Trinity Academy Awards Day Keynote

by Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke

Trinity Academy Board Chairman

Trinity Academy Awards Day Keynote

(adapted from Commencement Address to the Graduating Class of 2024 at Thomas Aquinas College)

Trinity Academy

Pewaukee, WI

June 1, 2024

Address

Members of the Faculty and Staff, Honored Students and families, and friends of Trinity Academy:

Dear students of Trinity Academy, you have received a true Catholic education. You have been pondering in depth the truth of the immeasurable and enduring love of God for man, both as it is prefigured in everything good, true, and beautiful – the fruit of the law of God written in nature and, above all, upon every human heart – and as it is perfectly revealed in the Redemptive Incarnation of God the Son Who dwells in human hearts by the outpouring of God the Holy Spirit in the Church. It is the truth that Saint Peter, inspired and made courageous by the Holy Spirit, announced to the “devout men from every nation on earth” on Pentecost.

Having completed another year of study at Trinity Academy, having been blessed to have contemplated the truth announced by Saint Peter on Pentecost both through the cultivation of God’s gift of reason and through the embrace of His even more wonderful gift of faith, you have come to our Awards Day celebration. 

Having been so enriched with the pursuit of Divine Truth and Love, you, like the devout souls who witnessed Pentecost and listened to the preaching of Saint Peter, must be “cut to the heart,” asking the successors of the Apostles “Brethren, what shall we do?” As a successor of the Apostles, as a shepherd of God’s flock, of the Church – Christ’s Mystical Body – , I, Cardinal Burke, am pleased to honor today’s Awards Day, Trinity Academy, and you her students, faculty, and families by responding to your question.

The answer to the question is simple: Convert daily to Christ, repent of your sins, and respond with all your heart to Christ’s call to holiness of life.

In a particular way, the seed of Christ’s life planted in your souls at Baptism is meant to flower in the gift of your entire being to Him through your vocation in life, whether it be to the conjugal life of marriage, to the dedicated single life, to the consecrated life, or to the priesthood. The daily conversion to Christ which leads, in adulthood, to the knowledge and embrace of your vocation with a faithful, generous, and pure heart is indeed the principal fruit of a truly Catholic education. At the present time in your Christian growth, it raises the question: What is God’s plan for me? To which vocation is he calling me?

A Catholic education fortifies us to know God’s plan and to do God’s will by recognizing the darkness and sin around us and in our lives and by embracing Christ Who dispels the darkness and conquers sin in the world and in our lives by His dwelling with us in the Church. Saint Peter did not mince words with those to whom he preached. He told them: “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”[10] Catholic education, whether it be in the arts or sciences or skills, is steeped in wonder at the good order of God’s creation and at the call to be with Christ, God the Son Incarnate, “fellow workers in the truth.”[11] The true development of reason is only possible within the context of the faith, of the study of God and of His plan for us and the world, as He has revealed Himself and His plan to us in Christ. Catholic education leads us to intimate communion with Christ, inspiring us to know the truth and to live the truth in love, above all in our vocation in life.

Pope Pius XI, in his Encyclical Letter Divini Illius Magistri, “On Christian Education” (“De Christiana iuventutis educatione”), quoting the words of Saint Paul, described a Catholic education with these words:

The proper and immediate end of Christian education is to cooperate with divine grace in forming the true and perfect Christian, that is, to form Christ Himself in those regenerated by baptism, according to the emphatic expression of the Apostle: “My little children, of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you [Gal 4, 19].” For the true Christian must live a supernatural life in Christ: “Christ who is your life [Col 3, 4],” and display it in all his actions: “That the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh [2 Cor 4, 11].”

Hence the true Christian, product of Christian education, is the supernatural man who thinks, judges and acts constantly and consistently in accordance with right reason illumined by the supernatural light of the example and teaching of Christ; …

The great challenge of Catholic education is to avoid the multiple distractions of false atheistic and materialistic ideologies and to remain focused on communicating Christ as He comes to us through Apostolic Tradition, the living Tradition of the Church.

We live in very troubled and troubling, sometimes seemingly apocalyptic, times. We understand all too well the timeliness of Saint Peter’s exhortation on Pentecost: “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” The rebellion before God, the revolution against His Truth and Love handed down to us in the Church, has reached an unimaginable level. It is a rebellion not only against the faith but also reason. We witness in the world the denial of our very nature as God has created us. What is more, the rebellion and revolution is sustained by some from within the Church, even by some who are called and ordained to shepherd the flock.

Devout Catholics are rightly disheartened and discouraged, and justifiably angry at the profound suffering inflicted upon the Mystical Body of Christ by the apostasy, the abandonment of Christ to embrace the ways of a world in rebellion before God. The question of the devout witnesses at Pentecost, “Brethren, what shall we do?,” is the question of what are we to do in the contemporary situation of the Church and of the world which, in certain respects, are unprecedented in the history of the Church?

Certainly, the answer is not to leave Christ Who is alive for us in the Church but to remain faithfully with Him in the Church, to be His faithful “fellow workers in the truth,” teaching His saving Word and bringing His saving grace to the world with ever greater fidelity and generosity, even in the face of indifference, ridicule, persecution, and death. God the Father confides to each of us the care of some portion of the Kingdom of His Divine Son Incarnate. We should only be concerned to be faithful, generous, and pure followers, disciples, of Christ the King.

Trusting Christ’s Word and His promises, we do not lose heart but, rather, are confident that He will win in us the victory over sin and death.

Christ is the King of Heaven and of Earth, pouring out His life for us, as He declared to Pontius Pilate who questioned Him about His Kingship:

My kingship is not of this world; … You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice.

The exceptional Catholic education which you, dear students, are receiving has led you to the truth to which your reason is naturally attracted and which your faith identifies in all its wonderful richness. The all-beautiful and lasting fruit of your education is a life lived in Christ. Christ indeed continues to be at work in us through the teaching of the truth and the manifestation of its beauty in the Sacred Liturgy and of its goodness in a virtuous life. May we be left “cut to the heart,” asking Our Lord: “What shall we do?” May the Virgin Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, lead you to turn, with her, to Christ, and to heed her maternal counsel: “Do whatever he tells you.”

Thank you for your kind attention. May God bless you and your families.

Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE