WEBVTT 00:00:06.720 --> 00:00:16.745 We are honored to award Monsignor James Shea this doctorate of humane letters, honoris causa. 00:00:17.925 --> 00:00:19.945 I'm terrified to give this speech. 00:00:23.045 --> 00:00:35.060 Two days ago, just as the University of Mary's board of trustees was convening for the annual reappointment of the president of the university, I lost my voice completely. 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:42.660 I wasn't worried about losing my job, although maybe I should have been. 00:00:43.155 --> 00:00:50.855 But I was worried about losing my voice because I thought, what will I do if I come here and I'm not able to speak? 00:00:51.315 --> 00:00:54.855 What good is a commencement speaker who can't speak? 00:00:56.480 --> 00:00:57.460 He's useless. 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:12.165 And then I thought about it a little bit and I realized that the graduates today have consecrated their lives to the care of those whose minds are in distress. 00:01:13.265 --> 00:01:35.130 And so I thought if I lose my voice, I'll just stand here useless and pathetic and it will stimulate in each of the graduates the anterior cingulate cortex and waves of empathy will flow toward me, and it will actually be okay. 00:01:37.955 --> 00:01:49.255 But then I thought some more, and I remembered that the families would also be here, and I have no idea what family of origin issues drove you into the behavioral sciences. 00:01:52.290 --> 00:01:54.550 And so then I was terrified again. 00:01:59.330 --> 00:02:00.390 I'm a wreck. 00:02:02.850 --> 00:02:07.750 Do you remember Monty Python had a song, I'm worried? 00:02:09.305 --> 00:02:32.940 In it, he sings about all the things that he's worried about, the Middle East fashions today, which he says are bad for our feet, his hair falling out, the baggage retrieval system they have at Heathrow Airport in London. 00:02:33.955 --> 00:02:38.535 And then about three quarters of the way through, he has this verse. 00:02:38.835 --> 00:02:44.135 He says, I'm worried about the very next verse. 00:02:44.675 --> 00:02:46.855 It isn't the best that I've got. 00:02:47.760 --> 00:02:53.380 I'm worried about whether I should go on or whether I shouldn't just stop. 00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:00.980 I'm worried about whether I ought to have stopped. 00:03:03.005 --> 00:03:11.025 I'm worried because it's the kind of thing I ought to know, and I'm worried about the baggage retrieval system they have at Heathrow. 00:03:13.085 --> 00:03:15.505 Well, I'll tell you what I'm really worried about. 00:03:15.770 --> 00:03:24.110 I'm worried that there's no adequate way for me fully to express my appreciation and my admiration for Divine Mercy University. 00:03:25.370 --> 00:03:33.705 I think that the work that's happening here and the contribution that Divine Mercy is making to the church and to our nation are irreplaceable. 00:03:34.485 --> 00:03:45.785 Father Charles, the work that you and your excellent and esteemed faculty are doing is wonderful, and it gives great joy, I'm sure, to God and to all the angels. 00:03:46.710 --> 00:04:06.315 At the University of Mary, we shamelessly and energetically use the Christian Catholic meta model of the person to infuse solid Christian anthropology into all of our programs in psychology and social work and criminal justice and counseling. 00:04:06.855 --> 00:04:09.115 I'm just so very grateful for that. 00:04:09.255 --> 00:04:22.440 And so the holy spirit is at work here and I just am worried that there's no real way that I could fully express how much admiration and appreciation I have for what all of you are doing here. 00:04:23.220 --> 00:04:29.885 And then to receive this honorary doctorate, when I heard about it, I said, I don't deserve it. 00:04:29.885 --> 00:04:31.425 I don't deserve it. 00:04:32.685 --> 00:04:37.345 Then I thought a little bit more and I thought, no, I think I do deserve it. 00:04:39.580 --> 00:04:42.400 In fact, I deserve more than an honorary doctorate. 00:04:43.100 --> 00:04:54.080 I think I deserve an earned doctorate in the behavioral sciences and abnormal psychology because I've spent fifteen years in higher education. 