Confidence, Courage to do Something Great!

These are my remarks to the graduating 8th graders of Prince of Peace School, May 19, 2023.

Good evening, and congratulations to all of you.

I know that tonight feels like the end of something—a completion, and for sure, it’s partly that. You are no longer elementary school students. 

But it’s more than that. Another name for graduation is “Commencement.” To “commence” something means to “begin,” to “start something new.” Tonight marks a new beginning for you. It’s a commissioning ceremony that “sends you forth” to do great things.

Because really, that’s what we want for you. Our mission statement says it clearly, that we hope you will become “faithful to Jesus Christ, prepared for high school, and confident you can do great things through Christ who strengthens you.”

For just a few moments, allow me to speak as if I were your high school principal next year, because I was one for many years. Here’s what we need. We need students willing lead other students to do great things. We believe you’re capable of that.

Frankly, our culture doesn’t. It underestimates you as students, so it waters down what it expects of you in the classroom and inflates your grades. It tells you that you are not capable of virtue or chastity in your relationships, so it preaches “safe sex.” It tells you, bless your heart, that you can’t handle the truth that some people are better athletes than you are, so it guarantees trophies for everyone!

The cultural message is that you’re a fragile little snowflake that needs to be delicately handled. You are puny. Mediocre. You are not capable of greatness.

THAT IS NOT WHAT WE BELIEVE! It’s not our belief here at POP. And I am certain it’s not what JPII believes. What BL believes. What Jesuit or Ursuline believe.

We think, instead, that you can be like a sophomore girl in my old school who went on a mission trip with her parents and her church to a village in Africa. She didn’t really want to go, but her parents made her. But when she got there, she was immersed in complete poverty, and it changed her. She noticed that some families were doing better than others—and the difference, surprisingly, was whether or not the family owned a goat. Goats are a great blessing to the poor. Villagers get milk and cheese from goats. They require very little maintenance— no special diet, just grass and shrubs. They have two gestation periods/year, so they can reproduce quickly, and families with healthy goats can breed them. Children whose families owned  goats are considerably healthier.

So two years later, when her Church decided to re-visit the village, this now senior girl was eager to return. But she had an idea. “Mr. Weber, would it be OK if I did a fund-raiser in the school for goats? They cost about 100/each, and they make an amazing difference to the villagers.” “Of course,” I said. She then raised $8500, and was able to give goats to 85 families when she revisited. This one 18 year old girl changed 85 family’s lives!

We think you can be like a freshman boy I knew. When he was in middle school, he began helping out at Catholic Social Services with his parents. He learned that for many poor children who lived in our county, nutrition was a real problem—the only decent meal they’d get every day was the federally sponsored school lunch. “But what happens on weekends?” he began to ask.  Exactly the problem! So he started a “backpack program” at a grade school with a high concentration of poor families. On Thursdays, he’d stuff backpacks with meals for kids to take home on Fridays, which he would pay for through donations he solicited and contributions of food from local grocery stores. He’s a senior now, and continued this through high school, bringing in more high school students so that he could expand and serve more students. He is a difference-maker!

But these kids are no different than you!

Next year, find something you’re passionate about that helps other people. I spoke to one of you, who said she likes working with handicapped children. Awesome—how can you get your classmates involved in that? Is there a club that already does that? If not, can you form a club? Can this club visit handicapped children on a regular basis? Throw them a big Christmas party each year? What else?

Some have told me you like tutoring younger children. Amazing! Find some way to encourage your classmates to come with you when you do that. Perhaps there’s a grade school you can visit on a once/week basis. Ask your principal if you can form a club, give it a cool name, get something going. 

And I’m sure there are many outstanding clubs like this already that you can join. Seek out those clubs. You will find amazing other students there and become close friends, making a difference together !

Some of you are athletes. How can you use that gift to witness to your faith and encourage your peers to live Christian lives?

There is a young lady who graduated last night at the school I left to come here. Last spring, as a junior, she won the state championship in the 100 meter, 200 meter and 400 meter races. I logged onto the school’s website to see how she did this year, and sure enough, she was state champion again in all three—a 6 time state champion, the most decorated athlete in the school’s young history! But this year, when she was getting photographed for the school’s social media site, she used it as a chance to give “All Glory to God.” Powerful!

So yes, tonight is a celebration. But it’s also a commissioning ceremony.


Now for sure, you’re going from the very top of the totem pole as 8th graders to the very bottom as freshmen, so you’ll have to fit in just a little bit. No self respecting senior is going to let a freshman strut around like he or she owns the place. But don’t let “fitting in” be the thesis statement of your life. Have the courage to shine during your high school careers.

Here’s what author Marianne Williamson says:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?'

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Amen! When we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to shine! Our liberation liberates others. 

One final remark:

We will miss you. There are teachers, staff and administrators here who have known you a long time, who remember you when you were children, and who loved and nurtured you into the young men and women you are becoming. Dream big! Do great things! Change the world! But don’t forget us. We’re not perfect, and where we’ve made mistakes, please forgive us. We love you and are proud that we are now your alma mater. You have been, and always will be, a Prince of Peace Star!

God bless you.

Sailing Forward. Looking Back.

Let us be open to new paradigms and possibilities! But let us do so with prudence and deliberation. The problem with navigating our vessels through the powerful currents of contemporary opinion is they are pushed and pulled at the same rate as everyone else's vessels, making it impossible for us to detect the true distance and speed of our travels.  We need reference points alongside the shoreline, outside of the current, to measure how far and how fast we’re moving. 

This, it seems to me, is the value of the tradition of our Church. We are quick to marginalize the Church’s claims as “historically conditioned" and "anachronistic", but like the “pot calling the kettle black”, our instant, casual dismissiveness of the Church's claims reveals how beholden we are to the conditioning of the present day.

Our reflexive reaction to “Tradition” shouldn’t be that of contempt. In his book Orthodoxy, G.K Chesterton reminds us that tradition represents the established wisdom of our ancestors against the vicissitudes of what’s faddish, a “democracy of the dead,” (which) “refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.” 

We do well to respect such wisdom, even if science or other disciplines compel us to stretch beyond our previously held views.