Good morning. President Nemec, Ms. Davidson, members of the board of trustees, deans, administrators, faculty, parents, friends, and most especially fellow graduates of the class of 2024. I stand before you with great gratitude for receiving this honorary degree.
I’m humbled by receiving such an important recognition. I’m honored to be counted among you as a graduate of this year and quite frankly, after 43 years of completing my collegiate studies, I guess it was time for me to graduate as well.
My fellow graduates, we gather here this morning to celebrate your many accomplishments with great joy having achieved them during this four year adventure as part of the Fairfield University family. Each of you have accomplished much and all of us here are deeply proud of you. You have unlocked your God-given gifts and talents, discovered the beautiful truths that govern our creation and those truths that are transcendent that give meaning to human life.
Many of you have achieved distinctions in so many different areas of study and you have each and every one of you completed a rigorous course of study. You are well prepared for whatever you have chosen as the next stage of your life. We all here salute your achievements. We are proud of the young people you have become and all of us wish you God’s blessings as you take the next step into your life. Let’s give them a big round of applause in recognition.
My friends, but you have also had the singular blessing to be in this remarkable university that founded is founded animates lives bleeds the Jesuit motto, maam de ‘to the greater glory of God’. For the very foundation of this place and all that it aspires in its mission and work is to give greater glory to God through you and me.
For God is the author of every human life. He’s the giver of every blessing. He’s the one who invites us to seek a life of purpose and service to our neighbor. You, my fellow graduates, in a few hours will be stepping off this campus and you will be begin to enter a world in a whole new way, challenged in many ways, you know those challenges as well as I. Unbridled technological change, growing political, social and communal division, a growing lack of tolerance and the deepening gap between those who are privileged and those who live in the shadows of society. You like me, are called to be leaders in that world and to face those challenges. Accepting the burden and mantle of leadership has never been easy. It is not easy now.
And yet my young graduates, all of you can leave this place with graced confidence that you have every tool at your disposal to embrace your own future and to lead our community and our nation to ever greater greatness.
74th Commencement Exercises | Undergraduate Ceremony 5/19/24 from Fairfield University on Vimeo. The Bishop begins to speak at 56:37.
But allow me to ask you a question. I ask it of you who are graduates. I ask it of all of us who are gathered here. What type of leader will you choose to become? What type of leadership do you aspire to embrace? May seem like a strange question to ask, and yet even a perfunctory look at modern history shows that many have answered that question in very different ways, some with dire consequences for those around them.
Many years ago I stumbled on a description of leadership that allow me the liberty to share with you today the author of the article ‘Described Leadership’. In this way, leadership is the ability to inspire willing change in others. You see, I find that intriguing, intriguing because no one can inspire others to change unless she or he is willing to change.
First, to admit that to be a leader among men and women to accept that as our mandate and responsibility begins deep within the fabric of my life and yours. It begins with a commitment to recognize that you and I do not have all the answers and that we need to aspire ever to change in greater excellence and integrity that you and I must always remember. We are projects that are unfinished and so a truly transformational leader in whatever walk of life God has asked you to walk is one who will continue to grow in self-knowledge and self-reflection, to never be afraid to admit my faults and you admit your faults and limitations to seek ever greater wisdom, which is a lifetime project. It is for you and I always to strive for greater courage of heart, to embrace the truth, who for those of us who are disciples of the Lord we know is a living person who is Jesus the Lord, and to stand for what we believe and to ever know that more deeply in the journey of life it is to be more humble before God and to accept the blessings He gives us.
See, Saint Ignatius speaks of setting the world on fire, but my dear friends, that fire begins deep within you and me. It’s a passion, a burning desire for each of us to seek greater excellence, more authentic integrity to challenge the accepted beliefs of modern society. For there are some who are whispering and perhaps now even no longer whispering, saying to us that the order in which we live is broken, that perhaps the best years of our country, nation community, perhaps they’re behind us, that the status quo cannot be healed.
And yet we gather here to say with a clarion call to our country, to our community, to our Church, that that is not the case. That our horizon, each of our human horizons is not shackled to the status quo, but each of us, all of us have dignity, creativity, and a future that is given to us by God, our Heavenly Father. We are called to be the architects of hope and transformation and you, my fellow graduates have all those tools at your grasp.
When I was your age in prehistoric times, I heard this challenge and I would be a liar if I said to you, I fully understood it. Now that I stand before you with a degree in one hand and my Medicare card in the other hand, now I can honestly say that I do.
Today is a time of great celebration and joy richly deserved by each and every one of you, my fellow graduates, but it’s also a time for you and the quiet of your heart to accept the calling God has given you to accept the mantle of transformational leadership and wherever God leads you to be able to bring hope and change to the people entrusted to your care and a world that is looking for a better way.
Allow me to conclude. Allow me to give you advice because I guess I am the oldest graduate here. A transformational leader never uses another person as a means to an end, never considers the success of his or her life as the measure of material wealth, is a person that never forgets that the measure of a person’s heart is always the principles by which he or she can live, and as a person that never sees a challenge as a roadblock, but as an opportunity for true and lasting change, a transformational leadership is a missionary of hope. So my fellow graduates, as you accept your diplomas today with pride and gratitude and step into the world as our newest leaders go out with pride, confidence, and hope, and together let us renew the face of the earth. Congratulations, my friends and you go with my prayers each and every one of you. God bless you all.