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Homily for the Class of 2020 by the Very Rev. Michael Brunner, O.S.B
Prior Administrator Very Rev. Michael G. Brunner’s graduation homily from the celebration Mass, Sunday, May 24:
Today we celebrate the graduation of our There was Philip (from the same town class of 2020, in a very different way than as Peter and Andrew,) also a follower any of us planned or wanted. of John the Baptist, who then roped in The Book of Ecclesiastes says: “Consider the work of God. Who can make straight what God has made crooked? On a good day enjoy good things, and on an evil Bartholomew, and introduced him to Jesus. And there was Matthew, a despised extorting tax collector who cooperated with the Romans. day consider: Both the one and the other There was Thomas, the skeptic. There God has made, so that no one may find was another James (also a cousin of Jethe least fault with him.” sus) son of Alphaeus, and Judas the son God knows better than we do what is best, and can bring good out of what we only see as bad. God loves to surprise us, and perhaps today is a day of surprises. of James, not the Judas the apostle who turned against Jesus. And finally Simon the Zealot, a devout pharisee and Jewish nationalist. The first reading today names Jesus’s prized students, his apostles, and speaks about them right after their graduation, as it were… Jesus’s Ascension. That was In the Gospel today Jesus says about these Apostles in his prayer: I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world. the moment Jesus their teacher left them Today you graduates too are going out so they could put into practice what he into the world, a different world than taught them. the one you have known here, a world in They weren’t promising material to start with. There were two clusters of them….fishermen from Galilee and followers of John the Baptist, also from Galilee, which was where Jesus was from. Galilee which you will have more freedom and responsibility …and more opportunity... to build upon what you have learned in your time here. was not where the beautiful people were from; it was not known It would be sad if you have not now become different from what for scholars; it did not have tier 1 rabbinical schools; it did not even and how you were when you first came here. Those apostles had have tier five rabbinical schools. It and its people were rather like changed from when they began, but on the first days when they the way we used to view Appalachia in this country. were left on their own, they were hesitant and frightened. Jesus There was Andrew, brother of a fisherman and a follower of John the Baptist; he was perhaps the first to recognize who Jesus was, and he roped in his knew that they would be, so he told them to wait. In a short ten days they were overcome by the Holy Spirit and they became men on a mission and they changed the world. brother Peter, a married man who owned Know that this family, this How have you changed and how will you his own fishing boat. There was James and his younger brother, John, from a family of some means but still sons of a fisherman and who worked on his boat; they were first cousins of Jesus; Jesus called them sons of thunder; they were loud, precocious, ambitious and their mother thought them very special. They too were followers of John the Baptist who left to follow Jesus for a while and then went back to fishing, before suddenly giving it all up and suddenly quitting their change the world? We hope that while you were here with us at Portsmouth Abbey you came to better understand yourself, your best self and the God-ness within you, but most importantly, we hope you encountered that primary face of God – the One, The Only, The Holy, and Totally Other, the perfect community of persons – The Father, Son & Holy Spirit, whom we worship here this morning. That God is the mirror in which we see and find our best selves. Abbey family, your family, is always here for you. jobs and their father on the boat.
We truly hope and pray you will meet and recognize a new face of God in a loving community at the college or university to which you will now be going.
Now the Gospel of St. Mark says of the liberated Apostles, “they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.”
Today you are going forth, out into new & separate parts of this country & the world, and you will carry signs of what you stand for. I hope you will take to the places you go and to the people you meet all that you have learned here. And you have learned more than you realize, as you shall soon see for yourselves. If you truly learned how to form and be a community, you have learned something truly important.
Such unity & harmony does not come easy to people. After just a few years of college, our time, the time of this world will be truly your time.
In the letter he wrote to the Church, St Peter tells us, “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear.” The world desperately needs you to explain your hope and the reason for it. The world desperately needs you and your gifts; It needs you to grow them and produce fruit in larger fields. As you have shared your gifts with us, and we have shared our gifts with you, share the gifts each of you has for the needs of the world that Jesus came to save.
The world needs the gift of your faith, your witness to the eternal truth of Gods love, because the world needs true love more than anything else. And faith in that love is the best possible witness, because the world you are going into has little regard for what cannot be proven or demonstrated by science or that cannot serve utilitarian principles; and you cannot prove love or God in laboratories or test tubes.
The greatest commandment is to love God with your whole being, and to love your neighbor as yourself, because your neighbor is the image of God. The world needs good, loving neighbors. The world needs you to confirm the word of God’s love in your lives. The world needs your gifts in the sciences & the humanities, because science & the world are always in danger of and from inhumanity. The world needs your courage. There’s a very good reason that the nations of the world use young men and women to fight in their wars; it is because you have courage, strong hearts. To paraphrase a sound bite from General Patton, the world needs you not to give up your life for a cause but to live your life for a reason, beyond yourself. That takes real courage. That’s the reason that the apostles were relatively young, some very young… because they found the best reason to live and love for, and yes even die for.
A love that is not worth defending unto death when and if necessary is not a love worth living for. The world needs your dreams and visions, because the dreams that individual talented men and women pursue are the dreams that come true, and become a reality for everyone.
Now your time is coming, as you enter college, to focus sharply your sights on your dreams, dreams which you will spend your lives in bringing to reality. I hope you find that the seeds of those dreams were planted or at least watered here at Portsmouth Abbey. May what you have learned and experienced here at Portsmouth Abbey School guide and protect you for the rest of your lives. Know that this family, this Abbey family, your family, is always here for you.
So like those Apostles turned loose into the world, be men and women full of hope. There will be good days and bad days, good times and hard times. It’s hard to hope sometimes: when, by all measurable means, things are falling apart; when human logic tempts us to give up and say, “Forget about it.” We need what gave Jesus himself strength, hope and confidence.
In a word... we need the Holy Spirit. Jesus made a promise to his Apostles that he would not leave us orphans, struggling on our own, but that he would send us an advocate, the Holy Spirit. It is a promise he kept. So it’s good advice for all of us, young and old… be men and women full of hope.
