Graduation Day
Saturday 30 May 2020
Dear Friends,
Today would be graduation day. Always, an incredibly happy day at St Joes. By today, we would have had Class Day, wherein we celebrate your achievements and scholarship in front of the whole school, with the juniors patiently eyeing the chairs soon to be vacated by you. The senior picnic would have been sunny, Yearbooks would be filling up with best wishes, and Vazzy’s would be cooking up your last St Joes hot dogs. Baccalaureate Mass would have been celebrated by Fr Silva in the warm, reverent ribs of St Theresa’s church. More awards, parents proud, the faculty relieved, the class together—all sharing the sorrowful-sweet emotions of commencement—a moment of ending and beginning.
That was then, this is now. Those moments of sorrowful-sweet emotions at graduation have been spread like pulled-taffy over two months. There isn’t anyone at St Joes who doesn’t feel regret at not having you together on this day, who isn’t baffled by how these circumstances have conspired to keep us apart. Today, I’d have a chance at a last word (okay, Mari Andrzejewski will really get in the last word as Valedictorian) but it was my chance to impart my wisdom as regards to the world of which you will soon take charge. Not today.
We will get together; we will mark your coming of age. But it seems you are already becoming part of a bigger picture. There are some 3.7 million high schoolers graduating this year, and the whole country is celebrating the unique Class of 2020. You are already beginning to shift focus to the fall and your college’s plans to continue amid the uncertainty. I trust the education you have acquired here, the faith, the morals, the ethics, the philosophy, the relationships—all will garner in you the courage and confidence to face this new world.
Meanwhile, I want you to know that on this day we are all thinking of you. A little sad, a lot proud.
Our prayers and best wishes.
Dr Fitz--
