WEBVTT 00:00:06.720 --> 00:00:20.715 On behalf of the entire university community, I extend our heartfelt gratitude to doctor Scafani for his years of dedicated service, prudent leadership, and fidelity to God's plan and the mission of DMU. 00:00:21.815 --> 00:00:24.635 Thank you very much, father Charles. 00:00:26.215 --> 00:00:28.795 Monsignor Shea, father Charles, our president. 00:00:30.680 --> 00:00:42.520 Families of the graduates of 2024, my own family who's here today, and most of all, the graduates of 2024. 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:57.145 Today, I have the distinct honor of saying a few words at the wonderful occasion of your commencement and also the occasion of my retirement after 52 as a clinical psychologist. 00:00:57.740 --> 00:01:00.880 The best of the years were the last twenty here at DMU. 00:01:02.860 --> 00:01:07.120 Commensions are about the beginning of something, the beginning of your careers. 00:01:07.740 --> 00:01:10.160 Retirements are about the ending of a career. 00:01:11.020 --> 00:01:13.520 Something begins, something ends. 00:01:14.675 --> 00:01:18.515 But if you look at it, they're actually two sides of the same coin. 00:01:18.515 --> 00:01:26.695 Every beginning implies that something else is ending, and every ending means that there's something new yet to come. 00:01:27.980 --> 00:01:32.160 As Christians, we see the world as a series of commencements. 00:01:33.820 --> 00:01:41.600 And even at the end of life, there's still a very grand commencement yet to come to spend eternity with the Lord. 00:01:42.415 --> 00:01:44.915 What a beautiful way to see the world. 00:01:46.095 --> 00:01:57.180 I today would like a few minutes, maybe a few more than just a few minutes, to say some things, that I hope would be memorable to you. 00:01:58.760 --> 00:02:06.620 I would like to reverse the formula and talk about some of my own beginnings and how I got to where I am as I stand here today. 00:02:08.055 --> 00:02:12.155 And, hopefully, plant some seeds for your commencement. 00:02:13.495 --> 00:02:15.755 So if you'll please bear with me. 00:02:16.535 --> 00:02:21.435 I was born in nineteen forties at the beginning of the World War two. 00:02:23.500 --> 00:02:25.200 It was a dark time in history. 00:02:25.580 --> 00:02:27.200 The world was at war. 00:02:28.380 --> 00:02:30.780 People wouldn't be sure how that would come out. 00:02:30.780 --> 00:02:36.240 My parents had been immigrants from Southern Italy, a very poor part of Italy. 00:02:37.915 --> 00:02:41.375 They came with, just a few years of education. 00:02:41.755 --> 00:02:44.735 They only had about three years of elementary school education. 00:02:44.955 --> 00:02:51.295 And in those days, it was the custom to pull young people out of school and start them in the trades. 00:02:51.770 --> 00:02:58.030 So even as a child, my mother was began as a seamstress, my dad is a cobbler. 00:02:58.650 --> 00:03:00.410 And they came through Ellis Island. 00:03:00.410 --> 00:03:02.250 Everyone knows stories like that. 00:03:02.250 --> 00:03:04.590 And they worked in the heavy industries in America. 00:03:05.185 --> 00:03:11.205 And they settled in the middle of a large city, which in those days was referred to as a little Italy. 00:03:11.585 --> 00:03:18.725 We lived in a basement apartment next to these huge furnaces that heated the whole apartment. 00:03:19.220 --> 00:03:23.000 And they had very very little to give us as you might imagine. 00:03:24.020 --> 00:03:27.400 But the one thing that they could give us of great value was our faith. 00:03:28.100 --> 00:03:39.225 They had a fervent belief that if we carried our faith with us, then anything in our lives, the good times but also the hard times, would somehow make sense. 00:03:39.365 --> 00:03:40.425 And they were right. 00:03:40.565 --> 00:03:42.425 That was a great way to get launched. 00:03:42.725 --> 00:03:51.500 Somehow, they they found the means to send us to this little Catholic school at the edge of the inner city in those days. 00:03:51.500 --> 00:03:54.320 The whole city was divided up into fiefdoms. 