My friends, it’s a great pleasure for me to be here with you this evening, to be a part of your graduation celebrations and to celebrate this Mass which asks God to bless all of you who are graduating from Riffel High School this year and to bless the future that lies ahead for you.

Graduation from High School is one of big things that we do in our lives. It has been a long time since I graduated from High School. So long that I won’t even say how long. But I remember very clearly everything about that event: Who I was sitting near on the stage, what it felt like, what we sang as a graduating class during the ceremony, what they played when we marched in. My High School graduation was one of the big turning points in my life. Although others would follow, this first one stays continually in my mind. It is a pleasant, pleasant memory for me.

Graduation marks a major turning point in the lives of each of you who is here celebrating your graduation this evening. Up until now everything has followed a fairly established course. You have gone from year to year through the school system, everything proceeding more or less according to plan. Now you are faced with major decisions, decisions which will set the direction of your life. This can be scary! It can also be exciting. In any case, it is memorable.

I was listening to the song “Wake me Up” by Avicii on You Tube lately. I rather liked the song. I am not sure whether that means, at my age, there is something wrong with me! The words struck me as saying something about what is going on in your lives now. Perhaps we could listen to a little bit of that song:

 Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart
I can’t tell where the journey will end
But I know where it starts
They tell me I’m too young to understand
They say I’m caught up in a dream
Well life will pass me by if I don’t open up my eyes
Well that’s fine by me

So wake me up when it’s all over
When I’m wiser and I’m older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn’t know I was lost

Whenever we face big turning points in our lives the future is always unknown and uncertain. We think about our decisions and make plans but there is always a sense that we are feeling our way through the darkness as the song says and we are not sure exactly where the journey will end. Sometimes we can even feel lost and unsure about ourselves. So we can understand the wish just to go hide and like the song says: “So wake me up when it’s all over/ When I’m wiser and I’m older.”

Tempting, but it doesn’t work of course. We only get wiser and older by experiencing these challenging parts of our lives that all of us go through. You are graduating from a Catholic High School. For most of us here tonight, when we face our futures we do so as Catholic people. And that makes a huge difference for us. We have special strengths to guide us on that journey.

When we face the darkness and uncertainties of life, we are aware that we are never doing this alone. Regardless of who is a part of our lives in those moments, we know that God himself is with us, indeed so close to us as to be within us. God dwells in the very deepest part of our being. God is near to us and He brings to us great strength and encouragement. Jesus often said to people: “do not be afraid.” Those words of Jesus assure when we face big and unknown things.

The prophet Jeremiah who spoke of the coming of Jesus long before Jesus was born, gave us these words which are God’s words to us: I have loved you with an everlasting love and so I shall maintain my faithful love for you. Yes, I know what plans I have in mind for you, declares the Lord, plans for peace, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. When you call to me and come and pray to me, I shall listen to you. When you search for me, you will find me; when you search wholeheartedly for me, I shall let you find me.

My Catholic faith tells me that God loves me. God cares about what happens in my life. God never stops loving me. To know that gives me great security when I face the challenges of my life. That gives me assurance and it gives me confidence and hope. And I hope that your years in a Catholic School have given you the same assurance, confidence and hope. Because this you have the power to make your life bright and happy.

God is our greatest ally and friend. God says to us: “I’ve got plans for you!” These plans are not for failure and disaster, they are not for unhappiness and fear. God’s plans are to give us, as the Prophet Jeremiah said, “a future and a hope.” God says to us: stick with me and you will overcome your fears and worries. Stick with me and you will see the darkness turn into a bright future.

God says whenever you call to me, whenever you come and talk to me, I shall listen to you. When you look for me, I am there. You will find me. Jesus reinforced that message and says to us: “I have loved you just as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.”In other words: Stick with me because I am telling you this “so that my joy may be in you and your joy be complete.”

Our faith, changes the way we look at life. Our faith changes our future. When I graduated from High School, I was feeling my way through the darkness. I was not certain of where the journey into the future would end. But I believed what Jesus in his Gospels told me. I believed that God was with me, I believed that Jesus would guide me. And I was very hopeful about my future when I was 18 years old. And I wasn’t wrong.

Over 50 years of life have happened to me since the day I graduated from High School. Big ups, big downs, big challenges, big things to be afraid of. My faith was a gift to me that brought me through all of it, through this journey to this very day. It is my prayer that your faith will be a gift to you and that you will allow it to welcome God into your journey to be your companion and guide as you seek happiness and success in your life.

Here are the readings for our grad mass on Thursday June 27 at Conexus Performing arts Center at 7:00 p.m.

First Reading– Jeremiah 31:3; 29:11-14

Second Reading -Romans 8: 31-35; 37-38

GospelJohn 15:9-17