Dear Graduates, Parents, Friends and Relatives,

First, congratulations to all of you 2023 MODG Graduates! This is a great accomplishment! You have completed a rigorous course of studies, a classical course of studies specifically ordered, from the earliest grades, to the highest truths. You have developed habits of mind that will help you throughout your life. These habits were gained by your repeated right action, and they have taught you how to think, how to lay out an argument, how to approach any subject you desire to learn so that you can truly understand it. You have worked hard to gain this understanding. You have learned the value of working hard for a great good.

Parents, congratulations to you, too. As homeschooling parents, you have undertaken the education of your children directly, and their accomplishment is your accomplishment, too.

The education you have given your children, and you, graduates, the education you have received is, by itself, a gift, but there is more. Your education has equipped you with something very needed in our society. You have a particular intellectual formation that is both lacking and necessary in our culture. You have a formation built on the truth of the Catholic Faith, which has given you the beginning of the western intellectual tradition of the faith. Your formation has been integrated, so that as you did mathematics and science, and history and literature, as well as religion, the understanding of that intellectual tradition was strengthened. You have examined of the nature of government, something very important in this day in light of the various usurpations of power we have seen recently. You have, in every course, discussed what nature is, and how one is measured by nature rather than measuring it. Most of the major moral problems in our culture come from a misunderstanding of our relationship to nature. This formation is good in itself, very timely and very opposed to the secular world view.

Society is in trouble. Here are some examples: this is from Ireland, but it could have come from any number of US sources, too.
‘Newly disclosed submissions show several parents groups have complained about the “promotion of transgender ideology” to young students…..
By contrast, many campaign and civil society groups have welcomed the focus of the draft specification on gender identity, with one arguing that use of pronouns should be specifically included and the term “biological sex” removed, as it is used to “demonize the trans community."

Here is another from the US:
A California teacher, who lost her job after refusing to comply with a California district's gender policies, citing Christian beliefs, is blowing the whistle on the expectations she felt as a teacher to not only hide students' gender transitions from parents, but also to keep them in the dark through lying.

"I knew immediately, like in my gut, in my heart, in my soul, that there was a decision I had to make because, you know, these two things were totally butting heads," Jessica Tapia, who worked at the Jurupa Unified School District, told Fox News Digital. "I essentially had to pick one. Am I going to obey the district in the directive that are not lining up with… my own beliefs, convictions and faith? Or am I going to stay true…, choose my faith, choose to be obedient to… the way the Lord has called me to live. And so it was crazy to be in the position where I realized that I couldn't be a Christian and a teacher."

In a notice under Superintendent Trenton Hansen's letterhead, reviewed by Fox News Digital, the district said they couldn't accommodate Tapia's Christian beliefs which prohibited her from withholding information on gender transitions from kids' parents.

I say, God bless that teacher. My husband always said, if there were no evils there would not be opportunities for good, either. There is no courage under fire, which is a great virtue, without war. We are in a kind of war.

And this is all so pervasive because of the media:

(There is a ) recently surfaced video of the Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine calling on Big Tech companies to censor "misinformation" about "gender-affirming care" for kids on the internet…. “Levine said. "The positive value of gender-affirming care for youth and adults is not in scientific or medical dispute."
The official called for tech censorship to quell any dispute on the subject, adding, "And we need to use our clinicians voice to collectively advocate for our tech companies to create a healthier, cleaner information environment."

It is, of course, not just the trans/ gender/identification issue that is so prevalent, it’s just the latest. Our Catholic values are under attack wholesale, and the current issues are all related. They all stem from a misunderstanding of nature. The modern world, carrying out Enlightenment principles, sees nature as something to be controlled and manipulated. We know that nature is the immutable essence of a thing, and that the essence comes from God. We know the truth, and truth is something diffusive, something that should be shared by those who have it.

Remember the parable of the talents? The Lord gave different amounts of talents to His different servants. He didn’t expect them to all do the same thing. He rejoiced with the man who had five talents and doubled them, and he rejoiced with the man who had been given three talents and doubled them. He said to both of them, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” His attitude to the man who did not use his talents, however, was radically different. To him the Lord said, “You wicked and slothful servant!” And then he took the one talent the man had and gave it to the man with five talents. To him who has, more will be given, and from him who has not, even the little he has will be taken away. Now, that could seem harsh, but it is not. It’s reality. You are given gifts and blessings and talents, and if you use them, they grow and prosper. If you do not use them, they wither away.

So today, as you reflect on the great goods you have worked so hard to achieve, resolve to use these gifts in the service of the Lord. You are extraordinarily well equipped to do so. Your education is the education of a free man, that is, someone who knows the ends for which he works. You are not, and never have to be, slaves, who just do what you are told by someone else without knowing why. A slave is an instrument for the ends of others, a free man knows what he is doing and why, and he can show others the way. That is what you have been called to do.

Your education has been an education for eternity. The classical model of education is built on the liberal arts: the Trivium: Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic, and the Quadrivium: Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy. These are the foundations of the sciences, those studies that have to do with the eternal and unchanging: the study of nature, the soul, ethics and politics. All of these disciplines are ordered, in the ancient classical model, to Metaphysics, or Natural Theology. But in the light of revelation, natural theology itself is ordered to Sacred Theology, as St. Thomas says in his commentary of Boethius’ De Trinitate.