00:03:54.380 --> 00:04:02.880 There's Italians and Irish people and African American people and Jewish people and Portuguese people, everything you can think of. 00:04:03.435 --> 00:04:11.695 And they all went to work at the end of the day together, even though they lived in separate sectors, doing what we would call today the menial jobs. 00:04:12.795 --> 00:04:21.300 And at this Catholic school, these these offspring to these very poor people got the very, very best education that money could buy. 00:04:21.300 --> 00:04:38.995 We had this order of young nuns that were, of Irish descent, actually, teaching these young Italian kids and Irish kids and African American kids Really, the best of elementary school education you could imagine in that place in that time. 00:04:40.255 --> 00:04:43.055 We also had young priests coming back from World War two. 00:04:43.055 --> 00:04:45.315 I'd been chaplains and seen a great deal. 00:04:46.130 --> 00:04:47.670 And so it was a phenomena. 00:04:47.730 --> 00:04:51.730 It was something I'm not sure exists anywhere in the world today. 00:04:51.730 --> 00:05:03.485 But to us, it was a godsend and the proof of that was that through the kindness and the encouragement of these young nuns, many of us wound up in universities. 00:05:04.505 --> 00:05:10.905 Now if you're an inner city kid, the best you could do was go to a university that was local and you could day hop to. 00:05:10.905 --> 00:05:17.010 It would take us, oh, about an hour and a half on city buses to go way out into the suburbs. 00:05:17.390 --> 00:05:19.650 I went to a place called Seton Hall University. 00:05:20.590 --> 00:05:26.290 And in those days, the universities, the Catholic universities were top universities. 00:05:26.510 --> 00:05:29.890 They were hard to get into and difficult to get through. 00:05:30.645 --> 00:05:36.105 And you had to minor in philosophy and theology besides your major. 00:05:36.245 --> 00:05:40.265 So that the end of my fourth year, I was a Thomist. 00:05:41.125 --> 00:05:47.650 I saw the world through the end lenses of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas. 00:05:47.950 --> 00:05:56.690 And that was important then because we had seen the darkness of the world and their way of seeing the world brought light and it brought hope. 00:05:57.310 --> 00:06:08.995 And the way they saw the human person brought the greatest amount of hope that every person, no matter their circumstances, was made in the image and likeness of God. 00:06:10.095 --> 00:06:14.115 And so that's who we were and that's what our lens was. 00:06:15.640 --> 00:06:20.060 My big problem in those days was finding the tuition to get through school. 00:06:20.840 --> 00:06:26.780 It may not seem much to anyone today, but it was about $1,000 a year to get through university. 00:06:27.960 --> 00:06:38.235 And my parents combined, earnings was about 3,000 a year, so there was no way they could help us very much. 00:06:38.375 --> 00:06:45.770 So at the end of my first year, I had saved enough money to finish call, my first year of college, but I was completely out of money. 00:06:45.990 --> 00:06:52.250 And the best you could do in those days was get kind of a heavy labor job, a manual labor. 00:06:52.710 --> 00:07:09.075 And my other five friends who were at university with me all got hired, but they wouldn't hire me for obvious reasons why in manual labor would you hire a person without two fully developed hands when they you could hire someone with two hands. 00:07:09.535 --> 00:07:11.555 So there I was and I was stuck. 00:07:12.240 --> 00:07:13.120 How would I go on? 00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:14.900 How could I possibly go on? 00:07:15.440 --> 00:07:19.360 And I remember sitting in front of my house, kind of puzzling this out. 00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:22.480 I wasn't bitter because that's just the way life was. 00:07:22.480 --> 00:07:25.060 There was no such thing as entitlement in those days. 00:07:25.545 --> 00:07:26.925 Rather, there was gratitude. 00:07:26.985 --> 00:07:28.765 You were glad if you got anything. 00:07:29.385 --> 00:07:34.985 And I was puzzling and kind of discouraged, and along came a man that I had barely known. 00:07:34.985 --> 00:07:39.325 He lived at the end of our block, and his name was Salveen Pordi. 00:07:40.450 --> 00:07:46.710 And he stopped in front of me and he said, hey Phil, I hear you finished your first year at university. 00:07:46.770 --> 00:07:48.470 And I said, yeah, I did very well. 00:07:49.010 --> 00:07:50.850 He said, well are you going on? 00:07:50.850 --> 00:07:51.970 I said, I think not. 00:07:51.970 --> 00:07:53.910 I just can't seem to find a job. 00:07:54.395 --> 00:07:55.195 And he said, really? 00:07:55.195 --> 00:08:01.295 And he mentioned all the establishments that had turned me down and I just kind of blew it off and said they were all filled. 