Homily
6th Sunday of Easter B
Graduation Sunday at the University of Kansas
Mother's Day 2012
St. Lawrence Chapel
13 May 2012
Daily Readings
Check this out on Chirbit
Dear graduates:
Of all the things you have learned while you are at KU, the making of friendships is the most important. Now don't be dismayed - I know that you could have made friends elsewhere, without spending tens of thousands of dollars and switching majors one or more times. There are other places where you could have made friends than at KU. Still, of all the learning that took place here over the last 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 plus years, the art of friendship is the most important. For as Jesus reveals in today's beautiful Easter Gospel, the vocation to love is deeper than the vocation to learn. And the most important lesson of life is not measured by a GPA, but whether or not you have learned something worth giving your life to, whether you have mastered the art of laying down your life for your friends. The University of Kansas is measured by many standards, but in the end it is more than a place where you come to learn stuff, it is a community of learners. It is a place to make new friends, and a place to be changed through friendships. So yes, although it is essential to go to class, the most important lessons in life take place outside the classroom. You may one day forget some of the calculus or French you learned here, and its importance may fade, but what you learned about friendship will remain. On this day, many will want to know your degree and major and GPA, but the deeper question is . . . .who loves me, and who knows me, and who do I know and love?
For some of you graduates today, your friendship with our Lord Jesus has changed significantly during your time at KU. St. Lawrence has offered classes and liturgies and spiritual direction and retreats and pilgrimages and missions, and most importantly, a place to make better friends. Still, not every Catholic student at KU takes advantage of these opportunities, for one reason or another, and even for those who do, a secular university like KU is a place where the gift of the Catholic faith is tested. Whereas on the day of our first communion we might enthusiastically say that Jesus is my best friend, there have been many temptations over the past few years to see your faith as an obligation, and perhaps you have been told by others that a relationship with Jesus is an affront to your personal freedom, as a relationship that must be discarded as a slave must escape his master.
Yet St. John tells us plainly that it is only because of Jesus that the world knows what love truly is; without Jesus, the definition of love is hopelessly up for grabs, and no university can define it. So we know Jesus to be our best friend because being love itself, he alone can define love, and show us what it is, and fulfill the demands of love, in a way that no one else at the university can. In this is love, says St. John, not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us, and sent his son as expiation for our sins. St. John tells us two essential things in one sentence. First of all, that God is the only one who can love unconditionally, since being love himself, and not needing love whatsoever, he is the only one who can love us truly and unconditionally for our own sake, seeking absolutely nothing in return. What is more, although many can forgive and overlook our faults, only Christ is our redeemer and savior; only he can and does love us most strongly where no one else can love us, where we cannot even love ourselves, with a love strong enough to redeem us.
Not even the best of friends nor the closest of family can generate this unconditional love, for we ourselves must always confess we need love in return. Still, without first generating this love, we can imitate this love by living up to Jesus' commandment to love one another just as he loves us. Although God loves us without condition, and he loves us solely because of his choice, unconditional love can only be kept on the condition that it is given away. This is the great paradox and mystery and adventure of love, that love and friendship remain insofar as they are able to move; they are retained insofar as they are given away.
It is our prayer, graduates, that the day of your graduation from KU will mark your graduation as well deeper into the mystery of God's love for you, a love that will keep your life focused on bearing fruit that will remain forever. On this beautiful mother's day, the Church, the mother of the family that is destined to last forever, rejoices that you her children are here to be fed by God's unconditional love, made perfectly present again in the Holy Eucharist. You graduates know well, however, that this unconditional love can only remain in you, and can only bear fruit, insofar as you are not afraid to receive like Mary did, the mission and vocation that comes along with the gift. Accepting your vocation is not a condition for receiving God's love; it is the way to remain in it. May Mary, the exemplar of mother Church and of every mother who wishes to be the instrument of God's love that produces eternal life, bless your mothers and the pursuit of your vocation in every way on this graduation Sunday. Amen.
