Father McGinn, fellow Blue Jays, and families: A special greeting to the Classes of 1956 and 1981 on their anniversaries. I’m deeply honored by this award. And I’m honored and blessed with an extraordinary family, several of whom are here today: My parents, Berthe and Jimmy Amoss, who taught my brothers and me by example what it means to be a loving parent and spouse (Though they’re both Newman alums, they nudged me toward Jesuit, sensing it was the right fit, as it had been for my grandfather, Sumter Marks of the Class of 1909); my wife Nancy, whom I love and who is my best friend and who puts up with me; my daughter Sophie, who is an inspired, incandescent presence in our lives; our wonderful son Adam who is in Philadelphia, studying so hard he can’t be here; my beloved brother Bob and his wife Lisa and their son, my nephew, David, and his girlfriend, Missy. I’d like also to mention two Jesuit alums who are my colleagues at The Times-Picayune. Bruce Nolan, my comrade from the class of 1965, and Walt Philbin of the class of 1962, were both heroes in the storm. They should be standing up here with me. In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius devotes considerable space to lessons in humility. It so happens that I learned my first great lesson in humility in this very chapel. Humility and its first cousin, humiliation. It happened 41 years ago, at the end of the first semester of my senior year at Jesuit. I had been accepted at Yale University for the following fall. My grades were good. I was confident, too confident. Heading into graduation, I was on cruise control. But there was this one course giving me trouble. American History. The teacher, an assistant football coach, conducted class by reading the textbook out loud, chapter by chapter, in a voice devoid of any inflection: “The Missouri Compromise was an agreement in 1820…” I tuned out. Not once did I crack the textbook. I didn’t care about the Missouri Compromise. I was just glad they worked it out. On the day of the final semester exam in American History, I gazed down at the purple mimeographed pages of questions. At that moment, it dawned on me that I was clueless, doomed, a dead man. And so I walked out of the classroom, away from the exam, down the hallways and into this chapel. I sat down there, about where Ardley Hanemann is sitting. It would be disingenuous to say that I prayed. No, I just sat there, scared, pathetic. I was hiding from the exam. Eventually I sensed a presence hovering over me. It cast a long shadow. No, it was not the Holy Ghost. It was Father Pearce, the prefect of discipline. Donald Pearce was a tall, dark, fearsome man. He was famous for gliding soundlessly through the building. You never knew when he might suddenly appear, catching you in flagrante delicto. Father Pearce conveyed outrage by speaking in a controlled, quiet voice, lingering over each syllable. Here in the sanctuary he towered over me, stared at me with a look that was equal parts pity and contempt. And then the voice that made me gulp: “What do you think you are doing here?” I don’t remember whatever I stammered in reply. Father Pearce marched me back to the classroom. I heard snickers from classmates as I reentered. I sat down and did my best. That would be a D. A few weeks later, a letter arrived from the Admissions office of Yale. They had received my first semester grades: “We remind you that your admission is contingent on maintaining a grade average consistent with our academic standards.” And so I started cracking the American History textbook, braved the boredom of those droning lectures and pulled up my grade enough to satisfy the admissions office. More importantly, my humiliation taught me that you can’t hide from responsibility, you can’t walk away from being accountable. This building may look like just another brick fortress of a schoolhouse, but for us who were formed here, it pinpoints the geography of our growing up. I sat in a pew in the back of this chapel on Nov. 22, 1963, and felt the enormity of the day as I prayed with my classmates for the soul of John Kennedy. I submitted my first piece of copy to be published in a closet of an office on the third floor, where the formidable Blue Jay editors sat. I know exactly in which classroom and at which desk I sat when I first grasped the actual beauty of classical Greek, taught by Phil Postell. (Father Postell is here today as a member of the Class of 1956.) And I know where I was standing in the schoolyard when the debate coach I had never met walked up to me and said, “Why don’t you try out for our team?” I did and shed much of my timidity. The gift of this school cannot be repaid – though they’re not shy about asking. We owe much of our material success to the investment that was made in us when we walked these corridors. If we speak and write English reasonably well, chances are that’s because some Jesuit drilled us in the use of the subjunctive and the distinction between “who” and “whom” in relative clauses. Our conscience, our spiritual life, our love for one another, our call to serve a wider community than we could imagine – all these are gifts from this school. No mere curriculum can instill these values. They were imparted to us by teachers who cared about us as human and spiritual beings, as children of God. We are called on now to serve a community in need. Whether we lost our home or not, we were all deeply afflicted by what happened last year to our beloved hometown. But among the walking wounded, the sons of Jesuit have a special strength and a special duty to heal, to bridge the divisions of this place, and to love this great city back to life.
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