00:08:02.155 --> 00:08:06.895 He walked him out 15 more steps and then he turned around. 00:08:08.220 --> 00:08:10.380 And people were very frank in those days. 00:08:10.380 --> 00:08:12.960 There there was no such thing as, microaggressions. 00:08:13.660 --> 00:08:15.360 You said what was on your mind. 00:08:15.500 --> 00:08:17.360 And he said, let me ask you something. 00:08:18.140 --> 00:08:22.400 Do you think you can unload steel off the back of trucks with that hand of yours? 00:08:25.065 --> 00:08:25.965 They said I could. 00:08:28.905 --> 00:08:29.885 Excuse me. 00:08:30.985 --> 00:08:33.805 And, he took me out. 00:08:34.585 --> 00:08:35.325 I'm sorry. 00:08:35.465 --> 00:08:36.630 Didn't expect this. 00:08:36.870 --> 00:08:48.970 He took me out to, a place called Otis Elevator Factory, and he said, we're allowed to bring each bring a son or a daughter to do the heavy lifting because the old timers don't like to unload the trucks. 00:08:49.705 --> 00:08:56.665 And he put me to work, and for the first time in my life, I was working harder than I could ever work unloading steel off the back of trucks. 00:08:56.665 --> 00:09:03.885 I couldn't have been happier because, he did that every summer until I finally graduated. 00:09:05.385 --> 00:09:06.740 So think about that. 00:09:07.760 --> 00:09:11.460 Parents, they give you far more than they ever dreamed of for themselves. 00:09:13.760 --> 00:09:26.125 Nuns who gave you the highest education you could imagine, asking very little in return, and a random guy who passes by one day and gives you what you need for a college education. 00:09:26.665 --> 00:09:31.965 And suddenly, it came alive to me what Saint Thomas was talking about. 00:09:32.530 --> 00:09:40.310 That was that goodness that was buried inside of people that wasn't some abstract philosophical idea. 00:09:40.610 --> 00:09:45.270 It was something that was manifested in the action of people. 00:09:45.585 --> 00:09:49.605 A goodness that came out randomly that was often overlooked. 00:09:50.065 --> 00:10:00.645 We all see so many bad things that are publicized about people, and sometimes we just pass by these simple good things that we do for one another. 00:10:01.950 --> 00:10:03.170 That's that philosophy. 00:10:04.830 --> 00:10:13.070 Well, at the end of my college career, I thought it was going to law school, but Salgam Porti had moved on and there was no way I could afford law school. 00:10:13.070 --> 00:10:23.125 So I saw a bulletin, and it was an advertisement for young college students to work in an inpatient unit for adolescent psychiatric patients. 00:10:23.665 --> 00:10:27.605 And I didn't know much about psychology, but I knew I could do that standing on my head. 00:10:27.665 --> 00:10:35.170 So I went out there and in three years I mean, three weeks, I should say, I had found my calling. 00:10:35.170 --> 00:10:36.770 This is something I could do. 00:10:36.770 --> 00:10:45.075 And fortunately, in those days, they needed graduate students in psychology, so you could get assistantships and traineeships and so forth. 00:10:45.075 --> 00:10:49.255 And I managed now to get into the science of psychology. 00:10:50.275 --> 00:10:51.495 So let me go on. 00:10:52.195 --> 00:11:00.890 In psychology, I suddenly was taught by these more secularized professors that philosophy and theology was a thing of the past. 00:11:00.890 --> 00:11:02.350 That was medieval thinking. 00:11:02.970 --> 00:11:05.930 Now you're going to introduced into the world of science. 00:11:05.930 --> 00:11:08.350 Well, psychology is a wonderful science. 00:11:08.570 --> 00:11:15.545 It opens up a whole new epistemology for you and many, many ways to help people as you well know. 00:11:16.565 --> 00:11:21.845 And so I kind of lost for a while my vision of a Thomistic view of the world. 00:11:21.845 --> 00:11:24.805 And I now looked at an empirical view of the world. 00:11:24.805 --> 00:11:29.310 That all held up until my last year, and then something happened. 00:11:30.010 --> 00:11:34.430 My last year, I was looking for my final intern externship. 00:11:34.650 --> 00:11:36.510 Sound familiar to both of you? 00:11:36.730 --> 00:11:45.475 In those days, it was a buyer's market, so the externship you got became the the internship you eventually get. 00:11:45.535 --> 00:11:50.515 And I had looked down there on this long list and I had a lot of attractive offers. 00:11:50.895 --> 00:11:59.490 But the last and considered the least attractive offer was a place right here in Washington called Saint Elizabeth's Hospital. 