Graduation Mass for the Class of 2014 of St Joseph’s Institution International (SJII)
Readings:
Jeremiah 1.4-10 / Song of Praise: Exodus 15 / 1 Timothy 1.3-4, 6-10 / Luke
4.16-21
Today is
your happy day: you’re graduating. Congratulations, graduates! And congratulations too to the
parents and to the teachers!
As
graduates, you probably have a few things to say today. But I think “Yes, I’ve
made it!" and, "Look out world; here I come!” sum it all up. I believe you are
also asking questions like: “Where shall I go to next? Oxford? Stanford? Harvard? NUS?” And, “What shall I become? Doctor? Scholar? Social
Worker? World class musician or adventurer?”
But here you are, here we are, before God on graduation morning. What would God want to
say to you? What would God want to ask of you?
I’d like
to think that the theme chosen for our Eucharist—“Fan into a flame the gift of
God”—is God’s message for you right here, right now. Let me suggest that God’s
message is both a gift and a task.
The Gift of Remembering
In our 2nd
reading a letter, Paul writes to his friend Timothy. Here is Paul writing at the
end of his life; he is a prisoner awaiting his death. Here is Paul the apostle preached the Good News—that God is love—to one and all around
the Mediterranean.
Paul's letter reminded Timothy, as it should remind us, that what should matter in our lives is this: that
we should be thankful for the gifts we have from God and for God’s invitation
for us to use these gifts, however big or small, to proclaim the same Good News
that God is love and we are God’s beloved. For Paul,
giving thanks for the gift of faith and salvation is the reason that he became an
apostle proclaiming the Good News.
What
about you? Haven’t you been gifted too in these years of studying at SJI
International? What are you remembering with gratitude as you sit here? Perhaps these:
Lessons
learnt. Experiences had. Care received. Friendship forged. Growing up accomplished. Family love continuing. Students, teachers who’ve walked with you. Teachers,
students who challenged you to give your best. And parents, your children growing up and your hopes answered.
And for the rest of us who've come to celebrate with our graduates, we can all give thanks for relationships that
matter in our life, and for simple, everyday things that sustain us, as well as the extra-ordinary events that have uplifted or challenged us to become better.
Yes, there
is much to be thankful for as you look back on your SJII days, and as we come to be with you.
But I
believe thanking God for the gifts you have been blessed with is only half
of what you’ve learnt well in this school: learning how to learn to be thankful and
expressing this thanks as men and women of integrity.
The other
half of what you've learnt has to do with how you've learnt to live by being men and women for others. We can appreciate the significance
of this when we reflect on the image of the prophet Jeremiah in our first
reading. Jeremiah
was chosen to go forth and to proclaim the Good News by using his gift to speak
prophetically about God. Like Jeremiah, you are being invited to the
task of sharing your gifts.
The Task Ahead of You
Today,
God is challenging you to go forth from this school bearing your gifts to the
world: bearing them to transform the world, as SJII has transformed you. Your graduation ceremony is about your school
sending you sent forth into the world to make a difference. And this is also
part of God’s message for you.
I’d like
to believe that your learning in SJII has taught you to live, not for yourselves
but for others to have life. I believe that you have learnt through your
studies and your interaction with the community in these SJII day about how to
use your gifts of knowledge, energy, enthusiasm, compassion and care to bring
about change, to better the world, and to uplift, transform and enliven others.
This is what it means to be a person for others.
Yes, good
to know God’s gift and God’s task on graduation day.
One More Thing
But I think God does have one more thing to say to you as you graduate from this Catholic
Lasallian school. And it is this: that all that you have and all that you are
from these years of learning, of interacting, of playing, of growing, of becoming
more the person you are is meant to be
wasted. Yes,
wasted.
Your education, indeed your life, will only really be worth its value,
its fullest, truest, value when you dare, really dare, to waste it away for
another.
What do I
mean by wasting? Let’s go back to your theme: “To fan into a flame the gift of
God.” For there to be a flame, wood has to burn till nothing but ashes is left.
This is
the kind of life Jesus lived. In our gospel reading, Jesus speaks of his public
ministry. He charts out his roadmap of what he will be doing and who he will
become. He will heal the afflicted. He will free the burdened. He proclaim
God’s goodness for all, whether saint or sinner. He will do nothing less than to
lay down his life for another. He does this because love of God is only truly and
fully love when it is love for others. This is how Jesus show us how to live as God’s beloved.
You and I
are God’s beloved. As his beloved, God
has blessed you with gifts, including a Josephian education, to do what Jesus:
to lay it all down for another to have life. This is how you can—like burning
wood turning into ashes—fan into a flame the gift of God in your life. There is
no other Christ-like way to do this than to die like Jesus did. In death, he
gave life to all. Wasting our education and our life away is like death; it is
a giving of ourselves selflessly for another.
We would
be wrong to see such wasting as loss. Rather, it is wasting in that richer sense
of being prodigal, that is, of being generous, of being selfless, of really
being self-giving in what we do with all our abundance to another, with all our riches for
others.
This is
what a Josephian education is truly meant for: that it be given to someone
else as blessing and gift so that another may have life to the full, and so come
to know the love of God in his life. And this
kind of giving to another, this kind of wasting, is indeed how we can fan
into a flame the gift of God.
I believe
we cannot really give thanks or share gifts unless we dare to die to ourselves—die
to what we have, to what we hoard and to what we want—so that we can be
prodigal towards others, to be wasteful for them. When you dare to do this then the knowledge, faith, life you have received here in SJII can
kindle other fires that will light up the world.
Waste your education for another’s life. It
sounds illogical, stupid, dumb, I know. "What can I gain by doing this?" you may ask.
Jesus’
public ministry (which he proclaimed in today’s gospel) didn’t end in death or
nothingness. It ended in resurrected life so that in everything else there is
fullness of life. You can say that he
wasted his life away for life to abound.
Could God
be asking you who are graduating from SJII today, and yes asking us all too: "Will you waste your education for another? Will you waste it so that you might find life?
Yes, will you waste it so that you can fan your flame brightly in the world, so
brightly so that when others see you, they will say, 'See how they shine with
God’s love!' and then they will smile with delight?"
Preached
at the Graduation Mass at SJII, Singapore
Photo:
from the Internet (stockproject1)
.
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