Our graduating class has come here and gone through quite a transition point. Some of us who have come here have come to this country for the first time, and others had their first children which being here, and it's been an experience of growth and education for all of us. But one thing that we all had in common as far as transition, as far as education, as far as new experiences, living here on this campus, in this community which has unique characteristics of its own. The main aspect of this is community service and community participation, without which this community would not be able to operate. I'll speak about my own community assignment, but I'm sure this will apply to everyone: current, past, and future students. My assignment was breakfast crew. When I started out on breakfast crew, my captain was a veteran education, as far as new experiences, living here on this campus, in this community, which has unique characteristics of its own. The main aspect of this is community service and community participation, without which this community would not be able to operate. I'll speak about my own community assignment, but I'm sure this will apply to everyone: current, past, and future students. My assignment was breakfast crew. When I started out on breakfast crew, my captain was a veteran breakfast-crew member, and he brought on three new, green, first-year students. When I began on breakfast crew my job was to pick up all the dirty dishes, and when I picked up the dirty dishes, I could only pick them up tentatively, with one hand, because I had never dealt with dirty dishes in such quantity before. And my captain, the first thing he though, he said, "Oh no! Fr Paul has assigned me a person with a lame hand!"

Well, in spite of my lame hand -- a Gospel reference -- I was able, through the Gospel, to grow from that, stretch out my hand and make it work again. When I was on breakfast crew, it was a very important time of growth and of service for me.; I always had a reason to get up in the morning -- I had to get up in the morning, I had to get up and serve breakfast. I had to serve breakfast to all my colleagues, and occasional professor who came to stop by, Fr Paul, everyone: sometimes more sometimes less. And in breakfast crew there was constantly a fight of God, the devil, they were all their -- everyone was fighting, everyone was fighting at breakfast crew. First of all: can you get up in the morning? Can you get there on time? This was a big battle for all of us. Another thing: can you get along? What about the people who didn't get there on time? But during this process I learned every thing I could learn -- not everything I could learn, excuse me -- I learned very much about love and respect and service.

During this time we were all fighting it out, we had to get up in the morning, we had to get there, we had to serve breakfast. It was not easy for us, but, in spit of this, by God's grace we were able to bond together and were able to stay together and were able to operate in spite of everything. And in fact through breakfast crew I met my godfather, David, and the best man in my wedding, Tom. Moreover, I made friendships that will last the rest of my life, along with memories that I hope will last even longer.

The thing that held us together on breakfast crew was service. Our job was serving our brethren. Our job was serving. We didn't come there out of a love of helping others, we came there as our job by the Holy Spirit, which brought us together to be on breakfast crew, and our job was simply to serve the brethren.

It was a thankless job, but then again thanks probably isn't necessary for simply serving breakfast, we are only wicked and useless servants, who are just doing our job. Yet I hope that everyone else on the breakfast crew learned as much as I did about service. All of our education here at St. Vladimir's is based on the idea of service that comes from the Gospel. When we learn bout history, we learn about patristics, we learn about scripture and the Gospel, these are to prepare us for serviced, for everyone to everyone out of love and out of respect and because that's just what we've got to do.

It was a daily practice for us to get up and serve the brethren. Sometimes it was difficult. I remember my first year in the first couple of weeks, we were washing dishes and everyone had come in and were ready to sing the beginning prayer, and I said, "David, isn't it time to go out and sing the prayer?" And he said, "Piety is for the rich. Just keep washing dishes." This was a very important lesson for me, that sometimes, when everyone else is praying, I need to be in there, washing dishes. Or I need to be sometimes -- even more difficult tasks -- when we're serving fried eggs and muffins and someone asks, "Where's the ketchup?" I've got to bring out the ketchup; I've got to bring that out.

And with my fellow breakfast-crew members, I was not always the best person I could be. I was also fighting the devil, maybe more than anyone else, as captain and as a fellow-worker, and I had to deal with the people who were late, who didn't come. Sometimes I did it well, and sometimes I didn't do it as well -- and I hope I've apologized already to everyone that I didn't do as well with. But the thing that I learned, by the grace of God, was that simply a word of exhortation, a word of love out of respect was the greatest motivating force ever on our crew. Simply to mention, "C'mon guys, we gotta keep serving. We're out there to serve the others, and we're there for each other, too. When there's two people there, it's a lot more work, simply. When we're all there it goes much easier and it's a much more pleasant experience; it can start out our day on a very high note." Simply this word was enough to get us all motivated to get there on time, to get everything done. There was one rule on breakfast crew, that nobody left until all the work was done, out of respect for each other.

I learned can incredible amount on breakfast crew, about humility, and about respect, and about service, without thanks, without anything - simply a job to do. And whereas I came in a cripple, I came out whole after this wonderful, wonderful lesson, from the Gospel, from the lessons we learned from all of our classes. And every day, the reason to get up was service. I got up to serve the brethren. And I ask everyone here to remember this as Christians: the reason why we get up in the morning is to enact this Gospel, to act upon the gifts and the qualities that God has given us. So let us always remember our service that we can render to the brethren.

Thank you.