Welcome to Baccalaureate Service 2006.
It is my honor to give a special heartfelt and cordial welcome to our graduating seniors and their parents on this most memorable chapel service. From this day forward you will return to this house of the Lord as an alumni and an adult. This is the last time you will worship with us as students of St. John’s School. The myriad memories in this sacred sanctuary will follow you through your days as you tenderly recall Chaplain Moore’s humble homilies as well as Mrs. Skanse’s hand bells and hand motions.
The very special times you have experienced here are one of the most profound and unique qualities of a St. John’s education. This chapel is where we all have learned how to celebrate Christ’s teachings along with respecting diversity of everyone’s religious perspective in a non-threatening ambiance of love and understanding. As you go out of this chapel and move away from home – into the world – you will come to find that what you take away with you is what the entire world needs so much, and that is how you already know to embrace your neighbor – no matter what they look like, what language they speak or what they believe.
Jacques Yves-Cousteau, the inventor of the scuba tank and a world renowned environmentalist, was once asked about how we could achieve world peace. He replied that with 1% of the U.S. Military budget we could send all young adolescents at the age of fourteen to live in another country for one year – kind of a global student exchange – and in one generation there would be a global understanding that difference was ok and peace would ensue. Graduates from St. John have experienced exactly what Cousteau was getting at and twenty of you have for your entire educational career been coming to this chapel and celebrating the word of the Lord and his message of love and peace. That joyful message will take you far in your journeys of the heart, here on Guam or anywhere else you may travel.
Welcome and let us now hear the invocation from Chaplain Moore.
