President Father Robert Walsh's Remarks at Graduation
Esteemed Trustees & Regents, Cherished Faculty, Staff and Administrators, Dear Parents, Distinguished Visitors, Beloved Class of 2009, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Before I address this beloved 150th graduating class, allow me to express the deepest thanks and appreciation to the faculty, staff, and administrators and all who have assisted our students on their educational journey to this day. Many changes during their four years have transpired, especially in changes in leadership, and I am particularly grateful for the goodwill, work and perseverance of the Regents and Trustees, who so faithfully serve as stewards of this work of the Society of Jesus. Without the generous support and sacrifices of you, our parents, we simply could not have educated your sons and daughters as effectively and thereby aided them to become the good young men and women they are today. Thus, I am abundantly grateful for all that each of you have contributed to the lives of these Ignatians. Thank you for your goodness and generosity to them and to St. Ignatius.
Members of the Class of 2009, my fellow Ignatians:
Our context for reflection today is decidedly different from years preceding. This year, for many, hope is stretched thin as we witness the disarray that has come home to roost when greed and ineptitude allows, as Bill Moyers puts it, “laissez-faire anarchy [to produce] destructive, unfettered, and ungovernable power.” Almost 20 years ago, Oliver Stone in the film Wall Street created the character Gordon Gecko, a prophet of the economic era preaching his gospel that “greed is good.” How prescient Stone was. He saw the storm clouds gathering on the horizon, and though the storm rains down on us now, it will take decades to repair. Perhaps, Jesus was not wrong when he taught, “You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve God and Mammon.”
Rather than just tell you, “Good luck! Hope it all works out!” I thought I might counsel you one last time. What made me turn from the temptation to feed you platitudes was reading Bill Moyers’ recently published speeches in Moyers on Democracy. Reflections on democracy and debt, country and constitution, education and economics, freedom and faith are right and just for this rare moment that is both an end and a beginning.
In his essay, “For America’s Sake: A New Story for America” Moyers wrote: “Although our sojourn in life is brief, we are on a great journey. For those who came before us and for those who follow, our moral, political, and religious duty to make sure that this nation, which was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all are equal under the law, is in good hands on our watch.”
What is the shape of your hands as you commence your watch as citizens of the nation and the world? What is the intellect that you will bring to your time? What attitudes, values, and virtues will guide you and arm you for the battle of good and evil, and make you victorious? What heart will you have for those on the margins of life and society? Will your soul take up the clarion call to be an agent of change, so that justice, peace, freedom, and equality may abide for all?
During Easter vacation, an apparition appeared on the edge of Columbus Piazza on campus. A bronzed image of Ignatius of Loyola suddenly found a home at our school named for him. Portrayed as a pilgrim, staff in one hand, and a book in the other (a book in the other), he is in mid-step with one foot off the ground ready to move forward, ready to move on. When Ignatius dictated his life’s story, he used the term “the pilgrim” to describe himself. This is the same title, Ignatius the Pilgrim, that the artist gave the statue. Ignatius was a man on the move, inspired by God’s call to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. He found God in everything and everyone along his pilgrim way. Thus, it is no surprise that his ideal of the great human being is to be a person on the move, with one foot on the ground and the other in the air, ready to go where God calls. Journey became pilgrimage with God involved.
This may be an ideal worthy of you: to be a pilgrim, on the move, undertaking a journey toward a destination that has no map, except the example of Ignatius to follow in Christ’s footsteps. A pilgrim adventure is an awesome thing and can only be undertaken with hope and faith. Otherwise, you might as well just stay at home. We who know you, who have educated you and who love you, know you are capable and ready for this great pilgrimage as you step forward today.
The next great step, for most, will be to university. Some people will suggest the years of academia not are spent “in the real world.” The myth that your real life will start only afterward is an absurd idea. Of course it’s real; after all, your parents are not paying for it with monopoly money. Thus, I encourage you and challenge you to live each day with all the power, pizzazz and verve that you have. Do not spend your life waiting for the future. “Carpe diem” as the Latin poet Horace urged in his Odes: “While we speak, time is envious and is running away from us. Seize the day, trusting little in the future.”
