Dear Parishioners & Friends,
This is a weekend of many transitions. We celebrate our Eighth Graders who will be going off to their various high schools of choice. This is a very big step for each of them. The range and quality of the high schools that they are selecting and being admitted to virtually guarantees that they will also be going to university afterwards.
Part of the St. Thomas graduation tradition is a ceremony known as The Ribbon & Candle Ceremony. Here the Seventh and Eight Grades come in together and perform a ritual exchange. The Seventh Graders give a green and white ribbon to the Eighth Grade graduates to wear on their gowns at graduation. The Eighth Graders give the Seventh Grade students a candle – passing on the traditions of the school to the incoming class. This is a true moment of transition. Ideally from that point on the Eighth Grade students do their own special program, and the Seventh Grader start becoming the leaders of the school student body.
Rituals are so important in making life transitions. We have them at birth (in Baptism), and at major transition points. Sometimes we use Sacraments for them (as with Matrimony, Ordination and Funeral Liturgies), and sometimes we use other kinds of ceremonies – such as graduations, with all the smaller ceremonials that go along with that.
Think how important high school proms are in our culture. So, too, all the transitions that go into moving a young person from one educational level to another signifies change and accomplishment of goals. To leave a school that you may have attended for eight or more years is a major event in any young person’s life. You go from the last “communal” level of education to a separate high school. Once upon a time parishes like St. Thomas had their own high school – but no longer. The same is true with local public schools. Everyone must make individual choices about where they want to go to school, and find out whether or not that school will accept them. Even sisters and brothers can end up going to different high schools, as they will almost certainly be going to different colleges afterwards.
The green and white ribbon reflects the fact that the Eight Grade students have completed their projects and goals up to this point. People may attend St. Thomas the Apostle School, but only the graduates really carry the tradition forward. And the candle represent the light of intellect and imagination – those qualities that go into forming any viable tradition that is worth handing on to others.
We wish our graduates well as we celebrate their Baccalaureate Mass this Sunday, but we also wish the Seven Graders well as they become the new models of leadership in the school. The baccalaureate celebration comes from the world of the medieval university from the time when they were still Catholic. Following that system one’s initial graduate degree was that of the “Bachelor.” The Latin for this is bacca. And the laurel crown is reflected in the word “laureate” - to honor someone with the laurels of victory. Because of the religious connotation, baccalaureate services are expressly forbidden in public schools under the rulings regarding the separation of church and state. Only religious and private schools can hold them.
St. Thomas is a place of many rituals and remembrances. This is also our Farewell Sunday for those in our community who live elsewhere. I have noticed that many people have already departed for the summer. The volume of the Masses decreases over the summer months and picks up again in September.
Speaking of rituals of transition, Fr. Elias O’Brien, who will assume the post of pastor sometime in July (I think), will be moving in from Whitefriars Hall, our house of studies, in Washington, D.C. You can find him on Facebook and on other sites on the Web just by putting his name into Google or another search engine. There are pictures of him there, as well. He will certainly be making a huge transition in his life, as he takes on the task of being related to you as pastor in the near future.
This is the time of farewell and of new beginnings. May we continue to find appropriate ways to celebrate these important moments in all our lives.
- Fr. Michael
