 First of all, a word of welcome to everyone. My name is Father Chris Rogers. I'm Chaplain here at Immaculata University. It's a great joy for me to be here today with Dr. and Deacon Tom O'Brien and Dr. Deacon, Don Nichols, who is a friend of one of our undergraduates today. And before we start the homely today, I just want to offer my heartfelt congratulations to all of our graduates. And if I could ask you all to please stand, it will give us a chance to congratulate you for the first time. I think that's the first of many congratulations you'll receive this weekend, but job well done, well done. Each year on the last exam day at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, where I went to school, all of us seminarians would gather in the chapel for 5 PM evening prayer. And without fail, the opening hymn of that evening prayer was, hallelujah, the striphizard, the battle is won. It was the loudest sung hymn of the year. The pews used to shake, and all of our male voices were full, and the joy was really off the charts. Now, it helped that we were in the Easter season every time exams ended. But it helped even more that I was the music director, and I chose the hymns. And I used to play the organ, and I would make sure all the stops were out, much as Rudy did for that hallelujah here today. Today, as we gather in this chapel with family and friends, with the choir and the organ, with brass, there is certainly a strong parallel for all of you, our graduates. But unlike that evening prayer, we gather today a good two weeks after final exams and a good seven weeks into our Easter season. What's more, we gather not for evening prayer, but we gather today for the prayer of our Christian Catholic faith, the prayer of the Eucharist, which is the source and the summit of our Christian lives. As such, we gather not just to recognize that, yes, the striphizard and hallelujah to that, but we gather to recognize the even greater gift. We recognize all that has come about over these many years, these long semesters, all the fruitfulness and life, the development, competency, all the achievements and gifts that have been formed, which at this point, we can so clearly see. We name with joy, and we celebrate with such great thanksgiving how good and how important, how right and just for us to do that here today as we begin this commencement weekend with family and friends, with faculty, administration, with staff. And I suggest that this giving thanks is what the next 24 hours are all about. To help us recognize the importance of this task, allow me to share with you a story. It's the story of two children in their mother's womb and their discussion about their upcoming delivery. In a mother's womb were two babies, and one asked the other, do you believe in life after delivery? The other replied, why, of course, there has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what will be later. Nonsense said the first. There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be? The second said, I don't know, but there will be more light than in here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat with our mouths. Maybe we will have our other senses that we cannot understand now. The first replied, that's absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths, ridiculous. The umbilical cord supplies nutrition in everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded. The second insisted, well, I think there is something. And maybe it's different than it is here. Maybe we won't need this physical cord anymore. The first replied, nonsense. And moreover, if there is life, then why has no one ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life. And in the after delivery, there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere. Well, I don't know, said the second. But certainly, we will meet mother. And she will take care of us. The first replied, mother? You actually believe in mother? That's laughable. If mother exists, then where is she now? The second said, she's all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of her. It is in her that we live. Without her, this world would not and could not exist. Said the first, well, I do not see her. So it is only logical that she does not exist. To which the second replied, sometimes when you're in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive her presence. And you can hear her loving voice calling down from above. Dear graduates, I suggest that this is your story today. Because after months of formation and years of learning and developing, so much work and noise and anxiety and stress, the time has come. The time has come to perceive and to hear your loving mother, to recognize her. And tomorrow, you, as you receive your diploma, just as a child receives a certificate of birth, you will be able to call and to recognize, inoculata, as your loving mother, your alma mater. You will be invited to see beyond that degree, beyond what you now know, beyond what you now perceive, and beyond the womb, whatever that is for you, to see the one who holds you, who forms you in his head. And this, my friends, is good news. There's life after school. There is. And to see that life, to be on the lookout for that, to be able to know and experience in a new way that gift of life and your life for it is a tremendous gift. It's precisely what is happening at this time in our church. It's what's supposed to happen for graduates. It's what's supposed to be happening for Christians at this time of year. You see, we're reaching the seventh Sunday of Easter, the last Sunday. And we are readying now more than ever for the birthday of the church, for the Feast of Pentecost, when God, who has delivered us, wants us now to see him, wants to be seen, to be loved by us. And we can hear it in the voice of Peter as he invites the Jewish people in the early church to see, that it is Jesus Christ who is the fulfillment of all of the scriptures, the old and the new. We hear it in the voice of John, who invites his people to proclaim and to name Jesus Christ so as to love him and to be loved by him. And we hear it in the voice of Jesus himself, who prays today that these apostles, that all who will come after them, may be one with him in a new and powerful way so that they may be witnesses of who he is and who he enables each and every human being to be. Jesus invites us to go forth and to remain in him and to recognize as that second child did in the womb and as we do today to recognize all the gifts that none of us earn or bears them alone. It's the greatest gift that we could receive. For myself, I'm particularly aware of how true this is for me. For while not a graduate, I am a recipient of so many of these gifts as all of us here, whether graduating or not, are. It was 42 years ago today that I made that journey out of my mother's womb. And while I did not have a brother or sister to talk to in that space, I had a loving mom and dad, a doctor, and a priest who would see me through. You see, I almost did not survive it. 15 minutes after my birth, my APGAR score was well below expected survival rate. A doctor kept me alive. And on that day when the cord was cut and my birth certificate was received, I received something in addition. I received a baptismal certificate. And the priest came. And in that sacrament and in that birth, I was introduced to something I did not know minutes before. My family, my mom and dad, other people, and a God who has seen me through. Those relationships have led me throughout my life and to the priesthood and to my being here with you today. And like our graduates today, those same relationships are moving me from here. As just yesterday, I received another piece of paper giving me a new assignment to be a pastor of a new people. The point, my friends, is this, that on this graduation day, just as on every day of our life and every day to come, the greatest act that you and I can possibly make is the act of giving thanks. The act of recognizing the giftedness, the connectedness of all things, and return a thanks to God, to self, and to others, to return to him the praise and glory that is there to. As we begin this celebratory weekend for our graduates and begin our commencement 2015, and as you get ready to leave this womb of Immaculata, do so with such great joy but recognize your alma mater and all of the people who have made her possible. Do so and be sure to do so with thanksgiving and let that thanksgiving continue. For God lives in a grateful heart. And to have God in your life to give thanks to him is the call of each and every one of us. And it's what makes life so beautiful. And there's nothing better than that. Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you for the gifts that you have given to us and to our community here. And we ask you that through the Immaculata, our loving mother, that you would continue to give us grateful and joyful hearts. Amen.