2017 Baccalaureate Mass: Prayer and Family

Senior Week traditionally begins with The Baccalaureate Mass. On Friday, June 2, the Class of 2017, their families, and the faculty and staff of The Prep gathered at St. Edmund Church to celebrate mass, to give thanks to God, and to pray for our seniors. Below is the video and a reprint of the homily delivered by Fr. Michael Gribbon, Chaplain.

What an honor it is to be one of the first to congratulate the Class of 2017. This celebration of you tonight; thankfulness on our part for the gift of you as our student body, is just an honor for me. I’ve only known you for a short time, but I’ve just been so impressed by your goodness and by your kindness. The welcome that I have received from you in this short time has really touched my heart and impressed me. It made me feel very welcome at St. Edmund Prep and that has been a very big blessing for me in my life. So, I want to begin by thanking you for that gift and by offering my prayers of thanksgiving for you as a class and assure you of my prayers for your constant success and happiness as you go forward.

 

The reading of the gospel is an interesting one. It begins with Jesus speaking to his disciples and, as many of you know, he is talking to them for the last time before he dies on the cross. And so, it is important; he is trying to capture that moment. He is trying to talk to them about their future. He is trying to realize what is going to happen after they experience his death and crucifixion, and ultimately his resurrection. What a change it would be in their life. How they would be beginning, as you are, a whole new chapter of their life. He wants to give them, in a sense, a legacy. He wants to capture something about that moment.  I couldn’t help but notice at the prom, and even today as I was walking through looking at all the – and it used to be just the students, but – all the parents with their cell phones ready to go and I’m sure that everyone wants to capture the moment, in a photograph, in a video, in some particular way.  I think we can think of Jesus there, trying to capture that moment; This intense moment with his disciples and leave with them, and have them leave him with a message for their future. Leave them with a sense of direction, with a sense of hope, with a sense of where they are going as they move forward.

 

This is what he says to them, “Remain in my love.” Other translations of this are more poetic perhaps and say, “Live on in my love.” I want you to think about those two phrases, “remain in… and live on in…”. For me, certainly, to get up here and to have the privilege of preaching tonight, is to say we want you to remain in Christ Jesus, certainly, and as he says to his disciples, we want you to remain in His love.   I want you to live on in His love; to continue that process of discovering in your hearts and in your lives the beautiful gift that God has given you; to be you. To uncover that gift more powerfully and more tangibly. To develop the skills and talents that will allow you to be the best possible you that you can be, because that is your greatest gift to the world.  But at the same time, using those phrases, “remain in… and live on in…”, we want you to remain in the spirit of St. Edmund Prep. We want you to live on in what we have tried to expose you to, to teach you, and to lead you in over your years here at our school.  I want you to think about what is that for you? What do you want to continue? What do you want to bring with you? What do you want to remain in you as you go forward? It’s not your books. They all have to be returned…you can’t keep the books as much as you might like to.

 

I’ve been very attentive over the past couple of days as we’ve gone through different experiences, to think about what we want to remain with you. I was impressed last night, for example, at the Sports Awards Dinner, and what I was impressed by is the great achievement. Think about the last couple of weeks, here’s what I’ve seen.  I got to go to the band concert and to see the great accomplishments, musically, artistically, last night athletically, and certainly, I don’t know where to put it, at the prom. To see you guys out on that floor – I’m tempted to use an old phrase from a song I knew back in the 90s that said, “Shake it like a salt shaker” – you were all out there, having a good time. What impressed me the most was how you were out there, loving each other. You were just so united you couldn’t fit another person on that dance floor. You were all crowded in together, singing together, dancing together, laughing together, and in a very real sense loving each other in the way that Jesus talks about. Loving each other, appreciating each other, remembering your times together, celebrating your victories over the struggles of your life, the successes you achieved, things you are most proud of and most happy about.