A second myth many market about university, is that its real purpose is to create a career. Despite the myth, college is not necessarily about a career even though it might be the bridge to one. Rather, college and the pilgrimage of life are about education. Education, as Plato portrayed in his allegory of the cave in The Republic, entails leaving the realm of shadowy ideas and emerging into the light. Your life can and should be about learning, growing (and I’m not speaking about the Freshman 15), gathering, seeing and seizing and plucking not only the day, but the great universe of ideas mediated by a variety of disciplines and met in a myriad of places, not limited to a collegiate campus.
As you step forward, I hope you encounter new adventures that challenge your concepts of self, society and life. Learn enough history or read enough lasting literature to know that human foibles and follies cause others to suffer and they undo the foolish self. Then read one page more to feel the outrage that we are not yet all we can be, for the scourges still exist of injustice, racism, economic disparity, classicism, violence, slavery and greed. (Yes, greed, Gordon Gecko).
Read! Read something: a book, an article, a newspaper or even a decent blog that will cause you to ponder, to question and to challenge. You will feel your brain alive and bursting with ideas and insights, even if your brain hurts.
Give yourself to moments that elevate and enlighten you. Surround yourself with the arts, music, painting, poetry, drama, comedy or opera. Listen to the whole of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony without fast forwarding to the “Ode to Joy,” and you just might get a little bit more clearly why the deaf composer believed in joy. Even when he had lost his ability to hear music physically, he could still hear it in his mind, in his soul, and write it down for us to hear as well.
Meet new people. Travel and immerse yourself in neighborhoods and vistas unlike those where your pilgrimage began. See the big, wide world and look closely at its nooks and crannies to find the beauty and the beastly. Science like no other lens can help you understand the genius of the Creator’s purpose and the ways you can partner in preserving and restoring creation. Such scientific knowledge may make you more passionate about the fate that can be averted, the changes that are possible, and the contribution that you can make for a green and sustainable Mother Earth.
For God’s sake unplug yourself and clear your calendar. I hope you have time to lie on the lawn and look up and see the stars, the tree leaves in color or snowflakes falling. I hope you have friends or acquaintances who will share these moments and your hopes and dreams. I hope you meet people who cause you to be uncomfortable, people who help you change your mind. Then, you can hear a new voice, see a new vision, think a new thought and have a better idea.
May your pilgrim days inspire you to spend time with someone who needs you. Whether it be in a homeless shelter, a tutoring session or a hospital room, may you find yourself spent in service and once again renewed or converted. Some learning only happens in solidarity.
May this sacred journey also have some sacred moments. Stop into a place where God is reportedly found, even if it is with difficulty. While many of you have mastered the art of seeing God in all things and examining your ways, also seek God in God’s own things: his word, his sacraments, his silent or sounding temples and sanctuaries, where God’s grace and love freely flows. Remember that true religion results in relationship. So remember to forgive, often and generously, to speak kindly and carefully. Let me repeat: Speak kindly and carefully. Let go of the hurts and learn to atone for what is your sin and yours alone. Give time to your soul, as Ignatius did and taught.
And remember once in awhile, as you enter the college gates and climb the stairs to class or camaraderie, that you are privileged and blessed. Others will never have these days or opportunities. Thus, you would do well to think hard and often about who you are and who you are becoming. Reflect, as Moyers challenged, on your moral, political and religious duty, or as St. Paul wrote, “Live a life worthy of your calling.”
With such an educated character in hand, you can step forward to be the solution-makers, the prophets, the activists, the teachers, the priests, the doctors, the nurses, the journalists, the civil servants, the parents, and the citizens who still believe in “the promise … that leaves no one out.”
As you climb these steps to receive your diploma, think of all it symbolizes and how you heard the story of a companion-pilgrim whose life was transformed from selfish self-interest, and how the pilgrim became a place where you learned, a place called St. Ignatius. Then it will be all the more possible to believe, yes we can, si se puede, we can do all things ad majorem Dei gloriam.
We believe in you. We love you. God bless and guide you always.