2010 Valedictorian Address:
Welcome
and good evening.
Bishop
Foys, Mr. Clines, Sister Marla, Sister Shauna, Sister Elaine, Mrs.
Gerwe, all the faculty, families, and guests here today—on behalf
of the class of 2010 I want to thank you. We are your daughters, your
students, and without such guidance, support, and love, none of us
would be here. Though today we celebrate, in some small way, the end
of childhood, each of you has profoundly and indelibly shaped us.
There are no thanks we could offer to repay such a debt of gratitude.
I will not try.
However,
this is my last chance to address my friends and fellow students
before we part ways—perhaps forever. So, to the class of 2010, I
say: congratulations. No more counting down the days, no more mapping
the world or AP exams, no more grey skirts. In a few short months, we
will depart for St. Louis and Chicago, Scotland and Virginia,
Indiana, Ohio, Louisiana, Maryland, Arizona, South Carolina, Florida,
and every corner of Kentucky. We will be doctors, lawyers, physical
therapists, pharmacists, journalists, biologists, artists,
mathematicians, teachers and businesswomen. In everything we do, we
carry with us potential energy—not the physics concept we learned
in Sister Ethel’s class, but the reserve of knowledge, confidence,
and strength that will allow us to excel. We look forward, forward to
all that awaits us on our campuses and in our careers. From this
podium, so little seems beyond our grasp, and the world is offering
more than we can even imagine at this point. It was Roman Emperor
Marcus Aurelius who wrote, “Never let the future disturb you. You
will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which
today arm you against the present.” Today, though, we gather to
celebrate the culmination of four years of striving; what loomed
before our freshman eyes is now past, and prologue to what lies
ahead. Today is our day, a celebration of what we have achieved and a
prayer for what we someday will. It took one hundred years to get a
class this good, and I know we can live up to that challenge.
It’s very easy, in a valedictory address, to speak as though your
class is one faceless mass. As though we all treasure the same
memories, as though we all can laugh at the same inside jokes. Some
of us spent hours at Notre Dame, pouring energy and heart into spring
musicals and fall dramas. Others of us came to school with equipment
bags slung across shoulders, disciplining bodies to break records and
win games. We are academics, we are musicians, we are artists and
athletes and faithful Catholics and leaders, and often much more, all
at once. We have been blessed—our divergent talents have been given
every opportunity to shine, whether doing laps around our very own
field or standing center-stage in the new theatre or preparing slides
in the new microbiology lab. Notre Dame could not brag that it
“educates women to make a difference” if it didn’t educate us
to be different
first. We have worn the same uniform each day, we have taken the same
classes, we have touted the same tousled ponytails. But I can say
with conviction that the strength of our class is as much our
individuality as our unity. We’re a lot like the stained glass
windows in the chapel—separately we are a 136 jagged pieces of
color. When we come together, we do not stop being our own colors,
but also become part of a greater work of art.
It
was Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who wrote that “People are like
stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out,
but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if
there is a light from within.” The greatest gift Notre Dame Academy
has given to all of us is the kindling of that inner light. That
inner light encompasses a great education, for we have been blessed
with teachers who opened our minds along with our textbooks. That
inner light was kindled as we became part of a tradition rooted in
the faithful example set by the Sisters and our patron, Mary. It is a
light even more precious because it is tended by a community of young
women, committed to excellence not despite femininity or because of
it, but simply because we are capable of that excellence. I’ve
never seen that light shine so brightly as during Senior Retreat,
when our class came together in an authentic way. Retreat was not
just about the fun of running around the convent’s halls until
three in the morning, or even the never-ending supply of food.
Rather, it was the first true and sincere glimpse of the women we
have become at Notre Dame—supportive, genuine, kind-hearted,
energetic, self-giving. This is the Notre Dame spirit, the light
which shines through the stained glass of our individual lives,
illuminating a larger picture. “Light gives of itself freely,”
Michael Strassfeld wrote, “It does not seek anything in return; it
asks not whether you are friend or foe. It gives of itself and
is not thereby diminished.” The world is in dire need of such
self-gifting light, to be carried into corners where darkness
prevails. Sometimes, our efforts will seem small, flickering flames
dwarfed by the immensity of the shadows we face. Even now, we are
painfully aware of those not with us today, Jessie and especially
Maria. Yet, it was in the wake of this tragedy that our senior class
came together with the grace and compassion that will become our
finest legacy. The strange thing about darkness is that it takes so
little to banish it: a matchstick, a candle, a cotton filament, one
individual who is willing to shine, without seeking return. If I have
learned anything from you, my friends and classmates, is to never
underestimate the depths of your compassion, or the heights of your
aspirations. You are more than educated, faithful women; you are
light-bearers. Even as we shut Notre Dame’s doors behind us, even
as we turn towards a future fraught with uncertainty, each of us
still blazes with her own light.
The
only prayer I can offer is this: that we tend that fire within us and
shape a future world as brave and resilient as we have shown
ourselves to be. As I look at you, my radiant classmates of the
graduating class of 2010, all I can say is—Shine On!