00:04:57.775 --> 00:05:08.675 If it sounds like I have a little bit of self pity about all of my exertions in higher education, it's because I have a lot of self pity. 00:05:11.620 --> 00:05:18.980 Two weeks ago, the Bishop of Helena, Montana delivered the commencement address at the University of Mary. 00:05:18.980 --> 00:05:21.080 We had 1,100 graduates. 00:05:23.825 --> 00:05:25.845 His name is Bishop Austin Vedder. 00:05:26.145 --> 00:05:34.645 He and I grew up on farms about 15 miles away from each other in the same county, although he's much older than I am. 00:05:35.185 --> 00:05:37.365 I've known him since I was a young boy. 00:05:38.110 --> 00:05:48.130 He told a story in the midst of his commencement address, which touches upon what I want to speak with you about today, and so I'm going to steal it. 00:05:48.750 --> 00:05:51.410 My patron saint today is not Saint Dimfna. 00:05:52.175 --> 00:05:54.995 It's Saint Dismas, the good thief. 00:05:57.375 --> 00:06:05.715 He told about when he was seven years old, his father on the farm gave him a pale calf. 00:06:06.910 --> 00:06:15.330 A pale calf is when a calf is born, it's allowed to nurse from its mother for a while, and then it's taken away. 00:06:15.950 --> 00:06:21.650 And the family drinks the milk, and the calf is fed formula out of a pail. 00:06:22.205 --> 00:06:23.585 That's a pale calf. 00:06:24.125 --> 00:06:38.490 So if you're seven years old and your father gives you a pale calf, you get to raise it until it's an 800 pound steer, and then you sell it and you get to keep the money, which is a pretty good deal for a first grader. 00:06:40.550 --> 00:06:49.770 So bishop Vetter's father gave him a pale calf, and he fed it and cared for it, and it got sick. 00:06:51.175 --> 00:07:03.355 And so he gave it more formula, which was a mistake, and then he didn't let it outside of the barn, which also was a mistake, and the calf died. 00:07:05.590 --> 00:07:09.850 So the little boy sat down in the straw and started to cry. 00:07:11.350 --> 00:07:13.530 And his dad came out into the barn. 00:07:14.630 --> 00:07:16.090 He said, why are you crying? 00:07:18.115 --> 00:07:21.255 He said, dad, I tried so hard. 00:07:21.875 --> 00:07:25.315 I did everything I could, and the calf died. 00:07:25.315 --> 00:07:27.015 Dad, I did my best. 00:07:28.035 --> 00:07:30.375 And his dad said, no, you didn't. 00:07:32.340 --> 00:07:34.760 Doing your best would have been to tell me. 00:07:36.100 --> 00:07:39.320 Doing your best would have been to ask me for help. 00:07:40.900 --> 00:07:43.560 And so his dad gave him another pale calf. 00:07:46.755 --> 00:07:50.135 And the second calf got sick too. 00:07:52.195 --> 00:08:06.260 But then he told his dad, and his dad came out and they got this little calf medicine, and they let it out of the barn into the fresh air and the sunshine, and it still died. 00:08:09.760 --> 00:08:18.995 And even though he was sad, it wasn't devastating this time because he had told his dad and he wasn't all alone. 00:08:20.735 --> 00:08:36.630 This is a powerful lesson about God, but it's also an important lesson about the work the apostolate and the ministry that the graduates of Divine Mercy University are embarking upon. 00:08:38.210 --> 00:08:53.855 The world is brimming with people out there who are trying so hard, and they don't feel like they're getting anywhere, and bad things happen to them, and they're all alone. 00:08:55.675 --> 00:09:15.315 And in the midst of the world like that, God has put his hand on your shoulder, and he's touched your mind with wisdom and with training so that you can go out and shatter that loneliness. 00:09:15.615 --> 00:09:17.875 And the past is the age of regret. 00:09:18.575 --> 00:09:32.940 There's also a sense in which we can't do anything about it, but the present is here now, which also, by the way, is where god is so that we don't have to be alone in the midst of our lives. 00:09:33.800 --> 00:09:37.420 Mother Teresa said, yesterday is gone. 00:09:37.480 --> 00:09:39.260 Tomorrow has not yet come. 00:09:39.960 --> 00:09:41.420 Let us live in the presence. 00:09:43.025 --> 00:09:44.485 It's all we've got. 00:09:45.505 --> 00:09:51.845 When we look at the life of Jesus, what is revealed to us is quite astonishing. 00:09:53.265 --> 00:10:08.470 Notice how the Lord, though he is constantly in movement, though he his energies and exertions do not flag, he's not setting out to achieve anything. 