Graduating seniors, we stand at the brink of the rest of our lives. This place we have called home for the past four years is giving way to a new home. We have in our recent past studied, prayed, lived and served so well, but now this localized earthly paradise is giving way to a new environment, a new and larger community in which we must choose to be ourselves and of which we must choose to be a part.
For so long, we have lived under the protection of so many dedicated individuals - our parents, our rectors, our administrators - but it is a luxury which at this very moment is giving way to a new and frightening world of responsibility, of obliged love for our fellow brothers and sisters. This week, we are given the opportunity to establish ourselves in our new home, our new family and to proclaim that we do, in fact, have an integral role to play among our adopted siblings.
This week (April 23-27), we commit - in the Class of 2007 Pledge of Social Responsibility - to affirm our humanity. The Pledge reads, in part, "The University seeks to cultivate in its students not only an appreciation for the great achievements of human beings but also a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice, and oppression that burden the lives of so many. The aim is to create a sense of human solidarity and concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice."
The words themselves, being only words, mean nothing unless we embody them and take it upon ourselves to live out God's commandment to love. In this Notre Dame community which is giving way before our eyes, let us maintain our solidarity. Let us, as one class, sign the Pledge.
Audrey De Guire
senior
Pasquerilla West
April 23
