Bishop of Hong Kong Cardinal Stephen Chow, S.J., Address to the Class of 2024

Good morning, Class of 2024, fellow Jesuits, fellow educators, board members, benefactors, students, parents and friends of Boston College.

Why am I invited to deliver the Commencement Speech at BC this year? For some unknown reason, I have become one of the “notable” commencement speakers among universities in the United States this year. I am, indeed, deeply puzzled.

None of us gathered here today are likely ignorant about the recent tensions among university campuses in the United States and elsewhere. We can appreciate Boston College for being bold enough to hold a live commencement exercise during this time. And I am honored to have this opportunity to share five learnings that I have been blessed with you today.

1.     Preferential option for unity, not uniformity

The current tensions happening at university campuses, as a matter of fact, are not unfamiliar to us living in Hong Kong, especially five years ago in 2019. I have written about this on different occasions; that despite the city has returned to a good degree of peacefulness, there remains a need for reconciliation and internal healing. However, this process may take several years or even decades.

Even so, we must start with the promotion of dialogue and constructive action among parties of different stances, prudently and meaningfully. I believe “Unity in Plurality” is what we want to embrace, not an oppositional mentality, and certainly not violence. But I know this is not that easy. For I can also find the tension between the desire for singularity, that I am the only acceptable standard, and plurality, that there are other acceptable standards besides me, this tension operates rather vividly in myself. Fortunately, daily examen of consciousness helps me gain better self-awareness.

Another mission of unity for me, as outlined in the BC’s commencement announcement, is to foster a closer and better working relationship between the Church in Mainland China and the Universal Church. Honestly, I am only beginning to build bridges. Still too early to say, but thankfully, there have been encouraging developments since our last visits to the dioceses of Beijing and Guangdong. I know we can have hope in a loving God who alone is the Lord of the past, present, and future, not any human persons.

2.     Collaboration with love so to give hope

As graduates stepping into in an ideological world, and dare I say a rather divided Church , as well as a badly wounded natural environment, it leaves us wondering what the future is for you and us. I understand there are rhetorics that portray a doomsday scenario. I suppose the idea is to alert us of such a distinct possibility, which is not wrong per se.

But if this scenario excludes tangible hope that stems from sincere and audacious human efforts in collaboration with the faithful love of God, doomsday will certainly become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, what role should we take? Prophets of probable hope or irreversible doom?

The seemingly dominant narrative of our ideological world is one of oppositional, where there is only one side that can be the ‘right’. The so-called opposite side must simply be wrong. Or, when one side postures itself as the dominant side, the deviant side will have to be fixed. We can see this kind of limiting and defeating ideological narrative wherever meaningful dialogue is not given a real chance to take place.

This kind of narrative is unlikely to create sustainable peace for a commonly desirable future. A future which you and your peers are going to construct together with the inclusive love of God in your discernment, transcending the borders of politics, beliefs, faiths, values, economies, ethnicities, realities, etc. Dear graduates, it is not too early to contemplate how you are going to construct your future together, and what it will look like.

3.     Expect and respect differences out of love

As an educator, I am quite aware that not all young people are the same. Some like a world with more certainty, more true-false understanding. But there are those who would prefer a world that enjoys greater room for nuances, inconsistencies and is more pluralistic.

And there are those moving in-between, preferring domain-specific orientations. For example, there are devoted young Christians very serious about the orthodoxy of their faith but rather liberal in their respect for intellectual property. There are others who see themselves as open-minded in different aspects of life but are sternly absolute in their political endorsements. I believe very few people, if any, are consistent across every single domain.

Maybe this is the fun and the challenge of human relationships. No one is totally predictable all the time. Being able to take in people as they are, not who they ought to be, will allow us a greater capacity to love as God loves us in every moment. We are sinners with our own peculiarities yet loved by God.

4.     Be a bridge-builder

For a Church with a bridge-building mission for the Church in Mainland China, I visited the diocese of Beijing last April, and the dioceses of Guangzhou, Shantou, and the district of Shenzhen in the Guangdong Province last month. Some groups have attempted to package these trips with a political wrapper, but the truth is that they were trips with the objectives of promoting dialogue, building friendship, strengthening fraternity and looking for opportunities to collaborate while supporting each other’s pastoral endeavors. These, for us, are to fulfill the mission of God that we are given to share.

The one insight that I have gained is that everyone, no matter whether she or he is an important official or not, would love to be connected, treated with genuine respect, and listened to with interest. I am never good at small talk, but I am learning to listen with empathy. With this, we can relate to each other with openness for mutual development. 

5.     Be your own winner

Besides plurality, the reality that we have constructed so far is one that emphasizes ‘competing’ for recognition, rights, power, control, supremacy, etc. This is what we have subscribed to through formal and informal education, and it is natural for us to assume this is the only available or sensible reality.  But is this really the case?

Do you think competition and winning must stand for defeating fellow competitors? Is fighting spirit essentially about being the only winner or the only one that remains standing with fists raised high? What about cultivating a reality in which we are our own competitors?

Instead of competing with others, we can work hard on bettering our past selves, better than who we were yesterday, a month, a year, or a decade ago. Am I noticeably or sufficiently better in the endeavor than where I was last? So, if the focus of competition is on ourselves, we can afford to help each other improve, so that no one will lose out, which means we can become winners in our own right.

I do not think we need to avoid competition, and we cannot. But we can certainly redress competition and, through that construct a new reality for everyone, in which everyone is a winner. This is what I have understood from Jesuit education. I believe you and we are the ones who can work together, and with God, to make all things new.

Finally

Finally, graduates and soon-to-be alumnae and alumni of Jesuit education, may your life always fill with the blessings of a discerning spirit, a generous heart, a vision that is broad, inclusive, far-reaching but focused, and a future that gives greater glory to God who loves all without fail!

May the ever-loving God bless you and Boston College with the grace of synodality and wisdom of discernment throughout your earthly life span!