Hi friends, obviously this isn't what we
had in mind originally when the team and I sat down to figure out how to best
send you off to the next phase of your vocations. You, our more than 100
graduating Sorin Fellows: undergraduate seniors, PhD students, law students, other
graduate students; this isn't what we had in mind, but the virtual medium shouldn't
diminish in any way our expression of how proud of you we are, how deep our
affection for you is, and how sad we are to see you go, but comforted by the hope
that you'll return to us in the years to come, knowing that you have a home here - a permanent home at the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the Blessed
Mother's university. We treasure our memories with you of the past four years
we hope that you have fond memories as well, fond memories of your life here
with us on campus: going to Mass together, going to lectures and colloquia, going to
tailgates together, meeting various luminaries from around the world: Supreme Court justices, Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners. Some of you got
to join us in the in the Holy Land on pilgrimage; some of you got to join us
in Rome for the Synod on youth; some of you even got to meet the Holy Father
Pope Francis himself. Some of you got to experience internships around the world.
We're so proud of you and we're so delighted that you were able to participate in the Sorin Fellows program with us here at the de Nicola Center,
where our principal aspiration has been to help you to cultivate your gifts and
talents, to deepen your faith life, to enhance your intellectual experience, but
most of all to cultivate and develop enduring friendships. Friendship is at
the core of everything we do here at the de Nicola Center, and it's the lifeblood
of the Sorin Fellows program. And being that friendship is at the core of what
we've done, and hopefully have accomplished over the past four years,
we'd like to leave you with the words of CS Lewis from his beautiful piece "The
Four Loves": In friendship we think we have chosen our peers. In
reality a few years difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles
between certain houses, the choice of one University instead of another, the
accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting, any of these
chances might have kept us apart. But for a Christian there are, strictly speaking,
no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work: Christ, who said to the
disciples "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every
group of Christian friends, "You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another." the friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good
taste in finding one another, it's the instrument by which God reveals to each
of us the beauties of others. So congratulations, graduating Sorin
Fellows, and on behalf of me, Pete, and the full de Nicola Center team, may God
bless you, and may his mother Mary intercede for you and your families
today, and always.