00:10:09.890 --> 00:10:29.510 He puts the full force, all of the power of his soul into anything or anyone that he is present to at any given time as if he has nothing else to do and no one else to see or to meet. 00:10:31.570 --> 00:10:36.470 He doesn't focus upon the achievement of any great goal. 00:10:37.730 --> 00:10:48.685 Instead, his preoccupation is to do the will of the father, and so he makes himself present to the circumstances no matter what they are. 00:10:49.065 --> 00:10:53.245 And in doing so, he revolutionizes the circumstances. 00:10:55.480 --> 00:11:09.100 It's quite extraordinary and this then is the criterion by which his life is judged because by any other measure, if we're honest, the life of Jesus is an epic failure. 00:11:10.215 --> 00:11:13.595 The majority of people who heard him left him. 00:11:14.615 --> 00:11:19.435 His closest friends abandoned him in his hour of greatest need. 00:11:20.615 --> 00:11:27.680 When he instructed his disciples to go out to preach, he said if there's a town that doesn't receive you, move on. 00:11:28.540 --> 00:11:41.245 How can we explain or begin to understand this evident indifference about how the gospel would be received when he had come into the world to save the world. 00:11:42.665 --> 00:12:04.750 It's because he had come to do the will of the father and be in communion with his father at all moments was what he had come to do and what he did at all times to include when he was hanging on the cross because the cross is then the image of all our hope. 00:12:06.585 --> 00:12:22.570 What would it mean then for us to to seek perfection, not by our own efforts, but by gazing at the life of Christ and truly imitating Jesus in that regard. 00:12:24.150 --> 00:12:26.090 What would it mean to live like that? 00:12:27.190 --> 00:12:39.555 What it would what it what what would it mean to be like that when living in a family, at work, in a friendship, at prayer. 00:12:40.095 --> 00:12:41.475 It changes everything. 00:12:42.175 --> 00:12:46.035 It makes our whole life into a kind of presence. 00:12:47.680 --> 00:13:09.905 And this is the perfection which God offers to us, and it's the kind of presence which is especially necessary for those who are accompanying others in the midst of the turpitude and turbulence, the chaos and vicissitudes of human life in a fallen world. 00:13:11.405 --> 00:13:31.805 Saint John Henry Newman says that we have as our vocation to be used by God for his purposes, not to accomplish or to shape or to form. 00:13:33.545 --> 00:13:38.445 This, my friends, is a great relief for us. 00:13:39.305 --> 00:13:47.780 I remember early on fourteen years ago, fifteen years ago, when I was first the president of the University of Mary. 00:13:48.160 --> 00:13:49.200 I was 34. 00:13:49.200 --> 00:13:50.660 I didn't know what I was doing. 00:13:51.760 --> 00:13:54.740 I was more incompetent then than I am now. 00:13:55.485 --> 00:13:55.985 More. 00:13:59.805 --> 00:14:00.125 More. 00:14:00.125 --> 00:14:19.040 And I felt like I would never be able to achieve what I had been given to do, that the weight placed on my shoulders was too great, and that even if I worked all day and all night and never rested, even if I allowed myself to be grounded to dust, nothing would come of it. 00:14:19.580 --> 00:14:24.560 And then the lord in his mercy in his divine mercy spoke to me in prayer. 00:14:25.475 --> 00:14:26.775 Just a simple word. 00:14:27.395 --> 00:14:30.935 He said, you don't have a lot of things to do. 00:14:31.475 --> 00:14:35.415 You have one thing to do, stay in communion with me today. 00:14:36.755 --> 00:14:43.490 You have one thing to do, just stay in communion and tell me what you need. 00:14:44.510 --> 00:14:45.890 Tell me about it. 00:14:48.590 --> 00:14:49.650 Calves die. 00:14:51.390 --> 00:14:52.450 Calves die. 00:14:53.305 --> 00:15:02.045 The first calf died and the result was devastation and tears upon the straw. 00:15:03.625 --> 00:15:08.410 The second calf died and the result was communion with the father. 00:15:09.430 --> 00:15:14.730 It looked like the same thing had happened and yet they were completely different. 00:15:17.990 --> 00:15:25.085 That transformation is the mission of every graduate of Divine Mercy University. 00:15:26.345 --> 00:15:26.845 Congratulations.