00:11:59.490 --> 00:12:01.190 Some of you may have heard of it. 00:12:01.570 --> 00:12:04.870 And it was once the most famous hospital in the country. 00:12:05.010 --> 00:12:06.870 It was started in the eighteen fifties. 00:12:07.655 --> 00:12:13.755 It had a year a hundred years of success and innovation and discovery. 00:12:14.055 --> 00:12:19.355 But in the nineteen fifties, it became neglected and fell in disrepair. 00:12:19.495 --> 00:12:26.210 But then there was the war on poverty and they poured all of this money into these underserved areas. 00:12:26.430 --> 00:12:29.410 And they kind of resurrected this enormous campus. 00:12:30.030 --> 00:12:33.730 It was larger than most universities that you could find. 00:12:35.065 --> 00:12:43.325 And suddenly, once again, it had these beautiful lawns and flower beds and fruit trees and berry bushes, everything you could imagine. 00:12:43.385 --> 00:12:48.520 But when I stepped on the campus to take the interview, I kind of had the shock of my life. 00:12:48.520 --> 00:13:00.120 I looked around and I saw some of the most psychotic, most confused, most forlorn, and seemingly unwanted people on the face of the earth. 00:13:00.120 --> 00:13:02.595 They were wandering around on these grounds. 00:13:02.595 --> 00:13:06.755 And I remember being shocked at first, but I also kind of felt touched. 00:13:06.755 --> 00:13:14.275 I had been thinking of going into the Peace Corps to give all of the good fortune that I had had in my life, to give it back in some way. 00:13:14.275 --> 00:13:19.840 But when I saw these people, something told me maybe the Peace Corps is right here. 00:13:19.980 --> 00:13:22.240 Maybe something is needed right here. 00:13:22.300 --> 00:13:23.200 So I stayed. 00:13:26.060 --> 00:13:27.040 It was a blessing. 00:13:27.500 --> 00:13:34.875 And my internship, I, like most interns, it was one of the largest internships in the country at the time. 00:13:35.735 --> 00:13:38.775 Most interns would pursue the high functioning patients. 00:13:38.775 --> 00:13:45.640 The ones that were poor were easy to treat, and so you could apply your method, apply your craft, and see results. 00:13:46.260 --> 00:13:54.040 And I did that, but then what about these other people that were wandering around that didn't seem to get much care at all? 00:13:54.100 --> 00:13:58.315 And I remember talking to some of the seasoned psychiatrists and they said, well, they're untreatable. 00:13:59.015 --> 00:14:00.235 They have no insight. 00:14:00.455 --> 00:14:02.715 You can't do psychotherapy with them. 00:14:03.575 --> 00:14:12.960 And that's when I realized for the first time that this wonderful discipline of clinical psychology was also quite incomplete. 00:14:13.180 --> 00:14:14.640 There was something missing. 00:14:15.180 --> 00:14:27.055 And the thing that was missing was what Saint Thomas was talking about, that in every one of these human beings, there was a core of goodness and dignity that could not be eradicated. 00:14:27.755 --> 00:14:30.895 And I felt all you had to do is find it. 00:14:31.675 --> 00:14:39.080 Well, I'll tell you one quick illustration and then I won't throw on to throw on for too much longer. 00:14:40.580 --> 00:14:44.820 I would see during the day the high functioning patients so I could learn. 00:14:44.820 --> 00:14:50.680 And then in the evening, I got permission to sit with some of these so called chronic people. 00:14:51.345 --> 00:14:57.185 And sometimes something would happen, but sometimes you'd see something that kind of surprised you. 00:14:57.185 --> 00:15:00.085 It was one person, let's just call him Nick. 00:15:00.145 --> 00:15:10.110 He was a floridly psychotic young man, excuse me, who could barely make a coherent sentence. 00:15:10.110 --> 00:15:11.330 He was very anxious. 00:15:12.030 --> 00:15:14.130 He squirmed in his chair. 00:15:14.350 --> 00:15:15.250 He was hallucinating. 00:15:17.355 --> 00:15:19.615 And but I sat with him patiently. 00:15:20.155 --> 00:15:26.015 And one day, I was walking through across this beautiful campus and he did something that caught my eye. 00:15:26.315 --> 00:15:35.640 He had a container and he was going around to the fruit trees and the berry bushes and picking the berries and fruits and putting it in this container. 00:15:37.140 --> 00:15:39.800 And then he got a hose and he washed them all off. 00:15:39.860 --> 00:15:44.520 And then he picked some flowers out of the flower bed, which you weren't supposed to do, but he did anyway. 