Christendom College celebrated its 45th commencement May 11, awarding 125 undergraduate degrees to the Class of 2024. Professor Tracey Rowland, the St. John Paul II Chair of Theology for the University of Notre Dame Australia, delivered this year’s commencement address and was given an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters, while Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the Archdiocese of the Military Services, USA, was awarded the college’s Pro Deo et Patria Award for Service to God and Country.
Rowland began her address by praising the graduates for choosing to undertake the great adventure of a Christendom education, rather than be limited by the secular worldview found throughout much of the world today.
“Since you are now graduates of Christendom College, this means that you are not the kind of people whose cultural horizons are limited by whatever is fashionable in Hollywood,” she said. “You will understand that a Catholic culture is built upon truth and goodness and beauty, not woke ideology, virtue signaling, self-promotion, or narcissistic glamor. The late Father Benedict Groeschel argued that each of us tends to have a primary attraction to one of the three transcendental properties of being. For some people, it is truth, for others, goodness, and for others, beauty. We should aspire to be interested in all three.”
Before Rowland’s commencement address, Archbishop Broglio delivered remarks to graduates, encouraging them to go out and restore the world in Christ.
“You have heard the sound of the great classics, the unchangeable moral virtues, and the Gospel mandate,” he said. “You have worshipped in a magnificent church. Reassure us about the future. Do not waste time whining about the state of the world. Go out and make a difference. You have the keys to greatness. You have been taught how to think … The world is waiting for you. Congratulations and God bless you always.”
Bishop Michael F. Burbidge celebrated a Baccalaureate Mass for the graduates May 10 and later joined them for the Graduation Dinner. During his address, Bishop Burbidge especially praised College President Timothy O’Donnell, who is retiring from the college presidency at the end of June after more than 30 years of service.
“Dr. O’Donnell, thank you for your many years of service to this college,” said Bishop Burbidge. “Your reputation in the church in the United States is very well known. Upon arriving here in the Diocese of Arlington, I knew immediately what a treasure this diocese has in Christendom College. Dr. O’Donnell, you have built upon this tremendous foundation given to you, and you have brought this college to where we are today, and we have a bright and promising future because of you. We will honor you by building upon the great work you have done here.”
O’Donnell closed this year’s commencement ceremonies with his final charge ever to a graduating class May 11. He encouraged the graduates to not give into the relativism that pervades the world today, but instead to “waste their lives” for Christ in the years ahead.
“My charge to you this day as you go forth from us here at Christendom College is to have the courage and the vision to waste your life,” said O’Donnell. “Waste your life for the sake of those God will place in your life. Waste your life, for he came that we may have life and have it to the full. If you lose your life for him and with his grace, if you lose your life and waste it, you will come to know who you are and what God expects you to be. And that, my dear students, is happiness in this life and that’s also happiness in the next life.”
