Milestones – Graduation

This past weekend was high school graduation weekend where I live.  Graduation is a time to celebrate the accomplishment of completing high school for the graduates (and their families).

It also leads others to reflect on our graduations.  There were a couple of people who talked with me reminiscing about how the class sizes have shrunk over the decades.

Graduations are celebrated as one of life’s milestones, marking completion of one stage of life and the beginning of another.  One stage cannot end without another beginning.  The completion of one stage is usually celebrated with joy (although there can be sadness as friends go in different directions).  The beginning of the next stage generally is positive but can bring uncertainty.

I have experienced four graduations in my life.  The first was high school.  The year was 1987.  I was certainly looking forward to it.  I was glad to have finished high school and all its requirements.  I was looking forward to going to college to study “what I wanted to.” 

Did life change when I went off to college?  Yes.  I found in college I had to spend much more time on my schoolwork.  High school was easy.  College took effort.  I also found myself still required to take a few classes that weren’t part of my major (Ceramic Engineering).  For the engineering and related courses, there were classes that I enjoyed and a few that were hard.   In the traditional eight semesters, I completed all the requirements and graduated in 1991.  Once again, I looked forward to graduation with joy.  This time it meant I was finished with school.  I also was looking forward to getting and job and starting my own life.

Hum…getting a job…that took a year.  When I found a job, it was temporary.  I had all the education I needed for that job.  After eight months, I was once again unemployed. 

I then went to work for the New York State Department of Transportation where I worked for the next seven years.  This was civil engineering work.  I had to learn new things since it wasn’t my major in college.  I found that enjoyable.  I love to learn new things.  This was the stage in my life where I came to understand the phrase, “you learn something new every day.”  While the “every day” isn’t always literally true, we constantly learn throughout our lives if we allow it.  It is how we grow and become who we are meant to be.

As time went on, one of life’s lessons was that I started looking for meaning.  This led me back to church (I hadn’t gone since I was twelve years old).  In my faith, I found meaning and more depth to life.  This is when God called me to the priesthood.  I had thought I was done with school.  The first thing I had to study was philosophy.  As an engineering student, I had taken no philosophy classes.  Nine years after graduating from engineering college, I found myself very much enjoying philosophy as it fit very well with the depth and meaning I was finding in my faith. 

To enter major seminary one must have a bachelor’s degree.  It doesn’t matter in what field, so my engineering degree counted for that.  At that time, one also needed to have completed 24 hours in philosophy and 12 hours in religious studies (I had taken one religious studies class when I studied engineering).  This took me two years.  That left me with time to take more philosophy than required.  At the suggestion of one of my philosophy professors, I completed enough classes to have a major in philosophy and earn a second bachelor’s degree.

That brought me to my third graduation in 2000.  Well, sort of, I received my diploma, but I didn’t go to the graduation ceremony.  When I graduated high school and from college for engineering, graduating was a big deal.  Now graduating wasn’t my goal.  It just came with the package.  I was pleased to have the degree, but it wasn’t the goal.  The goal was priesthood.

Then I went off to major seminary.  Five years later brought another graduation.  This time graduation brought a Master of Divinity degree.  Once again, I didn’t go to graduation.  Actually, that depends on your perspective.  I did not attend the academic graduation at the university.  Once again, the degree was good but it wasn’t the goal.  Priesthood was.  Of course, I did go to my ordination to the priesthood in 2007. 

For me, ordination was the graduation.  For me this was what brought the education to completion.  Well, actually, it only brought my formal education to completion.  Turns out I love to learn.  I am at my happiest when I have the opportunity to learn and grow.

Looking back now, I see the various graduations not so much as “completions.”  They are more like rites of passage on the journey of life.

As I reflect, seeing graduations as rites of passage leads me to think about the Sacraments of our Catholic faith.  Three of them, Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist, are Sacraments of Initiation.  Baptism marks the beginning of our lives of faith.  Confirmation is a rite of passage as we mature in our faith.  St. Thomas Aquinas called Confirmation a sacrament of maturity.  This led us to the mistaken notion of Confirmation as graduation, the completion of our religious education.  That is not what St. Thomas Aquinas meant.  When he called Confirmation a sacrament of maturity, he meant that it marked us becoming aware of the significance of our faith and choosing to make it our own. 

I was confirmed when I was twelve years old.  I had faith but it only came to its full meaning for me when I returned to church when I was 28 years old.  Yet, even with a master’s degree, I still haven’t stopped learning.

The Eucharist is the third Sacrament of Initiation.  You might be wondering how a Sacrament that we receive over and over can be a Sacrament of Initiation.  We are baptized and confirmed only once.  The first time we receive the Eucharist, it completes our initiation, but we need to make a choice over and over that we want God to be at the center of our lives.  We do this every time we receive the Eucharist.  Never take what you receive in Communion for granted.

I hope this article has led you to reflect on your own graduation(s).  This is why I wrote this article.  I didn’t write it to talk about myself.  I wrote it to invite you to think about the milestone moments in your own life. 

Ask yourself what the great moments in your life have been.

Peace,

Fr. Jeff