By Lucia A. Silecchia
If it is graduation season, then it is graduation speech season, too.
High schools, colleges, and even elementary schools seek out high profile speakers to impart their wisdom to graduates – or, at least, they aim to. I am a bit dubious about what a pampered celebrity or popular sports figure could possibly know about the life of an average graduate, and I am disappointed when political speakers bring disheartening division to what should be a final moment of unity for a class that has lived four or more years together.
When I think about the wisdom imparted to me in the speeches at my graduations, I cannot recall what any speaker said to my classmates and me.
What I have recalled, through decades of university life, is all the wisdom imparted to me by those who did not tell me how to live a good and great life, but by those who showed me how to do so. With prayerful gratitude, I can remember so many people whose lives well lived told me more than the most eloquent of speeches ever could. In the quiet, humble ways so loved by Christ, their lives were silent speeches I will never forget.
So, if you are graduating this year, enjoy your graduation and the speeches given that day. I hope that they inspire you to goodness, greatness, and holiness.
However, I hope that you will also think about what you have been taught by the people you met along the way. In their silence, not in their speeches, what did you learn from –
I have known some of these people. Others have told me about some of them.
The truth is that schools and universities are filled with people such as these. They are people who will often not be well known, whose names will not be announced as graduation speakers, and who will not be receiving honorary degrees.
Yet, if you are graduating, I hope you will think about those whose lives touched yours and whose lives were loving lectures without words. If you can, thank them with your words and with your prayers. No matter how eloquent your graduation ceremonies may be, it is those such as these who impart the wisdom of ordinary time.
May God bless them, and the class of 2023!
Lucia A. Silecchia is Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. “On Ordinary Times” is a biweekly column reflecting on the ways to find the sacred in the simple. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.
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