High School Graduations

By Cardinal Justin Rigali

The Church has always valued and promoted education. We know that many of the most famous universities throughout the world have their origin in Church-sponsored education. Monasteries throughout Europe preserved the written word and copied books and manuscripts in difficult times. Many Religious Orders and Congregations of men and women have been founded over the years with the specific mission of transmitting knowledge, especially to the young. Closer to home, many of you reading this remember a time when the Archdiocese of Philadelphia provided young people with a completely free Catholic education through twelfth grade and, while that is not possible today, we continue to make many sacrifices to transmit a Catholic education to our young people through our schools and Religious Education programs.

The importance we place upon education has its origin in a theme we have been following in many of our topics in this column: the dignity of the human person. Part of our dignity as men and women made in the image and likeness of God is our ability to know, to learn and to make reasoned judgments based upon objective realities. This ability is part of the glory of the human person but it also places great responsibilities on the individual and on those entrusted with the formation of the young. We do not view education in a vacuum but rather as part of what can make us into the man or woman we are called to be by our loving Father, who created us and gave us these marvelous possibilities.

Educating the whole person
Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), the founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), did not have education in mind as one of the aims of his Order when he first began his work. However, he soon recognized it as being very important to his mission. This was not because he saw education as a mere science or tool for power or prestige in the world but because he saw knowledge as one more way for the transcendent reality of God and truth to act upon the person. He developed the idea of educating the “whole person” spiritually, physically and intellectually, so that none of those aspects would be seen in a vacuum but as part of the overall dignity of the human person. Not only the followers of Saint Ignatius embrace this idea. This is the guiding force of all that we do in transmitting human knowledge in the context of human dignity and its great possibilities.

In its Declaration on Christian Education, the Second Vatican Council stated: “Among all educational instruments the school has a special importance. It is designed not only to develop with special care the intellectual faculties but also to form the ability to judge rightly, to hand on the cultural legacy of previous generations, to foster a sense of values, to prepare for professional life. Between pupils of different talents and backgrounds it promotes friendly relations and fosters a spirit of mutual understanding; and it establishes as it were a center whose work and progress must be shared together by families, teachers, associations of various types that foster cultural, civic, and religious life, as well as by civil society and the entire human community” (Gravissimum Educationis, 5).

Many of our young people have now completed the foundation of their education in graduating from high school. They have been given many of the tools which they will need to pursue their goals. However, knowledge must never be seen as an end in itself but rather as part of that driving force that is placed within us at our creation: the desire to know the truth. In the homily I gave at the Academic Honors Convocation Mass held in our Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, I recently said: “The foundation and purpose of all education is a search for truth. Saint Augustine maintained that we desire truth more passionately than anything else. Each of us has an innate and irrepressible desire for the ultimate and definitive truth” (Homily, May 22, 2007). Jesus tells us: “I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). This is why we who have been given the gift of faith in Jesus can never separate human knowledge from Him!

Knowledge of truth not limited to formal education
There is a tendency in every age to think that those who came before us were hopelessly backward in their accomplishments and abilities. In the area of education, we may be tempted to look to the time before formal education was widely available as a period of ignorance and darkness. However, when it comes to the knowledge of truth, this could never be the case. It is our loving Father and Creator who has placed within us this desire to know and grasp truth. The ability to do so is not limited to formal education. In fact, there is always the danger that our formal education, good as it is in itself, may allow pride to blind us to the greater realties of our existence, including our origin and our ultimate end.

Many of us have encountered individuals with very little, if any, formal education, who nonetheless possess great wisdom! This is because a virtuous life and a genuine desire to know truth enables us to do so. It is very important to not forget this. One of the beautiful relationships which children and young people enter into is that which they have with their grandparents. Even when, as young adults, they go off to follow their vocation in life, often with the benefit of higher education, they seem to seek out those much-loved grandparents for the affection and the wisdom they find in them. It may often happen that these grandparents have much less of a formal education than their grandchildren, but their virtuous life and their seeking after the truth has enabled them to grasp the realties of life to a marvelous degree. This is the inheritance of the human person: to be able to know truth and virtue, even apart from a formal education. It is my hope that our dear young people who from now graduate high school and perhaps go on to fields of higher education will not forget this and will continue to seek those truths which alone bring us the peace and contentment we all desire.

Our dignity is not determined by our abilities
One of the horrors of the Nazi ideology which plagued the world in the middle of the last century, was the concept of a worthless human being. Those who were mentally or physically impaired were not considered worthy of living and were viewed as drains upon the healthy population. Deprived of ability and productivity, the state felt justified in performing horrible medical experiments upon these individuals and, ultimately, even putting them to death.
Our young people are given many opportunities in the area of education today. Their horizons seem to be without limit. Indeed, we often hear the phrase: “You can do/be/have whatever you want.” While much of this is well meaning, it can subtly give off a message which says that our dignity and worth comes from what we do rather than who we are. At high school graduations during these weeks, various honors, both academic and athletic, will be awarded. We certainly want to honor those who have achieved great things during their years in school. This is why we held the Academic Honors Convocation mentioned above. However, the worth of the young people honored at that Convocation is not determined principally by their accomplishments, but by the fact that they are created by God, redeemed by Christ and destined for eternal life. God, “who sees in secret” (Matthew 6:4), knows that the achievements of someone at the bottom of the class academically or on the last string of the sports team may be greater than the achievements of those who are honored publicly because they have worked to the best of their ability.

Under this heading, I would like to pay tribute to the parents of our children with special needs throughout the Archdiocese and those who educate and care for them. These special children may not achieve notoriety in the eyes of the world. Their parents may not have the joy of seeing them receive great academic awards or trophies for great accomplishments in sports but these special ones have been entrusted to their parents and educators “so that the works of God may be made visible through (them)” (John 9:3). This is how Jesus responds in the Gospel to those who question him about what seem like physical imperfections. These special children show forth the simplicity and innocence of God in a sometimes hardened world. They call for a special fidelity on the part of those who care for them in an often unfaithful world, and they teach us, better than any professor or book, to remember never to glory in ourselves but in the God who created us. “Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name give glory” (Psalm 115:1). In congratulating our graduates, I encourage them always to seek after truth! If you seek after truth with a sincere heart, you will come to Jesus, “the way the truth and the life” and “all things will be given you besides” (Matthew 6:33).
June 7, 2007