SALUTATORY ADDRESS
by Raymond Fisher Hain IV, Class of 2002

Your Eminence, Reverend Fathers, Dr. O'Donnell, Mrs. Bethell, esteemed professors, parents, friends and fellow students, on behalf of the Class of 2002 I am happy and honored to welcome you to our commencement exercises. Of all my thoughts and feelings today, gratitude is foremost: gratitude for our Church's profound treasury of culture, liturgy, and sacred music that Christendom fosters here; gratitude for you, our professors, who pour out so much of your lives for us students; and most of all, gratitude for you, our parents, to whom we owe so much and without whom we would be nothing.

Thinking about all that we have been given, I realize that your motivation can only be love. I do not mean soft, weak love that is but kindness, which C. S. Lewis says "cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering." I know that our teachers, at least, are not always carefully concerned with the relief of our suffering. Rather, the love I mean is the love of truth and goodness, the love that seeks the perfection of its object: our perfection, even if it means painful correction and difficult work.

And we graduates, for our part, must respond to this love with our own love. We must strive to love as does God Himself, who loves with such utter infinitude that he suffered to be crucified for our sake. We must love with a fire that cannot be quenched but does not consume. And in so doing, we will be gentle and peaceful as lambs, yet hard as iron. This is the love of the martyrs and saints, of Maximilian Kolbe who peacefully but triumphantly gave up his life to save another's, of Thomas More who died for the sake of truth, and of Warren Carroll, who founded a college affirming the good, the true and the beautiful amidst a culture of death and decay.

Such love as this has been shown us all our lives by you and many others, and only in Heaven will we fully realize how far our gratitude must extend, especially towards all of you here today, who have given us so much. Finally, it is my deepest prayer that, by God's mercy, in Heaven all of us will one day see each other again, in the face of God, as we unite our love to His in one eternal, peaceful, triumphant shout of joy.

Praised be Jesus Christ!


VALEDICTORY ADDRESS
by Jennie Marie Thérèse Kacsir, Class of 2002

Your Eminence, Reverend Fathers, Dr. O'Donnell, Mrs. Bethell, esteemed faculty, beloved fellow graduates, students, family and friends in Christ!

Our Holy Father, in his Apostolic Letter At the Beginning of the Third Millennium, exhorts each member of the faithful with the words of Christ to St. Peter: Duc in altum! Put our into the deep! This message is particularly telling for us as members of Christendom College, since the purpose of this institution and our time here is precisely a means of responding to Our Lord's invitation—to launch minds and hearts on the search for truth. None of us has fully taken advantage of the means provided for us here, yet the invitation of Christ is evident in every aspect of our college life.

In our academic work, Christ has called us to "put out into the deep" that, guided by the great minds of past and present, we might delve into the treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge.
In our community life, Christ has called us to "put out into the deep" by going out of ourselves in Christian charity, by forming relationships with others, by living and learning together that we might grow in love and mutually benefit each other.

In our spiritual life, Christ has called us to "put out into the deep" by growing in our union with Him, giving us constant access at the heart of our campus to the Heart of the Saviour in the Eucharist and inviting us to drink deeply of that Fount of Salvation.

As the graduating Class of 2002 reflects on our time here, and prepares to "put out into the deep" in a new way, we must not forget the further injunction of Our Lord—we must now "lower our nets for the catch" and impart to others the fruit of our labor. We are being sent out of the heart of Christendom to bring the reign of Christ to the world, to bring to others the fruits of our academic, social, and spiritual life in whatever sphere God calls us.

As we begin this new stage of our vocation, we must not forget that an essential part of our mission is to keep before our eyes the primacy of grace. In the words of our Holy Father:
There is a temptation which perennially besets every spiritual journey . . . : that of thinking that the results depend on our ability to act and to plan. God of course asks us really to cooperate with His grace, and therefore invites us to invest all our resources of intelligence and energy in serving the cause of the Kingdom. But it is fatal to forget that "without Christ we can do nothing" (cf. Jn 15:5).

It is prayer which roots us in this truth. It constantly reminds us of the primacy of Christ and, in union with Him, the primacy of the interior life and of holiness. (#38)

Every day in the Chapel we have had before our eyes the plea of Our Lord: "Son, give Me thy heart!" Let us never forget that this is our primary task, that this is the ultimate fruit of our years here at Christendom—the surrender of our intellects and wills in love to Wisdom Incarnate. Only by doing this will our Christendom education fulfill its purpose, for how can we bring the light of truth to the world and work to transform our secular culture into a new Christendom unless our hearts first of all are under the reign of Christ our King? Our Holy Father reminds us:

"We have toiled all night and have caught nothing" (Lk 5:5). This is the moment of faith, of prayer, of conversation with God, in order to open our hearts to the tide of grace and allow the word of Christ to pass through us in all its power: Duc in altum!

Through the intercession of Mary, Mother of Divine Wisdom, may we graduates of 2002 continue the work we have begun at Christendom. As we set out to begin this new stage of our lives, let us renew our surrender to the Heart of Jesus, that, impelled by His charity, we may allow the word of Christ in all its fullness to pass through us to those we are called to serve; to do our part, however small, to restore all things in Christ, the King of all hearts.

¡Viva Cristo Rey!