May 20, 2017

Commencement Mass homily by Father Shanley

College President Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P. '80 assists Pedro Aleman '17 with his robe during the Service of Investiture ceremony of the Commencement Mass.
College President Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P. ’80 assists Pedro Aleman ’17 with his robe during the Service of Investiture ceremony of the Commencement Mass.

By College President Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P. ’80

The setting of the gospel is the Last Supper, the eve of Jesus’ death.  Jesus knows that his departure is going to cause pain, confusion, anxiety, and a sense of loss.  The communion between him and his disciples and their relationship to each other is about to change.  So in a beautifully pastoral way, Jesus spends his last moments trying to remind and teach them about what is most important for them to know and remember as they cope with separation.

I want you to believe, however, that this farewell discourse is not directed to his historical disciples alone, but also to you.  Tonight, on this eave of your departure, Jesus speaks a farewell discourse to you.  Jesus is sensitive to the anxiety and uncertainty and sense of loss that you feel as you depart from Providence College and from each other.  Jesus wants to remind you tonight of what is most important for you to remember.  Jesus is conscious too that this might be the last time you are in Church for a while, and he wants to remind you of some simple truths that are vital to your lives going forward.

Dominican and diocesan religious join Father Shanley, center, for the celebration of the Mass.
Dominican and diocesan religious join Father Shanley, center, for the celebration of the Mass.

Jesus begins with a conditional clause:  IF YOU LOVE ME.  Everything in your future depends on this conditional.  This is the most important basic choice that you will have to make as you depart from Providence College.   Are you going to stay in a relationship with Jesus or not?  If we Dominicans have not helped you to love Jesus, then we have not done our jobs.  This is the simplest and most central key to your future:  love Jesus and stay in relationship with him.

If you love Jesus, then you will keep his commandments.  Because his commandments boil down to love of God and love of neighbor.  You cannot love Jesus and not love God and neighbor; you cannot love God and not love your neighbor.  Again, we have failed you if you have not learned how central love of God and love of neighbor is to the moral life.

Then Jesus makes a promise in prayer that he is going to give them the gift of the Spirit of Truth who will be their guide and protector.  God does not send you forth alone as orphans.  He sends you with a spirit of truth.  That Spirit has been poured out on you and is in you.  You have spent four years of your life at an institution dedicated to the truth.  You have learned how to know and love the truth.  God sends you forth today with a new outpouring of the Spirit of Truth to be with you always.  Live always in that Spirit.  You were called here to come to know it.

Finally, the last thing that Jesus reminds them and us is that through this gift of the Spirit, he will always be with us, inside of us.  By the gift of that Spirit we live with Jesus to the Father through the Spirit.  We are therefore images of the Trinity.  Your farewell call from Jesus is to live a life that images the very heart of God.  That is your ultimate vocation.

So Jesus is giving you your own farewell discourse tonight.  A simple reminder of the basic truths that need to guide your lives as you go forward.  Love Jesus.  Keep the command to love God and neighbor.  Live in the truth.  Make of your lives a holy image of God.  If we all do this, our community will never dissolve because we will be together in God.  And we will then find ourselves together in the only Providence College reunion that matters:  heaven.