Reverend Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P., University chaplain and vice president of ministry and mission, delivered the 2025 Baccalaureate Mass homily on May 16, 2025. His message to the Class of 2025 follows immediately below.
My fellow priests and religious, President Kilpatrick and Mrs. Kilpatrick, vice presidents and deans of the university, faculty, staff, and students, and especially you, the Class of 2025, and your families and friends gathered with you, welcome to this Baccalaureate Mass. Congratulations to you all on the completion of another academic year.
My dear graduates—members of the Class of 2025—you’ll recall that you first gathered as class in the fall of 2021 here: in this immense room, under this dome, before this altar; and the first thing that you did together was to worship God. Today, you gather for a last time as the Class of 2025 in the same place to do the same thing—to worship God. By having you begin and end your studies in the same way—offering together the same sacrifice to God—Catholic University has taught you the most important lesson that it can teach: that the minds and hearts of our republic’s best citizens are best formed in prayer, in worship, in offering sacrifice. And so it is good that we are here this afternoon. My dear graduates, you end your time at Catholic University as you began it.
By having you begin and end your studies in the same way—offering together the same sacrifice to God—Catholic University has taught you the most important lesson that it can teach: that the minds and hearts of our republic’s best citizens are best formed in prayer, in worship, in offering sacrifice.
Beginning and ending your college career in the same way, in the same place, gives you the opportunity to look back at the last four years—between your Freshman Orientation Mass and today’s Baccalaureate Mass—and appreciate what has changed, and how you have changed. Think back to your freshman self sitting in these pews four years ago. What is different now? What new truths do you know? What new goods do you love? What new virtues have you developed? What new friends have you made? What new plans have you formed? What new missions have you received? What new hopes do you have as you graduate? These are good questions to ask this afternoon as we sit together before God.
One concrete thing has changed for us, quite recently in fact, and not just for us but for the whole world. We have a new pope. A week ago yesterday, we celebrated the election of Pope Leo XIV. The white-smoke watch party in Murphy’s was packed. When he came out on the balcony to impart his first blessing, Pope Leo greeted the world in the same way that the Risen Christ greeted the apostles: “Peace be with you!” he said. The new pope then introduced himself. Do you remember what he said? “I am an Augustinian, a son of St. Augustine.” Pope Leo meant this introduction in a couple of ways, I think. He wanted to signal at least two things about himself. First, Pope Leo highlighted that he is a member of the Augustinian Order. As an Augustinian friar, Pope Leo observes St. Augustine’s religious rule and follows St. Augustine’s spiritual doctrine. In so doing, Pope Leo indicated, he is a spiritual son of St. Augustine—the great fifth-century Bishop of Hippo and Doctor of the Church. The second thing that Pope Leo signaled in his introduction, and perhaps what’s more interesting about him, is that he is not only a spiritual son of St. Augustine but also a devoted student of him. Pope Leo has confirmed this several times over the last week. In the public appearances that he has made since his election, Pope Leo has made it clear that has studied St. Augustine’s writings, and he has imbibed Augustine’s doctrine. Time will tell, but I imagine that Pope Leo sees the world much as Augustine saw it. And if he has taken on the mind of St. Augustine, perhaps the pope has taken on, too, Augustine’s heart. We can hope that Pope Leo prays as St. Augustine prayed.
Praying like St. Augustine is something that we all might seek to do. What better time to do so than now, my dear graduates, as you move into the next chapters of your lives. A new prayer can complement this new moment. How did St. Augustine pray? we should wonder. In many ways, I’m sure, as we all do—in praise, in adoration, in petition, in thanksgiving. But there is one way in which St. Augustine prayed that should catch our attention and stir our admiration. He reveals this way of prayer in his famous work, the Confessions. This text should be familiar to you. Written over 1,600 years ago, it remains a remarkable book. Each one of you should have read something of the Confessions over the course of your studies. If you don’t have a copy of it, get one. And keep it. And read it. In the Confessions, St. Augustine models a particular form of prayer for us – he sits before the Lord and recounts his life’s story. Augustine does this not simply to reminisce, or to tell God something he doesn’t already know, but rather to review his life in the merciful presence of God, prayerfully looking for the moments in which God was present to him, loving him and sustaining him, although he didn’t see it at the time. In prayerful hindsight, as he reviews before God the great moments of his life, Augustine tells in his prayer the story of God’s providence for him, and he gives thanks to God for it.
