Double-Edged Command

Fr. Joel Tabora, S.J.

Baccalaureate Mass
Ateneo de Naga University Collegiate Graduation
24 March 2006

We come together this evening in a spirit of special thanksgiving.

Earlier today the Baccalaureate Mass for 364 graduates of the College of Commerce was celebrated. At our Mass this afternoon, we come together as one community to give thanks for 158 graduates of the College of Arts and Sciences, 43 graduates of the College of Education, 101 graduates of the College of Computer Studies, and 67 graduates of the College of Engineering. We celebrate an Ateneo de Naga University batch of 733 graduates, 6 of whom are graduating magna cum laude and 57 of whom are graduating cum laude . Among your number are the first Civil Engineering graduates of our university.

We give special thanks this evening because neither your studies at the Ateneo de Naga University nor your having successfully fulfilled all the requirements for graduation can be taken for granted. From my office I know there are many students who would like to have studied here at Ateneo, but did not have the resources to do so. There are many students who enrolled with you, studied with you, worked and wrestled with the same teachers you worked and wrestled with, engaged themselves in interests and activities similar to yours, but who have not meet the requirements for graduation. Neither your presence at the Ateneo nor your graduating today can be taken for granted.

Yet you are graduating as beneficiaries of the loving providence of your parents and the unending support of your relatives and friends. You are graduating because of the generosity and philanthropy of donors, some known to you personally, others not. You are graduating because of a community of academicians who recognize your education to be their vocation in life and freely embrace this calling, despite the fact that they could be earning more elsewhere. Some of you, indeed, are graduating “against all odds” – despite the extra work you took on to help make ends meet in your families as the political and economic situation in our country went awry and an extended value-added tax ate painfully into precious family resources; or you are graduating despite the burdens you took on to be responsible leaders in organizations or endeavors dedicated to the welfare of others; or you are graduating even despite the joys and responsibilities of love that entered your lives and made all the difference. Where you could have been overwhelmed, you were not; where you could have failed, you did not; where you could have just sat back and let life pass in mediocrity, you rose to the challenge, managed your time, rolled with the punches, risked much to attain your own “magis”, and succeeded . We celebrate this. Because despite all the help and support you may have received from others, this is your achievement, this is your triumph, this is your victory. No one can take this away from you.

At the same time, even as your achievements are celebrated, this is one of the privileged occasions in life when it is possible to recall the personal love God has for you. You may have experienced the love of God in your parents' keeping you studying despite the limitedness of your families' resources, and the specific claims other members of the family make on those resources. You may have experienced God's love in the teacher prodding you do better in your work than you initially thought you could do or even wanted to do. You may have experienced God challenging you to keep your resolutions “against all odds”; you may have experienced his forgiveness after you'd “messed up”, and failed, and made life exceedingly complicated for yourself and others. You may have experienced God's love in the love of a girlfriend or of a boyfriend convincing you of life's beauty, and the meaningfulness of all your sacrifices in life. You may have even experienced God's closeness, his hand on your shoulder, his strength in your struggles, his power in your achievements, his glory in your success. You may have experienced God in you, behind you, above you, before you, providing, redeeming, challenging, guiding, loving.

If this is indeed the case, then the message of the Gospel text which the Church has prepared for your graduation is all the more relevant: As the Lord loves you in such prodigality, in such manner that he holds on to nothing, not to his divine status nor to his human dignity, but that he empties himself, accepting in love for you death on the Cross, so you are in life “to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.” Then, “you are to love your neighbor as yourself.” It is the Church's graduation message for you – where other graduation demands range from getting the highest-paying of jobs as a matter of pride to taking care of the education of younger sisters and brothers as an imperative of gratitude. It is a command that can only be obeyed in free response to God's love already lavished on you. “Love God with everything that you have. Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Love God, who first loved you, so that in all things he reigns in your lives; in his reign, love your neighbor, respond to your neighbor's need. His double-edged command would be: recognize first the prerogatives of God, serve first His kingdom – primum regnum Dei – the motto of our school. In this recognition, be a man or woman “for the other” – a “man or woman for others.” Hopefully it is a motto and watchword that at graduation are forever etched in your hearts.

We thank God for your graduation. We thank God for the people who made your graduation possible. We thank God for the command to love Him above all else, and to love our neighbor as ourselves – primum regnum Dei . In his reign, today, in your academic achievement and personal growth, you are the focus of His love as you are the delight of ours. We thank God for you and pray for your every success in your careers and in your lives.