00:15:44.740 --> 00:15:46.200 And he put them in his container. 00:15:47.505 --> 00:15:54.325 And of all the 27 buildings that he could have chose, he goes to the most forgotten building on the campus. 00:15:54.705 --> 00:16:02.910 And it was a little cottage for elderly women, very poor and quite demented, that were warehoused in this cottage. 00:16:03.130 --> 00:16:11.450 And on a nice day, they would sit them out in the front to get some air and just leave them there vegetating, not doing very much. 00:16:11.450 --> 00:16:18.165 And he took his container with the flowers and the fruit, and he gave it to these women, and they would light up. 00:16:18.705 --> 00:16:20.005 And then he walked away. 00:16:20.625 --> 00:16:23.525 And I remember seeing that and saying, fancy that. 00:16:24.305 --> 00:16:26.485 Never imagined that he would ever do that. 00:16:26.705 --> 00:16:33.470 Several times later, I was passing by and a woman had fallen from that cottage again. 00:16:33.930 --> 00:16:38.270 And I started started over there, of course, people didn't notice that she had fallen. 00:16:38.330 --> 00:16:48.365 And he sort of beat me to the punch and he picks this woman up as gently as you would pick up your own grandmother, and he escorts her into this cottage. 00:16:48.985 --> 00:16:52.285 And then he talks to the nurse, tells her what happens, and he leaves. 00:16:53.705 --> 00:17:06.030 And I went, well So that night when I saw him after seeing all of my other patients, I pushed all of my incomplete psychology, so to speak, aside and said, let me just meet him where he's at. 00:17:06.810 --> 00:17:17.865 And I just looked at him and I said one thing, today I saw you pick up that woman and very kindly bring her into the cottage, and I stopped. 00:17:18.645 --> 00:17:21.625 And for the first time, he completely composed himself. 00:17:22.010 --> 00:17:24.590 He looked as sane as anyone in this room. 00:17:24.730 --> 00:17:39.235 He looked at me with a serious face and as lucid as the day is long, as clear and as rational as anyone in this room, he said, do you realize that they desperately need a great deal of help? 00:17:39.455 --> 00:17:41.855 And it just knocked my socks off. 00:17:41.855 --> 00:17:47.795 And in that moment, I saw a glimpse behind this blizzard of psychopathology. 00:17:48.620 --> 00:17:56.160 I saw a glimpse glimpse of that newness, that goodness, that dignity come through. 00:17:56.940 --> 00:18:06.205 Well, when you notice something good about someone, somehow they kind of pick up without a word being said that you saw something in them, and they kind of see it themselves. 00:18:06.205 --> 00:18:11.905 And I think in that moment, Nick saw it in himself, and he smiled at me. 00:18:12.365 --> 00:18:14.285 And all of a sudden, it was like a spark. 00:18:14.285 --> 00:18:15.825 A relationship was formed. 00:18:16.045 --> 00:18:23.000 We had made contact, and now I could bring in all of my psychology, and I was ready to treat. 00:18:23.060 --> 00:18:25.640 Well, I'm not gonna tell you that I cured schizophrenia. 00:18:26.660 --> 00:18:27.400 That's impossible. 00:18:28.660 --> 00:18:32.200 But what I can tell you is I helped this man have a better life. 00:18:33.655 --> 00:18:43.655 Thirty two years later, after a full career on that campus, my good friend, William Nordling, called me, and I knew he what he was up to. 00:18:43.655 --> 00:18:48.980 He and a handful of psychologists had started the Institute for Psychological Sciences. 00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:58.560 There's about a handful, it's doctor Nordling, doctor Sweeney, doctor Klowicki was there, doctor Palmer, and doctor Muncher. 00:18:58.560 --> 00:19:03.795 And they were doing the best they can to hold this place together with rubber bands, you see. 00:19:04.255 --> 00:19:05.395 They had no funds. 00:19:06.415 --> 00:19:07.935 And he said, well, come on out. 00:19:07.935 --> 00:19:15.810 It would be low pressure and you could just teach, some students and you could supervise, and I thought that was a good idea. 00:19:16.190 --> 00:19:21.170 Well, doctor Nordling is he's just about my best friend and he's a wonderful, generous person. 00:19:21.310 --> 00:19:26.610 But he has one quality, he can sell snowballs to people in Alaska during the winter. 00:19:28.445 --> 00:19:35.905 And so I get to this place, and suddenly I'm steeped with twice the work that I have to pay. 00:19:36.445 --> 00:19:40.350 But you really couldn't complain because everybody was doing the same thing. 