6th Sunday of Easter B
Graduation Sunday at the University of Kansas
Mother's Day 2012
St. Lawrence Chapel
13 May 2012
Daily Readings
Check this out on Chirbit
Dear graduates:Of all the things you have learned while you are at KU, the making of friendships is the most important. Now don't be dismayed - I know that you could have made friends elsewhere, without spending tens of thousands of dollars and switching majors one or more times. There are other places where you could have made friends than at KU. Still, of all the learning that took place here over the last 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 plus years, the art of friendship is the most important. For as Jesus reveals in today's beautiful Easter Gospel, the vocation to love is deeper than the vocation to learn. And the most important lesson of life is not measured by a GPA, but whether or not you have learned something worth giving your life to, whether you have mastered the art of laying down your life for your friends. The University of Kansas is measured by many standards, but in the end it is more than a place where you come to learn stuff, it is a community of learners. It is a place to make new friends, and a place to be changed through friendships. So yes, although it is essential to go to class, the most important lessons in life take place outside the classroom. You may one day forget some of the calculus or French you learned here, and its importance may fade, but what you learned about friendship will remain. On this day, many will want to know your degree and major and GPA, but the deeper question is . . . .who loves me, and who knows me, and who do I know and love?
For some of you graduates today, your friendship with our Lord Jesus has changed significantly during your time at KU. St. Lawrence has offered classes and liturgies and spiritual direction and retreats and pilgrimages and missions, and most importantly, a place to make better friends. Still, not every Catholic student at KU takes advantage of these opportunities, for one reason or another, and even for those who do, a secular university like KU is a place where the gift of the Catholic faith is tested. Whereas on the day of our first communion we might enthusiastically say that Jesus is my best friend, there have been many temptations over the past few years to see your faith as an obligation, and perhaps you have been told by others that a relationship with Jesus is an affront to your personal freedom, as a relationship that must be discarded as a slave must escape his master.
Yet St. John tells us plainly that it is only because of Jesus that the world knows what love truly is; without Jesus, the definition of love is hopelessly up for grabs, and no university can define it. So we know Jesus to be our best friend because being love itself, he alone can define love, and show us what it is, and fulfill the demands of love, in a way that no one else at the university can. In this is love, says St. John, not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us, and sent his son as expiation for our sins. St. John tells us two essential things in one sentence. First of all, that God is the only one who can love unconditionally, since being love himself, and not needing love whatsoever, he is the only one who can love us truly and unconditionally for our own sake, seeking absolutely nothing in return. What is more, although many can forgive and overlook our faults, only Christ is our redeemer and savior; only he can and does love us most strongly where no one else can love us, where we cannot even love ourselves, with a love strong enough to redeem us.
Not even the best of friends nor the closest of family can generate this unconditional love, for we ourselves must always confess we need love in return. Still, without first generating this love, we can imitate this love by living up to Jesus' commandment to love one another just as he loves us. Although God loves us without condition, and he loves us solely because of his choice, unconditional love can only be kept on the condition that it is given away. This is the great paradox and mystery and adventure of love, that love and friendship remain insofar as they are able to move; they are retained insofar as they are given away.
It is our prayer, graduates, that the day of your graduation from KU will mark your graduation as well deeper into the mystery of God's love for you, a love that will keep your life focused on bearing fruit that will remain forever. On this beautiful mother's day, the Church, the mother of the family that is destined to last forever, rejoices that you her children are here to be fed by God's unconditional love, made perfectly present again in the Holy Eucharist. You graduates know well, however, that this unconditional love can only remain in you, and can only bear fruit, insofar as you are not afraid to receive like Mary did, the mission and vocation that comes along with the gift. Accepting your vocation is not a condition for receiving God's love; it is the way to remain in it. May Mary, the exemplar of mother Church and of every mother who wishes to be the instrument of God's love that produces eternal life, bless your mothers and the pursuit of your vocation in every way on this graduation Sunday. Amen.
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