Santa Clara University

Honors Convocation 1997

TWENTIETH ANNUAL HONORS CONVOCATION
June 13, 1997
Competence, Conscience and Compassion

It is a privilege to be able to say a few words to you on our 20th Honors Convocation. We celebrate you - the honor students of 1996-97 - and we celebrate the best of Santa Clara as a Jesuit & Catholic University. Academic excellence in Jesuit education is our heritage, our life and our legacy to future generations.

To begin, I congratulate you and welcome your families and friends to this celebration of your distinguished achievements. We honor you -- our most outstanding students -- for your intellectual and academic achievements, and now we challenge you to integrate your love for learning with a quest to live a life dedicated to promoting the common good for the greater glory of God. Our hope and vision for you is that you will excel as women and men of scholarly and professional and personal competence, conscience and compassion.

You have proven that you have intellectual talent and are scholarly. I urge you always to cultivate a passion and love for learning and cherish your talents as precious gifts from God. May you always value learning and persist in the calm and open search for truth and knowledge. Knowledge and truth have their own validity and value -- but not their own finality, for we live in a human community. Integrating your learning with the quest to make yourself and this beautiful but often tragic world better will be the true measure of your talents.

I hope you do this by always asking the right questions. Ask yourself three kinds of questions. First, does your scholarly competence lead to a conscience that makes you humane?

Even when you understand the brilliant achievements in literature and poetry by Shakespeare and Toni Morrison, by Shusako Endo and Gerard Manley Hopkins and Maya Angelou, in art by Diego Rivera and Michelangelo, in theology by Gustavo Gutierrez and St. Thomas, in scientific theory by Einstein and Steven Jay Gould, in economics by Keynes and Friedman, are you a more humane person? Do you see your gifts of understanding as making you a better person and see your personal good as inextricably bound up with the common good?

Even when you have gained the knowledge and skills to be a successful engineer, anthropologist, scientist, writer, accountant, lawyer, doctor, politician, executive, or whatever your future profession is, do you desire to use your talents to make life better for all?

As bright, future leaders of our community, are you ready to help our world overcome ignorance that leads to fracturing our community especially along racial lines?

And from another perspective on using your talents. One scholar wrote: "We dare not feel at home in a world like this; where one third of the people live abundantly, and two thirds live in scarcity." From this reality, do you have courage to see the world from the eyes of the poor, and use your talents to break the bounds of poverty?

Even when you recognize your talents, do you see them for your private possessions or as gifts from God? Here I have a story: The brilliant architect, Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) was lecturing to a group of students from the prestigious School of Fine Arts in Barcelona. At one point his father wanted to take a photo of his renowned son. Gaudí stopped him with a gesture of his hand, saying: "Don't seek the glorification of human beings; glory is reserved for God alone." Are you inspired to love God, your neighbor, the stranger, and yourself more genuinely?

My prayer is that you will always have the courage to ask the right questions, the convictions to use your knowledge to create a better life for all people, and the wisdom to act humanely and justly for the greater glory of God. This will give meaning to your life and your community, because to whom much has been given - much is expected.

What I have said to this point is quite serious as it should be, for you have a responsibility for our 21^st century communities --our global village. But have a sense of humor. Isaiah in his 11^th chapter describes a peaceful and idyllic life on earth; it beyond what we know is possible but it is a world to where all different kinds of animals and people get along, like the lion and lamb are to lie down together in peace. But Woody Allen has a clever remark about Isaiah's world, when he says: "When the lion and lamb lie down together, the lamb will not get much rest."

Thank you for your commitment to excellence; thank you for having made Santa Clara a better University community. Again, congratulations and may God bless you and your families, and may your life and work always bless God.