Graduation

DEPAUL UNIVERSITY Class of 2023: A Final Invitation Before You Depart from Us

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The following reflection is directed to DePaul University’s 2023 Graduates.

Most of the days of our lives pass by without leaving a trace. They accumulate in that nameless tomb that is unconsciousness. But there are a few days that we always remember because they mark moments that summarize long experiences, meaningful achievements, or even dramatic losses and sorrow. These few days define us. They are part of us even when we are not remembering them. It almost goes without saying that we are made of memories. I can anticipate that your graduation in June 2023, which most of you will remember forever, is going to be one of those days.

This day will always accompany you. It represents an important rite of passage, yet another representation of the inner liminality of your existence. Graduation day is a beginning and an end. A lot has happened, much more is to happen, more than you could and can ever imagine.

DePaul Class of 2023, during these last few years you have learned several things, some essential, some simply useful, and some unrelated to what you will need in life to find fulfillment and joy. You have made some friends for life, maybe even found first love, or perhaps love forever. You have met some people and events that inspired you, who changed your way of seeing the world, and who helped you find a life purpose that today seems like a destiny. We won’t ever forget that all of you even went through a global pandemic together!

In the past years, you have experienced epiphanies that are now leading your way into a future that we hope you are less afraid of than before. The constant experiences of perplexity, doubt, or simple frustration at the complexity of the world are also there in your growing experience, and they, too, slowly shed light onto the mystery of your life.

You’ve led the rhythm and intensity of your integral development over the past few years, and you’ve been inspired and supported by your families, friends, professors, and even the new people you met during university activities. The sum of all these relationships and interactions has probably been the most impactful dimension of your own epiphany at DePaul University.

I personally hope that in those nights of profound solitude, in moments of intense tension and academic anxiety, in relational, intercultural, interfaith, multiconvictional conflicts at the heart of this fascinating and diverse community, you grew closer to finding yourself. Never forget the moments of tears, fear, anxiety, and even anguish, the moments in which you were exposed to your own vulnerability, nor the moments of laughter, joy, innocence, inner peace, love, solidarity, and compassion—all those moments in which you became more aware than ever of your gift, your potential, your passion, your real purpose in life.

We all hope that after these past years at DePaul, in the Vincentian spirit, you came to understand more clearly the beauty and the challenges we all experience living in diverse communities of thought, faith, and action. I hope that you have learned that ethics belong to the order of relational practice and not simply of theory.

Before you go from our midst, I would like to invite the Class of 2023 to incorporate forever in your ethical imagination, if you have not yet, a Vincentian principle that will help you to be fully human in your thought, faith, and action: the principle of compassion that guided the lives of Vincent and Louise and that was the real engine of their individual and common imagination.

In the past years most of you probably have become aware, as Vincent did when he was young, of the unbearable levels of suffering throughout world history, the scandalous levels of violence and inequity, the progressive and dangerous growth of polarization, and the endless loneliness of millions and millions of people who carry the very heavy weight of injustice, discrimination, misunderstanding, and bitterness.

My friends, in your hearts there is written a human ethos that makes you want to include all those people—who, deep down, are each one of us—in the collective ethos of a humanity that is undeniably walking toward transforming change, real civilization, and a common home where there is radical hospitality. That space where tears can be cried without shame, or kindly wiped away.

The compassion I am talking about is not having pity for others, a feeling that reduces them to a condition of helplessness, without inner energy to stand upright. Compassion means being together in a shared passion. This ethos of compassion gives us the capacity to suffer with others, to rejoice with them, to walk with them together, elbow to elbow. Compassion was for Saint Vincent an ethical and spiritual path.

In your life, how are you be able to free yourself from suffering, loneliness, and fear?

In the Buddhist world tradition, they might respond to this question saying, “through compassion, infinite compassion,” and people from many worldviews could agree. In the Vincentian, Christian world we believe the same and invite others to do so as well, from wherever they stand.

To find your compassionate soul, as you graduate from DePaul University, have the courage to detach yourself from the apparent inner need of possessing things and people. Only in this way will you be able to transition by finding the most profound aspiration of our human existence, which is in communion. This communion always respects otherness and difference. Please be a light in this contradictory age, connect with others to exercise the human ethos of solidarity in all circumstances, let compassion guide your life … be an ethical person in all your words, faith, convictions, and actions. Thank you from all of us to all of you for the grace you share with us when you let us into the beautiful mystery of your lives. Congratulations Class of 2023. Never forget that you belong here at DePaul!

Reflection by: Fr. Guillermo (Memo) Campuzano, C.M., Vice President of Mission and Ministry

 

Authenticity: Invitation for Graduating Seniors

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Last week I reviewed a leadership module highlighting an insight first introduced to me when I started working at DePaul: professionalism is Vincentian simplicity.

I learned Vincentian simplicity through my experience first, and only later made connections to its roots in our Vincentian family. The first Daughters of Charity I met showed me that simplicity is authenticity. The authenticity of I mean what I say is woven through work and personal life.

