Stories

Santa Clara University Welcome Weekend Homily

September 19, 2021
Fr. Kyle Shinseki, S.J.

Wisdom 2:12, 17-20 / Psalm 54:3-4, 5, 6 and 8 / James 3:16—4:3 / Mark 9:30-37

What a joy it is to extend a warm welcome to the Santa Clara University Class of 2025! Many years ago, when I began my own college journey, at a non-Jesuit, non-Catholic university on the East Coast, all of us incoming students were gathered together in a large auditorium. The university president delivered what seemed to me to be a rather stark and sobering message of welcome. The president said, “Look to your left, look to your right…one of those two students will not be here by the time your class graduates.” This message set the tone for our college experience, a message that made it clear that this would be a competition for survival and that not all of us would survive.

Here at Santa Clara, which, unlike where I went to undergrad, is a Jesuit, Catholic university, we welcome you, the members of the Class of 2025, not with a call to competition, but rather we welcome you with a call to thanksgiving, at this holy Eucharist, for the word Eucharist comes from the Greek word for thanksgiving. We welcome you not with a call to compete with your fellow classmates, but rather with a call to solidarity, a call to gather together as the body of Christ in community. We welcome you not with a call to make sure that you can get ahead of everyone else, but rather with a call to honor what we uphold as the greatest expression of love, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, Christ who emptied Himself, handed over His life out of His selfless love for all of us.

While all of you might appreciate this welcome of thanksgiving, solidarity, and love, much of the world beyond our campus sends us a different message. Much of the world beyond our campus wants you to believe that you should do everything in your power to selfishly get ahead of the rest of your classmates, to acquire wealth, to seek honor, and to pursue fame no matter what the cost. Much of the world beyond our campus wants all of you to believe that you need to have your major decided and a summer internship lined up before your first class, that you need to plot out your career path before the end of your first year, and that you need to feel jealous of any of your classmates who figure their life out before you do. Much of the world beyond our campus wants all of you to believe that selfish ambition and jealous pursuit of success make up the only path that will allow you to get ahead and live a life worth living.

However, our readings today propose to you, the Santa Clara University Class of 2025, a different path, a different way to approach your college experience and a different way to approach your life. Our second reading from Saint James, warns us that, “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice.” We have all experienced this “disorder and foul practice,” the negative impacts of jealousy and selfish ambition in our own lives and in our world. From our first days on the grade school playground to petty disagreements in high school, we witness the heartless and hurtful effects of selfishness and jealousy. Yet, such selfishness and jealousy are hard to escape from. We find that even Jesus’ disciples in today’s Gospel, “had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.”

In contrast to the jealousy and selfish ambition so common in our world, Jesus teaches us that, “anyone [who] wishes to be first...shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” “Anyone [who] wishes to be first...shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” Instead of selfishly seeking wealth, honor, and fame, without regard for the well-being of others, Jesus calls us to serve. This call to service is what inspires us as a Jesuit, Catholic university to be people for and with others, people who do not selfishly seek our own success and jealousy hold on to our achievements, but who are focused on accompanying and serving others...en todo amar y servir. Our Jesuit, Catholic tradition holds that everyone is created in God’s image, such that each person is of infinite value and unlimited potential, and that we are called to help each other realize that potential.

The past 18 months have forced many of us to consider what really matters in our lives. As our world has grappled with wave after wave of the pandemic, political upheavals, and natural disasters; as our nation has confronted racial injustice, polarization, and dissension; and as we have dealt with painful separation from family and friends, economic uncertainty, and the loss of loved ones to COVID-19, what seemed important to us back in February 2020, does not seem to hold the same prominence in our minds, and especially in our hearts. Members of the Class of 2025, today is the moment to decide what really matters to you. Today is the moment when you must make a choice about how you will approach your college experience.

Will you seek greatness through the selfish pursuit of wealth, honor, and fame? Will you jealousy guard your social status and exclude others from your social circles? Will you begin your college journey as a competition, to get ahead of your fellow classmates, no matter what the cost? Or, will you heed Jesus’ call to serve your fellow students, to serve your community, to serve our world? Will you seek God’s image, el rostro de Cristo, especially in those who the world rejects and casts aside? Will you embrace the belief that true greatness can be found in humble service? Although Jesus’ call to humble service might seem daunting in light of the jealousy and selfishness that is so prevalent in our world today, we are assured in our first reading from the book of Wisdom that, “God will defend…the just.”

You have the power to shape the world we live in to make it more compassionate, more merciful, and more just. How you choose to live your Santa Clara University journey either will continue to foster the jealousy and selfishness in our world or will serve as a witness to the thanksgiving, the solidarity, and the love that inspires our gathering today. Your response to Jesus’ call to humble service holds the potential to change the minds and hearts of those you encounter in your life, both here at Santa Clara and beyond, and in so doing, transform our world. May God grant all of us here the grace to truly be people for and with others. May God grant all of us here the grace to respond with generosity to Jesus’ call to humble service. And may God grant all of us here the grace to be instruments of God’s unconditional love and infinite mercy in our world.

SCU Welcome Weekend Homily: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Sep. 19, 2021 – Fr. Kyle Shinseki, S.J.