In our school we acknowledge this order. We have not read much Aristotle together, or even St. Thomas (though we have read some!) But you have learned something of all the liberal arts and sciences, and sacred theology, as you have pursued your studies in MODG. All learning is cyclical and we learn first on an introductory level and then we come back to the same objects at a deeper level. In your education you learned the basis of all arithmetic, developed an acquaintance with the geometric figures, were exposed to great music, and studied God’s effects in nature, including in the heavens. These are the beginnings of the arts of the Quadrivium. You learned the basis of all language arts, reading and writing, which constitutes the beginning of the Trivium. You have seriously worked on argumentation, so that you are able to use rhetoric in the service of the truly noble. You have summarized, so as to order items according to importance instead of chronology, identified arguments and constructed your own arguments (lots of them!). You have developed your thoughts in paragraphs, essays and papers using the rhetorical modes: exposition, argumentation, description and narration.

As older students you have developed your understanding of the ends of rhetoric. Rhetoric is of three kinds: the political, the forensic and the ceremonial. The political aims at establishing whether a proposed course of action is expedient or inexpedient (so we considered: Was Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon a smart move or not?); the forensic aims at establishing, whether an action done was just or unjust ( we considered: Should Creon have refused Polyneices burial?) ; and the ceremonial aims to establish whether someone deserves praise or blame (we considered, among other topics: Was Antigone right in flouting Creon’s law?) . In our high school program, we have discussed and written about all three types of actions and characters. You have explored the high and noble, discussed what is good and bad, and blameworthy and praiseworthy.

You have prepared for the sciences, too. You have read great literature. These great works appeal to the imagination and move the affections in accord with reason. They present or imply profoundly important views of human life and reality. Think about what you learned from Emma, Ivanhoe, Beowulf, Murder in the Cathedral, The Ballad of the White Horse, and Shakespeare. Similarly, the great works of history you have read provided vicarious moral experience, a conception of human society, and an awareness of the greatest issues mankind faces. Think about Plutarch, Herodotus, Daniel, Polybius, Joseph O’Callaghan and Churchill. We have investigated the arguments our Founding Fathers had regarding the nature of the republic, and the particular “incarnation” of the form of mixed government that was appropriate to us, in this new land. This is the beginning of the study of the Politics. We have studied natural science, particularly animal behavior, as a beginning to the study of the soul. In all of these subjects we have considered the nature of the things studied. As regards the highest object of the classical curriculum, God Himself, the end of natural and supernatural theology, we have studied that at every level of our program, but have especially worked to come to a fuller understanding in our high school program.

Both our 12^th grade Catholic Doctrine course, and our Rigor Sacred Doctrine course are constructed so that you can study the highest truths. This is the crown of your education. When I have taught those courses, I have been very impressed with the ability and dedication of my students, and their interest in knowing what we can of God and of His Church.

So we can say that the whole of one’s education, in this model, is ordered to understanding what one can of God’s nature, through His revelation of Himself. This involves many other disciplines, and each is a good in itself, worth knowing for its own sake. But finally, our goal as educated individuals is to know as much as we can about God. That is the supreme study, the most satisfying to the mind, and thus the most desirable. Notice, that this goal of your education is also the goal of our lives as men informed by grace. We want to see God face to face, to know Him even as we are known. We want to be with Him in eternity and see Him in the Beatific Vision. So the goal of your education is also the goal of your life. You have been educated for eternity. What a gift that is, what a blessing, what a ‘talent’. Be sure to use it fruitfully.

Further, you have had that education in the midst of your family. This is another great gift. Something else that our culture does not understand, and value, is family life. Too many people are thinking about self-fulfillment. Family life involves sacrifice, and compassion, charity, and understanding. It is a school of virtue, and a great gift. God bless you parents who were willing to undertake this intellectual and moral formation directly! You cared so much that your children would receive the very best formation they could provide, and that you be formed for eternity that you gave yourself entirely to this demanding work.

We all know that living for eternity, with an appreciation of family life, can be difficult. You have, in God’s Providence, been born into a time that does not understand the importance of eternity or of family. I have often said that any decision that is made on the basis of today, and today’s comfort, is foolish. This life, and its comfort, is very short. Eternity is very, very long. We should always have the thought of eternity with us as we deliberate on our courses of action. But we live in a world that does not, by and large, think of eternity. Comfort and ‘self-fulfillment’ are what people think about. They think they are free, because they do what they ‘want’, that is, what they ‘feel like doing’, not realizing, as Socrates said, that this actually makes them slaves of their passions. Do what is right, and then you are truly free.

Now, here is the rub. Live that way, live the way of eternity, and there will be those who hate you. You will be different, and difference is often seen as a rebuke. But you will also be in a position to lead others to see as you do. If you are not different you can’t make a difference. An agent can only give what it has, so hold on to and cultivate the gifts you have been given so that you can share them with a world that truly needs them.

May God bless you in every endeavor you undertake. Ask Him to help you use the talents you have been given in the way He wants you to. Pray for all of us here at MODG. I am praying daily for you. God bless you.