I Graduated! Philosophy Studies Completed!

I wanted to wait till I finished that last paper before I posted this up. This past Saturday we had our “graduation ceremony” at the seminary in our on-campus pub/restaurant we had open only for those of us remaining in the quarantined cloister we have going on here, and, as you can see, I dressed for the occasion. By the grace of God, I have now officially graduated from St. Meinrad with a MA in Catholic Philosophical Studies. The philosophy part of my path to the Catholic priesthood is now complete, and now I have four years of theology ahead of me. Not everyone feels like I do, but philosophy is great thing, and I was looking forward to studying well before I first stepped on campus. But a couple of days before graduation this past weekend I realized something that had been over my head so far during the pandemic for some odd reason.

I am a Class of 2020. Whenever I saw people posting about this year’s class of students and everything that they would miss out on in terms of celebration, I think I have been sorta detached emotionally in some weird way, like as if it wasn’t happening to me but others. But it was and it is happening to me. I didn’t have the usual ceremony, and I did get my own set of robes this time. But I still graduated. I guess it was in large part because this is the mid-point of a six year journey that still goes on and ends in 2024, if God calls me all the way. Plus, I got lost in all the work for sure. Wish I had something more profound to say, but I’m sure it will come to me later in the night out of the blue. Something to reflect on, but nevertheless, like the rest of my class we stuck it out and finished strong, and now we all have something COVID failed to take away. So, shout out to the #ClassOf2020. We really did the thang out here.

Bring on theology, O Lord.