I am grateful for the opportunity to address you on behalf of those of us who are left here at Saint Vladimir's. Yes, the entire faculty still groans in travail together waiting for us who remain to be revealed as sons of God, but your formation has reached a point of crisis, of judgment. "It is finished." We now join in your rejoicing as you receive recognition for having endured to the end. But in the back of your minds, graduates, I hope you are thinking what I'm thinking about what His Beatitude [Metropolitan SAVA] called "the birth of your soul" today.

The theologian is one who prays. If it is true that the theologian is one who prays, then today's ceremony has another aspect beyond receiving a diploma and commencing a new stage in your life. A year ago, a wise man told many of us that this second and hidden ceremony was coming today, because you know God's desire for us when he called us to Saint Vladimir's Seminary was not simply that we write papers, pass tests, and pick up a degree. All of us here are sharing today in your spiritual graduation, and the tests are more like this: did you learn to trust God while you were here? Did you learn to throw yourself on God's mercy through the broken, leaking, earthen vessels He ordained to be here with you? Have you learned by today how to put the cross of Christ on every little thing and every "little one" you encounter? In short, did you learn how to pray? How did you do?

His Beatitude was right; here in America we haven't had the external test of war in recent times. But for us at the Seminary, this school year began with the sudden loss of Fr Stephen Kozler, a recent and beloved graduate, friend to many of us in this room, and shortly thereafter, we lost Dr John Boojamra, a revered alumnus and faculty member, loved around the world. Although we were far from ready to bid them farewell, their deaths became unparalleled opportunities for us, a real spiritual study session. The reality of their disappearance was inescapable to us, yet the world didn't stop for us to mourn. We finished saying good-bye, but the world didn't look any different. Yet when we looked death right in the eyes, we came face to face with the end of our own earthly lives. What did we see?

Did we see Christ's death, working life in us? Or rather, did we see daily chances we had refused to make amends and to ask forgiveness, thus denying ourselves the mercy of God, and grieving His Holy Spirit? Did we see how love had called us again and again to give up our own desires and to bear someone else's burden to fulfill the law of Christ? Did we see any better how our own pursuits: for academic credit, for the praise of fellows and teachers, for our own gratification and comfort, even just trying to do our work while ignoring someone else in need, all testify to our coming here not to serve, but to be served? These were and are study aids for us, these are the gift of what Fr Tom [Hopko] called "God's word to us" in the deaths of Fr Kozler and Dr Boojamra. Did we use them? Those who come after you are watching to see whether you can pass down any notes for our own spiritual graduations in the years to come.

Friends and graduates of the Class of 2000, we who are following after you owe you a tremendous debt of gratitude for your tireless support and guidance; and for your fellowship in the Christian life. Our hope for you, as you graduate twice today, is that you honor the Lord's call and reflect on your time here with gratitude, that you take the new life of your "newborn" soul into your new ministries and glorify God by keeping the commandment of love always, and that you find your way back in due time to draw again from the wells of love and knowledge that you not only enjoyed while here, but will always replenish by your prayers. Thank you in advance, and God keep you.