Sermon for Encaenia 2014
Fr. David Curry’s Encaenia sermon is posted here with footnotes omitted. Click here to download a pdf version that includes footnotes.
“Take with you words and return to the Lord”
Words? No, Rev, please, no more words! But really, what else is there to take with you from School? To be sure, a plethora of experiences and a myriad of memories. Yet those, too, are carried on the wings of words and may even mean more than the words on a piece of parchment.
Alright, last words. At last, you say. The last day of High School! Hooray! At last, your parents say! Perhaps with great sighs of relief! And for some parents, this is their last graduation day, too! Graduation Day and Ben Mackey’s birthday, to boot! Well, you have all made it! Was there really any doubt? Well, of course. You had to do it and you have done it all!
Today you step up and step out, the graduating class of 2014, the graduating class in the 225th anniversary year of the founding of King’s Collegiate School, now King’s-Edgehill. You are the pride of your parents and grandparents, of your teachers and coaches, of your friends and families, of your Headmaster and Chaplain. In a matter of a few hours you will no longer be High School students but alumni and graduates. It seems that something has finally and at long last come to an end. But in what sense of an end?
This service is called Encaenia, a Greek word (εγκαινια: εν & καινος) that signifies something new and fresh, a kind of beginning, it might seem. It refers to a festival of dedication and a renewal of devotion, and to the idea of consecration, a kind of holy commitment. Dedications have to do with commitment to what defines you; in other words, to a renewal of a sense of purpose and identity, especially for institutions. Originally used for the anniversary dedication of temples and churches, it has become associated with “the annual commemoration of founders and benefactors at Oxford University in June” (O.E.D.) and, by extension to many other schools and colleges throughout the world, such as King’s-Edgehill, founded upon those traditions. It is more commonly known as Commencement. It conveys the double sense of beginnings and endings.
“In my end is my beginning,”as the poet, T.S. Eliot puts it. For “what we call the beginning is often the end/ And to make an end is to make a beginning./The end is where we start from.” The end really means purpose. The telos or end, as Aristotle teaches, is that for which something exists. Of course, some parents may be very definite about what they think you are meant to be, like a certain lady who was walking down the street with her two grandchildren when a friend stopped to ask her how old they were. To which she replied, “The doctor is five and the lawyer is seven.” Does that sound at all familiar?