2009 Baccalaureate Mass Homily
Rev. James J. Miracky, S.J.
May 21, 2009
What would happen if I had a stack of $200,000 refund checks up here to offer to those members of the Class of 2009 who are not satisfied with their Holy Cross education? (Parents, do not jump up, the choice is your child’s!) I imagine the first thing to happen would be that Fr. McFarland would be undergoing cardiac arrest right about now!
The notion of such a refund may seem like a crazy (and bankrupting) idea, but think about it – there are a lot of people in society who see education as just another business. These people view students as customers, who pay a lot of money, fulfill their requirements, collect their diploma, and are entitled to full satisfaction, including a respectable job. To this way of thinking, it’s very relevant to gauge the worth of the parchment you are about to pick up tomorrow on the stage at Fitton Field, especially in light of today’s uncertain economy. What will you have to show for your four-year investment of time and resources? A bachelor’s degree from a liberal arts college in the Jesuit tradition – and what good is that, you might ask? So, if I had such checks available, would you claim one, and on what grounds?
Before there’s a rush for the aisles, there’s a catch to this proposal – if you collect the refund, you have to give back all your experiences of the past four years at Holy Cross. That means returning all the great literature you’ve read, the scientific discoveries you’ve made, and the religious, philosophical, political and economic theories you’ve absorbed, as well as all the academic work you’ve accomplished – the research projects, the papers, the artwork, the dramatic performances, and so on. If you take the check, it means sending back all of the culinary delights you’ve dined on at Kimball and Crossroads, that is, when you could figure out what your ever-changing meal plan covered. It means forgetting all those Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Pub nights of revelry (although I imagine you might be happy to erase some of those from your memory!) You’ll also be canceling out successful student programming of the last four years, like Unity Week, Holy Cross Cares Day, and Take Back the Night; and you’ll be forfeiting those Patriot League championships in men’s basketball and women’s lacrosse, not to mention the greatest upset ever in collegiate tournament hockey. Collecting the refund means negating the smiles of the boys you tutored at Nativity Prep and the gratitude of the families for whom you rebuilt houses in Appalachia and on the Gulf Coast. It will also require letting go of all those moments you’ve achieved spiritual insight and encountered God at liturgies and on retreats. Finally, accepting this buyout means losing all your friends, teammates, professors, and mentors because you would basically have to void your membership in the Holy Cross community.
Having second thoughts about the refund offer? While you’re contemplating your options, I invite you to consider the situation of the disciples at the moment of Jesus’ ascension to his Father, as described in our first reading from the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles. In many ways, the disciples’ experience was not unlike yours. They, too, embarked on the journey of a few years, following a man who gave them an education that many would question as impractical. As they sat at the feet of this teacher, they came to understand scripture, learn to pray, stand up for justice, and see God’s face in the poorest of the poor. In doing so, they formed a community of friends that gave them life, a companionship that they hoped would be bound forever. They had already had their hopes dashed once before, at the crucifixion, when they split apart and thought they had lost Jesus for good, and now, after they had experienced the renewed hope of his resurrection, he was ready to depart again and leave them on their own!
While the disciples were standing atop Mount Olivet, what do you think they were feeling? I imagine it was a mix of things: disappointment at Jesus’ leaving yet again, worries about being without their leader, a lack of preparedness for the challenges of the world ahead, and fear of the suffering that comes with standing up for the ideals Jesus stirred in them. As they were faced with this complex set of emotions, it’s no wonder that they were left gaping at the sky. In the moments immediately after Jesus has left, one can’t blame them for marveling at his disappearance, or reminiscing on what they were losing, or being freaked out that Jesus is gone, or just standing there, petrified at what the future may hold for them (sound familiar?). They were literally and figuratively on a precipice…and they might have been tempted to ask, was the journey worth it?
But they are not alone at that moment…and not without resources. Recall Jesus’ words that they are to “wait for the promise of the Father” when “in a few days [they] will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” On that Pentecost Day, the disciples will receive the gift that will send them forth into the world, a spiritual power that will draw forth their own gifts of teaching and healing and leading, gifts that were so richly fostered under Jesus’ tutelage. The time and energy and heart they have invested in following Jesus will come to fruition in service to others. Despite their current uncertainties, they will draw upon the lessons learned from and actions modeled by Christ to succeed in ways they could never imagine. As the rest of the Acts of the Apostles tells us, they will spread out through the world and bring God’s word and love to multitudes. Their future lives will show that the journey was worth it—and I believe that none of them wished to trade it for anything else.
Back to my question…has your educational journey of four years also been worth it, or are you tempted to cash it in? Well, to the great relief of Fr. McFarland, the Board of Trustees, and the Bursar’s Office, I’m afraid I do not have that stack of checks. While the substantial cost of going to college is a serious matter, requiring enormous sacrifices on the part of students and their parents, I believe the experience should not be reduced to a sticker price leading to a lucrative job. In the Jesuit tradition, an education is not a transaction but a transformation, a life-changing experience that, as it did for Jesus’ disciples, builds on one’s gifts so that they might be shared with the world.
A couple of weeks ago, when I spoke with a group of the Class of 2009 in preparation for this homily, I was impressed by your awareness of how much you’ve changed in four years. You have developed incredible gifts here – a spirit of inquiry, a love for learning, a passion for service, a confidence of voice, an embracing of diversity, and a patience with ambiguity. When I asked what you wanted to hear in the homily, one of you pleaded with me, “Please don’t tell us we’ve just had the best four years of our lives, and it will never be as good again!” Au contraire – while these four years have been a pretty great deal (and worth the investment, I would say), within them you have been transformed in ways that suggest the best is yet to come. So you may not be getting a check, but over the years you’ll see a payout worth its weight in gold (and the burden of those student loans) - a payout of intellectual challenge, committed service, deep relationships, spiritual growth, and most of all, knowing that you are enveloped by God’s love. To receive this payout, the catch I mentioned earlier still holds—as followers of Christ, you are called to give your experience back, not in the sense of forfeiting it for monetary gain, as in my original offer, but in service for the betterment of the world.
So, like the disciples on that Ascension Day, as you’re now situated atop Mount Saint James - what are you looking at? What are you feeling? Unlike the two mysterious men in white robes on Mount Olivet, I am not going to rush the moment of whatever is going on inside of you right now. You still have about a day left here before the gates are opened and we release you to the world. In your education at Holy Cross, you’ve done a lot of looking and contemplating in these four years – I want to invite you to one last round. Four years ago, at a session on journaling at your fall Gateways Orientation, you were introduced to a core element of Jesuit education that we call discernment or reflective practice – taking time to reflect on your experience and talents and to consider the ways in which you are being called to live your life. I want to invite you to gaze inward and outward once more before you leave here. Sometime in the next twenty-two hours — whether during the rest of this liturgy, while dining with your family, dancing up a storm at the Baccalaureate Ball, spending those deliriously sleep-deprived moments on this very hill as you watch tomorrow’s dawn, or marching amid the roar and affirmation of that crowd cheering you on Fitton Field — take a moment and look around to see the faces of your beloved friends, and teachers, and families; then, look down the hill and gaze upon the world you are about to enter. In this moment of contemplation, test the worth of your education here and what you plan to do with it. When you do so, I hope you will see that, as recipients of a Holy Cross education, you are indeed entitled – not in the sense of being deserving customers, but in having your name inscribed, “en-titled’ if you will, on a diploma that carries the values and call of the one who carried its namesake, that Holy Cross. All of us look forward with great hope to the ways you will give your education, this blessed trust fund, back to the world.