Fr. Silouan Rolando 2003 Salutatorian Address

Your beatitude, your eminences, our God-loving Bishops, reverend Fathers, faculty, staff, family, friends, students, and graduating class of 2003!

CHRIST IS RISEN!

What are the important things to say when you say good-bye at the end of one phase in life? Is it a time to lob one last grenade?  Burn those bridges, make a righteous exit? Or is it a time to be self-congratulatory, or funny, or maybe be grateful?

Well, given that this is a place of higher learning, I believe it is a time to reflect on the question,  “What did I get while I was here.”  And this, as many of you know, is a very hard, question to answer.  When we open our checkbooks, they look very empty.  When we look at our future, our checkbooks look even emptier.  Theology is not exactly lucrative.  But certainly we got something?  We learned something, didn’t we?

Out of the many things I have learned, I have narrowed it down to two significant lessons: one is about humility and the other is about gratitude.

As some of you know, I stood here last year in this very spot and gave the salutatorian address.  Most people know that the salutatorian is a good student.  And any good salutatorian, at the very least, wants to appear both intelligent AND humble.  But alas, we live in a fallen world.  Unfortunately, more often than not, I have wanted to people to know that I am smart.  “Look at me; I’m the smart guy.”

Now, at a seminary, such behavior is not exactly appropriate.  Being formed more and more in the image of Christ, hopefully a seminarian will rise above such pride.  Yet sometimes, God has to do a little extra work on His more arrogant servants.

So last year, after Fr. Tom asked me to give that address, I promptly went home and did a little academic victory dance.  I was feeling pretty self-satisfied.  That evening I wrote my speech and read it to my chief editor, my wife.  She said it was very good.  Now, I felt nearly deified.  Praise from a seminarian wife comes rarely, since they know the peril of praising such egos.

The following morning, I went to see Ann Sanchez for a list of names I wanted to include in my speech.  When I walked in, Ann said, “YOU are giving the speech?”  And then she mentioned the name of another student whom she thought was giving the salutatorian address.  So she walked down the hall to double check this change in plans.  What I overheard disturbed my flight of academic fancy?  “The other student passed on the opportunity, so we asked Sloan.”

I walked home, somewhat deflated.  By the time I got home, I was furious.  Second best!  Second best to him?  He’s lazy, and just gets lucky.  Besides, I work much harder,  I am smarter, older;  I have two children;  I even have a nicer beard.

I had hit bottom.  The only way out was prayer.  But what could I pray?  I felt like a fraud. I had plainly defamed and cursed someone whom I consider a friend, someone I love.  So I turned, by providence, to Psalm 100:

I will sing of mercy and justice;
To You, O LORD, I will sing praises.
I will behave wisely in a perfect way.
Oh, when will You come to me?
I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.
I will set nothing wicked before my eyes;
I hate the work of those who fall away; It shall not cling to me.
A perverse heart shall depart from me; I will not know wickedness.
Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, Him I will destroy;
The one who has a haughty look and a proud heart, Him I will not endure.¹

And thus, with one Psalm and one piece of information, God destroyed and rebuilt me.  I was brought back to the small reality of being a human.  There is always someone smarter, better, more worthy.  But despite that, God calls us to do certain, special things, whether we are the first, the second, or the last.  And so I gave that speech that afternoon, and it was a good one.  But more IMPORTANTLY, I gave it with a broken and contrite and even grateful heart.

Now that brings us to the second lesson, which concerns gratitude.  This lesson is a constant in almost every class and certainly every liturgical service.  Giving thanks is at the heart of any man or woman who has been baptized into Christ.  In particular I learned it in a course on Thessalonians.

Twice in the second epistle to the Thessalonians, St. Paul says:  “We ought to give thanks to God at all times for you.”²   Looking, then to other letters of St. Paul, he says almost the same thing in Romans,  I Corinthians,  Ephesians,  Philippians,  Colossians,  first Thessalonians,  and Philemon.  I think that even the causal reader might suspect that this is an important theme.

So I came up with the following understanding.

St. Paul says, “We ought to give thanks.  This use of “ought” indicates that we probably do not do it enough.  And to whom do we give thanks?  God.  We have no other Creator, Savior, or Life-giver.  And how often should we thank God?  At all times!  Well, we better get busy.  And for what shall we thank Him?  For you!  We give thanks to God for all those members of the body of Christ that make God present to us every day of our life.  For at seminary, it is imperative that we realize that we only know God because there are people who share Him with us.  We are thankful for people who teach courses about Him,  for people who feed us with His Word and with His body and blood,  for people who guide us in hospital and parish ministry;  the list could go on endlessly.

It would be nearly impossible to name all who give us what we need to serve our Lord God and Savior, Jesus Christ.  But sometimes it is necessary to highlight a few.  And in this way we give thanks to God by giving thanks to those who are both His own, His kindred, His Creation, His image.

Here at St. Vladimir’s there is a group of people who get almost no thanks.  And what I said about last year, applies equally to these individuals who depart with this class. They held down jobs, made the church school thrive, fed the hungry, had children, raised children, loved children, taught children, maintained a domicile in our absence, proof read papers and sermons, brought people together, mended broken hearts, tamed egos, and constantly sacrificed so that someone else could get a degree.  By name they are Annmarie, Cindy, Corinne, Elizabeth, Gina, Jeanette, Karen, Laurel, Lorie, Marty and Michelle.

You are the finest!  We who are students give you thanks.  We who are your spouses give you double thanks.  While we groped in the dark for the uncreated light switch, you made sure the electric bill got paid.  When we gave up, you urged us on.  When we gave you no thanks, you kept on doing it all.  We thank you for everything.

And finally, on behalf of the Class of 2003, I give thanks to all of you who graciously taught us, supported us, formed us, and brought us to this good ending here at St. Vladimir’s.

CHRIST IS RISEN!

¹Psalm 100:1-5 (LXX).

²2 Thess. 1:3, 2:13.

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