Do Jayhawks fight?

Homily

Solemnity of the Ascension

Graduation Weekend and Mother's Day

12 May 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

AMDG

Do Jayhawks fly?

I've been chaplain at KU for 8 years, and I'm a grad from here, and I still don't know.  Have you ever seen a Jayhawk fly?  Certainly not the dozens of Jayhawks affixed to pedestals all over campus. There are vulgar legends about what it would take for those Jayhawks to fly, that we won't get into here.

On the other hand, Jayhawks sure seem to fly through Allen Fieldhouse.  Johnny Furphy can fly, and he's a Jayhawk, and a kangaroo.  And now that we're a football school, Jason Bean was so fast he seemed close to liftoff, and he's a Jayhawk.

So do Jayhawks fly, or don't they?  Heck if I know.  Maybe it's a question best left to the Aerospace Engineer graduate in our midst.

Actually, there's a more critical question than whether Jayhawks fly. That question is this.  Do Jayhawks fight?  If you know the history of the Jayhawk, our killer mascot was uniquely created to be meaner than hell. The original Jayhawkers were the ruthless fighters who ensured Kansas came into the union in 1865 as a free state, not like Missouri. Two feisty birds, ferocious actually, the blue jay and the sparrow hawk, were combined into a singularly nasty hybrid known worldwide as the Jayhawk.  

Which is why my favorite rendition of our mascot is not the sexy legs Jayhawk or smiling Jayhawk, but the 1947 Warhawk.  Meaner than hell.

So, the best and last pivotal question for your KU graduates this year is not whether you will fly, but whether you are meaner than hell, whether you will fight for human dignity and freedom. You're supposed to be nasty, class of 2024, but in a good way.   Will you be tenacious in fulfilling the gift and responsibility of your life?  Jesus laid it out for you perfectly in your last Gospel at KU. Go into the world and defeat the worst spiritual, moral and relational evils of this age, confirmed by the fire of the Holy Spirit, strengthened by the accompanying signs and mysteries of Christ's sacraments, and fight like hell to fulfill the purpose and destiny of your life.

The Ascension of Jesus is not so much about flying, as the angels attest in today's Gospel, it's about fighting until the love of Christ fills and conquers all things, until all creation participates in the redemption that builds a new dimension of reality, the kingdom of Heaven.  

Your education at KU was meant to give you access to a truth that sets you free to make a sincere and meaningful gift of yourself to something that matters, something bigger than yourself.  Even more, the practice of your Catholic faith precisely at a time when you were surely tempted to ignore it, reject it, or cancel it, has given you an imagination for what your life will ultimately mean, and a capacity to be a singularly tenacious missionary disciple of Jesus Christ who will bear fruit that lasts.

The Church loves you, class of 2024. We believe in you, and we thank you for trusting us to guide your story while at KU.  We will miss you!  Our prayer is that you will fulfill your capacity for risk, vulnerability, commitment, communion, sacrifice, influence, and tenacity, as Catholic Jayhawks.  Full permission to be meaner than hell, and to write the greatest stories of faith of this generation.

Congratulations from all of us at St. Lawrence, class of 2024!  Fly, Jayhawks, fly - if you dare and if you can!  But even more than that, always fight for what you believe in.  Rock Chalk and Amen!