00:19:40.350 --> 00:19:51.090 We're trying to really realize the dictum of John Paul the second, that a good psychology is a psychology that's built on a Catholic conception of the person. 00:19:51.795 --> 00:20:02.295 And so we were trying to paste that together with people like doctor Vicks and some some, theologians like doctor Titus and doing it very imperfectly. 00:20:02.595 --> 00:20:14.640 Thank heavens for the legionaries of Christ, because if we didn't have the legionaries of Christ, we never would have survived these fine priests that would sponsor us and somehow get the funds to keep us going. 00:20:14.640 --> 00:20:19.220 It was father Gil at first and then father John Hopkins, if you've ever met him. 00:20:19.505 --> 00:20:29.905 And then finally, father Charles, who I can honestly say, and I've said this many times, he is a rock upon which this university has been built. 00:20:29.905 --> 00:20:33.430 It wouldn't have existed if he didn't stay with us in all these years. 00:20:33.430 --> 00:20:54.655 But anyway, to cut to the chase after fifteen years and getting a great deal from the students themselves, I don't think the so called Catholic Christian meta model of the person would have ever developed if we didn't get feedback from each cohort of students to make us better and better and better. 00:20:54.875 --> 00:20:59.690 And even our students today have given us many contributions with dissertations. 00:21:00.230 --> 00:21:02.570 And now we have the meta model. 00:21:03.270 --> 00:21:12.970 It's the volume one of the Catholic Christian model of the person, edited by doctor Vitz, doctor Nordling, and doctor Titus. 00:21:13.805 --> 00:21:15.825 That we bequeath to you. 00:21:16.445 --> 00:21:21.185 We give that to you with strings attached, at least from my point of view. 00:21:21.805 --> 00:21:23.665 I think it has to go further. 00:21:24.525 --> 00:21:26.065 I think it's still developing. 00:21:26.685 --> 00:21:41.650 I think the next phase is to begin to write about the true application of this wonderful thinking and the practice of psycho, psycho psych psychology, counseling, even spiritual direction. 00:21:42.545 --> 00:21:48.485 And so I commission you to go forward and do that, invest of your ability, each in your own way. 00:21:50.625 --> 00:21:52.225 Let me finish with this. 00:21:52.225 --> 00:21:58.240 In in time, as you go through your careers, most of us will have been forgotten. 00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:04.500 I dare say by the end of our your career, we will no longer resist in the mind of any living person. 00:22:05.280 --> 00:22:10.580 And I believe, because I think you will be greater than us, I believe you will be greater than us. 00:22:11.035 --> 00:22:13.135 I think you'll pass it on to more generations. 00:22:13.915 --> 00:22:19.695 But at the end of your career, you will have disappeared from the consciousness of any living person. 00:22:19.835 --> 00:22:25.215 They say that no person is remembered beyond two generations after their existence. 00:22:25.600 --> 00:22:27.300 Most of us remember our grandparents. 00:22:28.080 --> 00:22:31.220 Very few people can say very much about their great grandparents. 00:22:32.400 --> 00:22:33.700 That's not what's important. 00:22:34.720 --> 00:22:42.805 What's important is that the mission goes on, because we live in a culture that desperately needs this mission. 00:22:44.945 --> 00:22:46.165 One final word. 00:22:47.345 --> 00:22:59.160 As you go on in your profession, in a few weeks, probably less, you'll see a person who approaches you, and they'll be asking for help. 00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:01.960 Try something kind of like I did with Nick. 00:23:01.960 --> 00:23:07.560 Put, just for a moment, put your psychology aside, and just meet them where they're at. 00:23:07.560 --> 00:23:15.685 And with a little bit of luck, you may just see their goodness shine through in spite of all their worry. 00:23:15.905 --> 00:23:24.565 And when you do realize that you've just received grace, and when you contemplate it, you will see Christ. 00:23:25.670 --> 00:23:26.890 You will see Christ. 00:23:27.670 --> 00:23:33.050 Ladies and gentlemen, these are the best graduates in the entire country. 00:23:33.750 --> 00:23:38.810 They are just as confident as any other mental health graduates in our country. 00:23:39.525 --> 00:23:44.745 But they're great because they put Christ at the center of their work. 00:23:44.805 --> 00:23:47.065 God bless 2023.