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Happening ... in the Local Church
 Laroy
Kincaid, Kyle Lawson and Anthony Lindsey were among the 173 seniors who
received their diplomas at Saint Joseph’s College’s commencement
exercises on May 3. (Photos by Kevin Cullen) |
 Holen
Berner receives her degree as a member of the college’s 113th graduating
class. |
“I feel like I got an education, in and out of the classroom.”
By Kevin Cullen
The
Catholic Moment
RENSSELAER — With caps, gowns, and inspiring words from Jesus, Pope Benedict XVI and Spiderman, the 113th graduating class of Saint Joseph’s College was sent into the world during commencement exercises May 3.
“I
feel very prepared. I feel like I got an education, in and out of the
classroom,” said Danielle Klosowski, of Schaumburg, Ill., one of the 173
seniors who received their diplomas. She earned a bachelor of science degree
in mass communication, with high honors.
“The four years went really fast,” she said just before the ceremonies began. “You learn a lot in the classroom, doing projects and reading books, but you learn even more talking to friends, going to movies. You learn a lot about yourself in college, through discussion and from friends.”
After one campus visit she knew Saint Joseph’s was for her.
The grounds and buildings were beautiful and the staff was friendly. With an enrollment of approximately 1,000 students, classes were small and “the professors became mentors and friends,” Klosowski said. “It’s been a true learning environment.”
Indianapolis
Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein, sometimes called the “education bishop”
because of his support for Catholic education, is undergoing treatment for
Hodgkin’s lymphoma and could not receive his honorary doctor of humane
letters degree. It was accepted by Msgr. Joseph F. Schaedel, vicar general
and moderator of the curia for the archdiocese.
The graduates, plus hundreds of camera-toting family and friends, filled bleachers and chairs in the Richard F. Scharf Alumni Fieldhouse. Bishop William L. Higi of our Local Church delivered the invocation; Msgr. Schaedel, filling in for the archbishop, gave the commencement address.
“He asked me to tell you that he is honored and humbled. He asks for your prayers and promises to pray for all of us, especially you graduates as you move into the future,” Msgr. Schaedel said.
He quoted Jesus, from Luke 12:48: “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”
Members of the Class of 2008, he said, “have been given quite a bit. Saint Joseph’s College is no ordinary place. Saint Joseph’s College is a Catholic school of higher learning with a proud tradition.
“Long after those student loans are paid off, you won’t be debt free,” Msgr. Schaedel said. “You and I will never be debt free. We owe an awful lot to Catholic education. We have been entrusted with ‘much.’”
He said that during the pope’s recent trip to Washington, D.C., the Holy Father told Catholic educators that the Church “never tires of upholding the essential categories of right and wrong.” Pope Benedict condemned “the hollow promises which lure young people away from the path of truth and genuine freedom.”
He challenged Catholic educators to “strengthen their witness to right versus wrong; to witness to their students to counteract these all-too-real ‘hollow promises,’” Msgr. Schaedel said.
“Saint Joseph’s College is the place where you have had the opportunity to meet some wonderfully genuine people,” he said. “Saint Joseph’s College is also the place where you have encountered the truth, the difference between right and wrong, and the painful struggle it at times can be to choose one over the other.”
He urged the graduates to have goals and aim high.
“When it doesn’t quite work out, pick yourself up. Let others support you, and aim high again,” he said. To do otherwise, he said, could correctly be called a sin.
The audience chuckled when the monsignor then turned to the comic book and movie character, Spiderman. Toward the end of the movie “Spiderman 3,” he said, Spiderman talks to his friend, Harry, who has done some very bad things.
“Spiderman remarks: ‘It is our choices that make us who we are,’” Msgr. Schaedel said. “We can always choose to do the right thing.
“It is our choices that make us who we are,” he said, looking at the senior class and stressing each word. “We can always choose to do the right thing.”
Msgr. Schaedel said that he had no idea how the seniors came to choose a Catholic college, “but I can tell you one thing: It was a smart choice. It was the right choice. Saint Joseph’s College will always be one of those choices that make you who you are.
“You did it once; do it again and again and again. Make the right choices. Choose the right things,” he said. “And, excuse the pun, like Spiderman, stick to it!”
Valedictorian was Elizabeth Genova, an international studies and German major from Dyer, who told classmates that they will become the kind of people they want to be.
She worked in the college archives, sorting through the papers of Missionaries of the Precious Blood priests who served the college through the years. The order founded the college and sponsors it.
It was humbling, Genova said, to know that each box represented a priest’s life work … but to realize that they left more than that. They made the college what it is today.
“Many students don’t know their names, but they know they have an influence on them today,” she said. “If someone opened your box in 50 years, what would you want them to know?
“All we have at the end of our lives is our good works.”