Given at Westminster Cathedral at the Graduation of St Mary's University Twickenham on 20 July 2015.
Vice Chancellor, Bishop Moth, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you for the invitation to address you today. I offer my congratulations to those of you who have received degrees at this ceremony. I look forward to meeting many of you who will be teaching in the 214 schools in the Diocese of Westminster. I hope that, along with your experience at St. Mary’s University, they will provide the springboard for your future and will help you to use your gifts for the common good of all people and our common home – sister, Mother Earth, as Pope Francis describes creation in his letter Laudato Si’ (LS 1). The Pope invites us to listen to the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth.
The path of Catholic education helps students not only to be experts in the subjects of their research and learning, which we celebrate today, but also to develop a multidimensional understanding of the human person and a variety of other gifts. These include a spirit of contemplation which can see ‘mystical meaning… in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face’ (LS 233) – to quote the Pope, religious and moral sensibilities, the ability to make wise and prudential judgements, the desire to serve others, and the enjoyment of life with a sense of fun and gratitude. Such a vision of life is both attractive and authentic and invites others to ask about the source of its meaning and hope.
When Christ touches the human heart, we want to tell others of his promise of love and the hope, meaning and joy to be found in following him. Christ makes us get up in the morning, live the day well and make decisions which give direction to life, friendships and work. His disciples are dependent upon God’s steadfast mercy, trust in his goodness and are called to forgive others who make mistakes.
In 1874, Cardinal Manning wrote that good education depends upon the integrity, sincerity and witness of the teacher. This theme is repeated constantly in Church teaching on education; for example in Educating Together in Catholic Schools, ‘More than ever this demands that witness, nourished by prayer, be the all-encompassing milieu of every Catholic school. Teachers, as witnesses, account for the hope that nourishes their own lives (cf. 1 Pt 3:15) by living the truth they propose to their pupils, always in reference to the one they have encountered and whose dependable goodness they have sampled with joy.’[1]
The contemporary culture is desperately in need of such people. We read of the need to clean up the world of banking and finance, the desire to avoid another scandal like that at the Mid. Staffordshire Hospital, and the work of the Goddard enquiry to examine the way in which institutions handle allegations of child sexual abuse. People demand integrity, especially in leaders, and when dissonance is uncovered between words and action, unmercifully it will become the leading news story until it burns itself out or there is a resignation.
In an essay entitled, ‘The Inner Ring’, C S Lewis wrote of a speaker at school prize-giving predicting that at least one of those gathered would become a scoundrel. The journey downhill begins with a subtle hint rather than in a spectacular way. It begins with a hint about the way in which members of the ‘inner ring’ manage affairs. I quote, ‘It will be the hint of something which is not quite in accordance with the technical rules of fair play: something which the public, the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand: something which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss about: but something, says your new friend, which "we" - and at the word "we" you try not to blush for mere pleasure - something "we always do." And you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world...’ He concludes, ‘It may end in a crash, a scandal, and penal servitude: it may end in millions, a peerage and giving the prizes at your old school. But you will be a scoundrel.’
As you leave St Mary’s University, I invite you to continue the search for truth and meaning so that your lives will be characterised by integrity and authenticity. It is my prayer that you will be men and women of integrity and truth, who serve the common good, especially the poorest and most vulnerable in society, are prudent stewards of the limited resources of the earth and flourish in the ways that God desires for your fulfilment. I believe that St Mary's University will have equipped you to make those fundamental moral decisions upon which such an honest way of life depends.
Congratulations on your success.
Bishop John Sherrington