Month: June 2011

Originally published in the OCCatholic June 2011

This Spring I will watch my daughter graduate from Mater Dei High School. Many parents out there will understand the jumble of emotions I will be feeling at this event, pride, love, joy, nostalgia, anticipation, sadness, and an overwhelming sense of the increasing speed of time. However, as Superintendent of Catholic Schools, I can’t help but also see this day as her graduation from Catholic education, and that too brings feelings of joy…and sadness.
This June nearly a thousand young men and women will be graduating from our Catholic high schools and nearly 1500 will be graduating from our Catholic elementary schools. This is time of pride for students, parents, families, and in a greater way for all of us associated with the Catholic school system of the Diocese of Orange. In the midst of all of the challenges faced by families and schools, our diocesan schools continue to produce graduates who are better prepared for the next level of education and for all levels of life. The yearly miracle of the passing on of our faith can be read on the faces of these future leaders of our Church.
For students and families graduation is a time to look back with gratitude. Graduates from our Catholic schools have benefitted from the hard work and sacrifice of their parents and the generosity of the many women and men, old and young, religious and lay, who worked for the education of minds and the formation of souls. From the founding of the Diocese of Orange, Catholic schools have been central to the faith formation apostolate. Schools have served as the heart and center of vibrant life of parishes, and have produced many of the priests, sisters and lay leaders who serve throughout the diocese today.
Though there are many successful educational institutions in this county and country, the mission of our Catholic schools sets them and their graduates apart. Academic excellence, demonstrated through test scores and authentic performance, is only the beginning of this mission. Our schools work daily for the education of the full child in the faith through instruction, through participation in liturgy and prayer, and through service to the local community and the greater world. All of this is done at a much lower per-pupil cost than that incurred by the solely academic mission of public schools.
However, just as parents and students look forward with anticipation colored with some fear, so our pride in our Catholic school system in Orange and throughout this country is tempered with real concern for the future. Schools throughout the county face financial challenges which impact families and enrollment. The formerly natural decision of Catholic education for children of Catholic families becomes more and more difficult.
These fears, though real, do not need to be the last word, for the future is still of our making. Families still value and choose Catholic education for their children, and many more want to make this choice if support is available. Parishes, the diocese, and generous grants from the Pastoral Services Appeal are working to provide the funds to close the gap between the aspiration and the reality. Individuals of means are coming forward to financially support this vision, and parishioners are supporting schools through their dollars, through their voices, and most importantly through their prayers. Challenges faced by our school system can, and will, lead to new possibilities and a future of promise.
As I watch my daughter cross the graduation stage, I know that the past she is leaving behind is only the preamble and preparation for many good things to come. Congratulations graduates, parents, and Catholic schools. We are counting on hearing great things about you in the future!

Probably one of the most hopeful days of the year:

Class of 2011, It is my pleasure to be able to speak to you on this great day for you and for us.

For all of the adults sitting on the stage, for most of the teachers flanking you on either side, and even for many of your parents and relatives, this looks like one more graduation ceremony. Another wave crashing on the shore of the Bren Center like the many waves before and the swells following in the year to come. The predictability and dependability of this yearly event carries the inevitability of one more repeat of Pomp and Circumstance or one more musical number in an episode of Glee.

However, this is our mistake, our blindness, and our missed opportunity. For there is not an “another” about today. Today is about newness, about firsts, about the unique, once in a lifetime gift that you are and will be in this world. As a class and as individuals, you are a new thing, not limited by the actions or even vision of those who have come before you, but blazing potential that we watch transfixed, as if by fireworks.

And while I am part of the past that you surpass, I want to leave you with one idea that makes sense from my limited vision.

Lives are defined by the limits we embrace; therefore, as you go forward live an expansive life that challenges the limits that other people, your circumstances, or the accepted realities of the world try to put on you. There is no limit to your possibilities at this moment, only to your courage and energy to chase them. There is no limit to your creative power to make new products, services, and ideas that change the world and improve the lives of all. There is no limit to your ability to embrace revolutionary digital changes in communication and relationship and form them into positive humanizing forces, and there is no limit to your capacity for love and gratitude and empathy and service. We are put on earth to share in the work of Jesus Christ, to serve and love those close by and sisters and brothers beyond our familiarity and beyond our sight.

There are no limits to a world where a tiny sister in India can bring comfort and attention to millions of the ignored and neglected.

There are no limits to a world where the most life changing invention of the century is now appearing every six months.

And goodness knows there are no limits to a world where a song by Rebecca Black can be downloaded a million times.

Embrace the beauty and possibility and expansiveness of your dreams, and remember the school where so many of those dreams were born.