,” will be branded on your hearts, and its code will be realized in your acts of love for others. Inspired by Jesus Christ, whose actions gave us our College’s tradition and its name, may you see that this gift we celebrate, your Holy Cross Jesuit and Catholic education, must not become all about you.