Remarks to the ISM Graduating Class of 2013
Offered at the Commencement Banquet on May 19
Martin D. Jean
PENTECOST 2013 - Virtually all of you are moving on from this place in the coming weeks: on to parishes, to more school, on to work in various professions, travel, etc. I’ve been thinking a lot about traveling these days. As Yale continues to globalize, we open our own doors as an Institute more and more widely. Students have come here from virtually every continent, and together we’ve beaten paths to many places throughout the world: Greece, Turkey, England, Italy, Japan, Burma, Singapore. We’re sending Schola to Asia soon – emissaries, if you will, to people with whom we hope to make friends.
All of you are emissaries, in a way, being sent on a mission – a “sending” (from the Latin word missio) - bearing your message to your intended audiences. These messages of yours, as I’ve come to know them, are all quite varied, but they do share a common vision of transformation. Some of you carry with you a body of repertoire that you hope will inspire others as it has you. Some of you have glimpsed a fragment of new knowledge that lay hidden until now. Several of you hope to invite parishioners into ways of praying that are even deeper and more meaningful than ones they’ve known. And still others will seek out those who have been silenced or marginalized, to help them find their voices and their place in the world.
Widely diverse, extravagantly talented you are, with toolkits overflowing with gifts of sound, word, image, color, gesture, harmony, curiosity, insight, and passion. Your missio will soon be “mission,” unbinding and transforming a world that hurts and is hurt; that strives and is full of strife.
How do we know you will succeed? Well, because you’ve succeeded here! And not only because you’re walking away with pieces of paper in your hands, and one more line to add to your growing résumés – but because you’ve accomplished so much here, rising to one challenge after another. Your missio began when someone else sent you here, and these “sendings” have transformed us.
I’ve never known a class that has inspired and taught me as you have. You have been open and eager to grow, you have worked tirelessly, and you have challenged us, your faculty. Through a new turn of phrase, a new understanding of scripture, by rediscovering a piece that has been long forgotten, by an insight into an object or image or text – by simply saying to us “that ain’t right!” – you have stimulated and transformed us time and time again.
If you need more evidence of transformation, try looking in the mirror. Not one of you is the same person you were on arrival. Your gifts have grown manifold here, and you have simply become more comfortable in your own skin. There is no work more satisfying, no honor greater than to see the look on your faces after you reach a milestone and say “Wow! Did I just do that?”
We have cherished these years with you, beloved students of the ISM. Now we are sending you out – dismissing you, if you will – with tongues of fire on your heads, and (literally, for some of you!) speaking new languages. We send you with our respect, our encouragement, and our love, and, yes, more little pieces of paper – mostly meant to remind you of the message of transformation that already lives in your souls.