I'd like to make an assertion. I contend that this community-this school-is something unusual, even unique. And by school I mean us, the people in this place, now. It does not suffice to say that we are a part of something great, as if the gentlemen in purple garb before us are somehow only a part of Riordan; you graduates, you parents, grandparents, and siblings, and we faculty are not just a part of something great. We are something great.
I contend that Archbishop Riordan is unique among schools because we embody, we live out four forces, or what Fr. Tom in his homily last night might have called "treasures": truth, charity, community, and perseverance. And in order to understand better what these four forces or treasures are, I'd like to tell you about the lives of four boys: Josh, Frank, Billy, and Pat.
Josh was a Jewish kid who grew up and lived his whole life in the Middle East. He lived in a small country that was occupied and controlled by an outside power, so he saw a lot of ugliness growing up, numerous people even from his own town slain while trying to conduct pretty hopeless and haphazard military campaigns against the occupying power. He had two things goin' for him though. One, like many of the students here, he had the best mom in the world, who supported and encouraged him to the end. Two, when he heard and read scripture at school, he really listened to it. When he grew older, he tried to live his life the way the heroes and prophets of old had. He sought truth and he sought to live the truth. And the truth cost him his life. The person I'm talkin' about, "Joshua" or "Yehoshua," is Jesus of Nazareth.
Frank was an Italian kid, the son of a fairly wealthy merchant. When he was young he partied often, chased girls, and wandered the streets late with his boys getting into the occasional brawl. (Sounds like some Riordan students.) In his early twenties he joined his town's militia in battle against a rival city. He was captured and held prisoner for some time. When he was finally released, he returned home only to contract a terrible illness. These two events-imprisonment and sickness-drove him into a spiritual darkness, from which he emerged a rare kind of person. In a dramatic episode, before many people, he took all of his clothes off and handed them to his father in the town square, showing that he had given his life over completely to the needs of others. For the remainder of his days, he wandered the countryside tending to the poorest and most wretched people of the day. He was the embodiment of charity. The person I'm talkin' about is Francis of Assisi.
Billy was a French kid who, as a teenager, no doubt could see that things in his country were falling apart fast. People everywhere spoke hatefully of the upper-class, which included priests. Billy pledged to become a priest himself in his early twenties, and you can only imagine what he felt seeing other religious folks stretching their necks out under the blade of the guillotine. He went underground and with the help of a couple women he began to form communities of people who held true to their beliefs in the midst of a social and political nightmare: the French Revolution. They embraced everyone that they could, even reaching out to and reforming the lives of a great many prostitutes, women who, in those days had to turn to the only thing left that could put food on their kids' tables. The person I'm talkin' about is William Joseph Chaminade, the founder of the Marianists.
Pat was a Canadian kid, smart, hard-working. Went to the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. He too joined the priesthood in his mid-twenties. Of all the places he could have ended up in the year 1884, he landed in the ever-colorful city-by-the-bay, San Francisco. As a new bishop he surveyed the tens of thousands of Catholics there-Irish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese-figuring out how to bring a sense of unity to so many different people. On top of this, anti-Catholic feeling was blowing across the country, and San Francisco was no exception. And to make matters even worse, in 1906 a good part of the city was devastated by the famed earthquake. Pat did the only thing a man of the cloth can do in such circumstances: he celebrated Mass outside in the open air. He said, "We shall rebuild. God has fixed this as the location of a great city. Let us look to the future without regard to creed or place of birth, and work together in harmony for the upbuilding of a great San Francisco." His perseverance as a major leader in this city was indispensable to its rebuilding. This "Pat" I'm talkin' about is none other than Archbishop Patrick William Riordan, the second Archbishop of San Francisco.
Jesus embodied truth, Francis charity, Chaminade community, and Patrick Riordan perseverance.
When I walk the halls of this school and see the students working away at their studies, I see the pursuit of truth. When a senior wanders into my classroom after history class and engages me in a discussion about socialism in America in the 1920s and references names like Eugene V. Debs and J. Edgar Hoover, or yet another senior in the cafeteria strings the terms Slaughterhouse Five, post-modernism, and disillusionment together in a single sentence of conversation, I know that the spirit of truth is alive and well at Archbishop Riordan.
When I scan the list of community service hours completed by Riordan students, some well into the hundreds at places like St. Anthony's, Martin de Porres, and the Jewish Home for the Elderly, I know that the spirit of charity is alive and well at Archbishop Riordan.
When I listen to the outpouring of these young men's hearts in the most spiritually delicate of settings like Kairos, and when I see students in the halls routinely bang knuckles with a casual "wassup?" I know that the spirit of community is alive and well at Archbishop Riordan.
When I walk by the athletic field, glimpse the scoreboard, and see one of our teams up by 14 or down by 14, they persevere. When I see the wrestler exhausted to the bone in overtime, when I see the jumper clench his hands watching the bar raised another inch, when I hear the actor take a deep breath rehearsing his lines with only minutes before the curtain rises, I know that the spirit of perseverance is alive and well at Archbishop Riordan.
The truth-seeking spirit of Christ is here. We are a Catholic school. The charitable spirit of St. Francis is here. We are a San Francisco school. The community spirit of William Chaminade is here. We are a Marianist school. The persevering spirit of Patrick Riordan is here. We are Archbishop Riordan High School.
Graduates, today you leave your alma mater but this transition into the world beyond our school's buildings is no conclusion, but is a sending forth. Though you may be of varied ethnicities, varied colors, varied beliefs-much like the San Francisco that Patrick Riordan knew a century ago-the faculty of this school charges all of you with a common mission: always to seek truth, always to look out for those in need, always to build up community among people, and always, always to persevere.
You, class of 2009, are the 60th graduating class of Archbishop Riordan. This day and this class marks the diamond anniversary of our school. Congratulations Class of 2009. We love you guys.
Commencement Speech, May 2009
Dan Baer, Faculty Member
Archbishop Riordan High School