 

We want you to celebrate that tonight and I want you to remain in that spirit. I want you to keep that spirit of joy, that spirit of success, that spirit of accomplishment; I want you to take that with you wherever you go.  That night, you could have done anything you wanted.  You were so filled with one another, with that support and encouragement. Even with the faculty members that were there, you embraced them, you thanked them, danced with them. All of those things are just a way of saying how we really acknowledge the presence of each other in our life. I want you to remain in that spirit; the spirit of really being appreciative for the blessing that you have in each other and the blessings you have experienced in this community.

 

When I got here, and I was starting to understand the community, very frequently I would here Mr. Lorenzetti or somebody else speaking, I would hear them talk about the family of St. Edmund Prep and that whole idea of being a family. Well, I’ve seen it in the flesh over these past weeks; the way the teams gathered together for their pictures, you could feel the love of these student athletes for each other. When I watched the band play, I could see the accomplishment as they performed another piece of music, I could see the talent and them celebrating each other’s talents, rejoicing in each other’s gifts, and bringing those gifts together to make beautiful music. When I look at the artwork displayed, to see the talent and the ability, to know the discipline and hard work that went in to doing all of that…so much of that captures for me who you are and what you stand for.  On Tuesday we will celebrate the academic part of that. For me to see the artistic, the musical, the athletic, the academics, that has all been very, very beautiful.

 

For me, the most important day in school so far, has been the day we had the school blood drive.  I asked the nurse, “How many in the senior class donate blood?” She told me that, considering the ones that for different reasons were rejected…more than half the class donated. That sums up the fullest meaning of the word, “Caritas”. That word, charity, which is the motto of our school; that word which you lived so beautifully.  I’ve seen that word lived out in so many ways: on the elevator when someone was sick, it has impressed me when there were kids on crutches, there would always be a willing student to carry their book bag and to escort them from class to class. That kind of Caritas is what I want you to live on in. I want you to live on in that goodness to each other. I want you to live on in the sacrifices that you are willing to make for each other. I want you to live on in that real joyful love that you have for each other; that you care for one another as brothers and sisters, that you lift each other up, support each other, help each other, and that you are certainly there for each other in the good times and in the bad times.  This is the thing, for me, that I want you to live on in. I want you to take that lesson, that Caritas, and bring it with you to college, to your home, to your future, where ever you go and whatever you do. Bring that spirit of St. Edmund Prep with you. Live it in your dorms. Live it in your college classrooms. Live it in your relationships with people that you will meet going forward and develop those powerful, important, life-giving relationships and friendships that you have formed so beautifully among each other.

 

This is really what we celebrate today. In addition, the great sacrifice of your parents and what they have made possible for you by bringing you to this school community and helping you to grow through your four years here to become the great young men and women that you are. These words of Jesus are powerful for all of us; To “live on in my love”, to continue to manifest in our own life the values of our faith, the values of our beliefs, the values of our love for one another. Sacrifice, charity, forgiveness, mercy, all of those little life lessons that you have lived and experienced at your time in St. Edmund Prep, bring that with you and please live on in those attitudes, live on in those virtues, live on in that goodness that God has given you and that you have developed and used so wonderfully and beautifully during your time here. You are for us, and for me – I say this with all sincerity – you are for me a beautiful example of what a Christian community can do at its best. All of you lined up in that auditorium to donate blood, standing at that elevator ready to help the injured among us, ready to support one another in band, on the court, in the pool, wherever you were; to give of your gifts so generously, to make each other better and stronger. That is what Christ asks us to do when he says, “Live on in my love.” Continue, develop, broaden, deepen it.

 

Brothers, sisters, and friends, I pray for you today. I pray that God will impart upon you today at the celebration of this mass a blessing; the blessing that you need in your life, to remain in the spirit of St. Edmund Prep. To live on in the spirit and love of Jesus himself, that you might go forward in your life making this world a better place, making this world a holier place, making this world more the creation that God has created us to be and fulfilling His plan for each of us to make the world better, to make it more His kingdom, to be successful and happy and peaceful in all that we do.

 

Grateful to God for you, the class of 2017, we offer this mass for you, thankful for your presence, celebrating your success, and praying that God will be with you always so that always, no matter where you go, no matter what you do, you will remain in His love and live on in His peace.  Amen.