My experience with Jesuit education began when I was six years old, staring up at the spire of the McElroy building at Boston College High as my brother took his entrance exam. Seven years later I was entering BC High myself as a member of the first class of seventh graders in the newly founded Arrupe Division. In February of my eight grade year, my mother passed away after a long battle with gastric cancer. From that very painful time, two things stick out most for me about BC High.
The first was how mature, responsible, and loving my brother’s Jesuit education had made him, as he became my legal guardian after my mother’s death. He embraced the role of a true “Man for Others,” giving up everything and setting aside college and service in the Marine Corps to take care of me and ensure I could receive the same BC High education he had. Things were never easy, but I have no doubt that the experience of our Jesuit educations is what made both of us strong. We were taught to be caring and reflective, to find God in all things, good and bad.
My bother was my North Star, but he wasn’t the only blessing that held me together. The second was the faculty, students, and administration at BC High that supported me in the months and years after my mother’s death. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say they saved my life.
During my senior year at BC High SchoolI applied to Boston College. However, BU came through with a better financial package than BC offered me. Reluctantly, I enrolled at BU.
After a year and a half at BU, I began to feel like I was losing myself, piece by piece. Without the faith, inspiration and love of a Jesuit education I found myself listless, a ship without a rudder. The infectious sense of purpose and love for learning, so present at Jesuit schools was, in my present situation, noticeably lacking.
By the middle of my sophomore year I knew I needed to at least try for a change and, despite all the odds, I decided to reapply to BC. So many things had to align properly. First, I needed to be accepted; secondly, I needed my credits to properly transfer; and, perhaps most importantly of all, I somehow needed to find a way to get a comparable level of financial aid.
I returned to my BC High guidance counselor for help, herself a BC alumna, and began the application process. I received the good news that I was accepted at BC that all of my credits would transfer. But I was crushed to find out that I would receive the same amount of aid as I had when I was first accepted as a high school senior. But rather than give up, I decided to argue my case to the financial aid office. I found myself trying to explain why I was going through all of this effort just to leave a another fine university and come “home” to BC. I explained how I lacked a sense of spiritual purpose at BU and how every day felt like selling my soul for an education that didn’t matter. Eventually, BC heard my plea, and to my great joy, offered me a financial aid package, comparable to what I had at BU. After two long years I felt like an immense weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
A few months later at orientation, I sat in an auditorium with several other transfer students and a familiar quote appeared on the PowerPoint presentation we were watching. When I read again the words about finding and falling in love with God, I knew I was “home.”
“Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way…”
I stared up at the words of Father Arrupe that I had once heard so many years ago with my mother beside me. Tears welled up in my eyes as two years worth of struggling and soul-searching were washed away in an instant. I was home. In addition to my Mom, the special people at Boston College and Boston College High School helped me to fall in love with God. My Jesuit education was what got me out of bed every morning in the years without my mother. It decided what I did with my evenings and weekends, shaped everything I knew, and for the two precious years I was about to spend at the Heights, I would once more be filled with joy and gratitude.
I graduated this past May, 2017. As I processed down Linden Lane I first thought of my mother not being there to watch me receive my degree. But then I had this deep sense that she would be there in spirit, looking down upon me from God’s presence.
MATTHEW BEDUGNIS graduated from Boston College in May 2017 and is a program manager for Mercury Systems.PHOTO CREDIT: Boston College Commencement in Alumni Stadium. ©Boston College Office of University Communications