I recall Sister Frances Ryan, who taught in the College of Education (COE), offering me cutting-edge scholarship to address the big questions life was bringing up, accompanied by a phone call or handwritten note keeping my family in her heart and prayers. Sister Katie Norris, who served as director of Catholic Campus Ministry (CCM), brought Vincentian simplicity to our meetings by cutting through tense moments with a courageous, tender question or insight that quickly breathed imaginative, healing oxygen into the room. Sister Judy Warmbold, who shared her leadership and pastoral gifts in the Dax program for housing-insecure students and also with CCM, reminds me of the power of presence when I meet her, so often sitting with students. She centers the personal dignity of those in her midst with her listening heart and her laughter. Sister Betty Ann McNeil, Vincentian Scholar in Residence at DePaul, contributes knowledge and historical context with integrity and rigor in light of the sustained work of our Vincentian mission and legacy.

I feel blessed and grateful to have worked with these Daughters of Charity at DePaul University. Whether I have bumped into them on Halsted Street outside of the COE or at the Marillac Social Center in East Garfield Park, a simplicity of what you see is what you get has consistently been made real through their presence.

I write this reflection with the graduating seniors of 2022 in mind and heart. I join with all faculty, staff, and administrators in the DePaul community to offer this blessing:

As you begin the next chapter of your life, may you allow this Vincentian spirit of simplicity to guide you. May your professional endeavors be filled with an authenticity that breathes healing and friendship into your workplace. May your education be lifelong, ever embracing knowledge and wisdom. And may you continue to center the dignity of all, especially those excluded and marginalized.

Reflection by: Karl Nass, Director of Vincentian Service and Formation, Division of Mission and Ministry

Managing Life’s Transitions

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There is transition happening all around us.

Academically, we are nearing the end of the school year. Graduating students will be leaving and moving on to the next stage of their pilgrimage through life. Current high school seniors will graduate and join our community next year. Students who will transfer to or from DePaul over the summer are also preparing for their transition, as are potential adult students looking to advance their education and career development.

A large percentage of people have been vaccinated, or soon will be, and so many of us are preparing to regularly go back to our offices after more than a year of working from home.

In the Upper Midwest we are moving from spring to summer as the weather warms and the days become longer. In Chicago, we might even revel in the fact that we had an actual spring. Some years ago, I heard on the radio, “spring will fall on a Thursday this year!”

In the Christian liturgical tradition, the season of Easter has just ended. After celebrating Easter for 50 days Ordinary Time resumes.

We are certainly in the midst of many different transitions. But that doesn’t need to be a reason for us to fret, to become stressed out, to try to do too much, or to hurry the process.

In writing about one of the greatest transitions we face, at the end of our lives, Vincent de Paul once said, “In fact, experience has shown us that those who have gone to heaven most likely advanced the time of entering their new life by endangering their lives by too much hard work.”1 In other words, Vincent suggests that while entering heaven is certainly a goal for many people, we shouldn’t try to rush the process!

Our lives may be in a state of turmoil in going through so many different transitions at once—and it can be overwhelming—but the more we remain calm, the easier these transitions will be. So, before the school year begins again in earnest, do what you can to take some time this summer to relax, enjoy the warm weather, and just be. This will enable you to be more present and attentive to your life and the work before you. The transitions you are moving through will occur on their own time.

What kinds of transitions are you experiencing right now, both personally and professionally?

How will you make time for yourself in the coming weeks and months? How will you remain calm and grounded and avoid becoming too overwhelmed?

What are your practices of self-care when the busy-ness of life takes over?

1 Letter 2948, To François Feydin, In Richelieu, 24 August 1659, CCD, 8:103-04.

Reflection by: Matt Merkt, Chaplain for Liturgy/Music, Catholic Campus Ministry, Division of Mission and Ministry

What Must Be Done?

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This past weekend we celebrated the graduating Class of 2020. After years of hard work and perseverance, our students are ready to go out and change the world. We, as a DePaul community, have prepared them to thrive, care for others, and act justly. We have given them the tools to act upon the Vincentian question, both in their lives and in their communities, “what must be done?”

However, as we celebrate the accomplishments of the Class of 2020, we must also recognize that our job as a Vincentian, Catholic, and urban university is not done. Our world is broken. We must look ahead to the Class of 2021 and our incoming Class of 2024 and ask how are we preparing them to change, or even heal, our broken world? What action must the DePaul community take today to ensure that future classes flourish. Perhaps in 50 years theirs will be a world that is more just, more loving, filled with students whose experience of our broken world is only to be found in history textbooks?

Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac lived in a society marred by systemic inequality. They asked and strived to answer, “what must be done?” Today, inspired by our shared mission, we seek to emulate Vincent and Louise by asking that same question. To follow in their footsteps we recognize, as Vincent did, that “having charity in our heart and words isn’t everything, it has to be put into action.”1

What is one way you can personally take action to help fix our broken world? What must we do to better teach, advise, or support the Classes of 2021, 2024, or 2070, to build a world in which all can thrive?

1) 207, Charity (Common Rules, Chap. 2, Art. 12), 30 May 1659, CCD, 12:223.

 

Reflection by:

Michael Van Dorpe, Program Manager for Faculty and Staff Engagement, Division of Mission & Ministry

 

Read the Division of Mission and Ministry Statement on the Dignity of Black Lives