Commencement Address delivered by Rev. Dr. Jerson B. Narciso, CPBC General Secretary, during the CPU Senior High School 2nd Commencement Exercises held at the Rose Memorial Auditorium on April 15, 2019

CPBC General Secretary, Rev. Dr. Jerson B. Narciso encouraged Centralians to a life that glorifies Jesus.

“I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” – Ephesians 4:1-3

Our University President, Dr. Teodoro C. Robles, members of the CPU Corporation and Board of Trustees, CPU Faculty and staff, parents, guests, honoured graduates, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I am indeed honoured to have this wonderful privilege to speak on this very important occasion in the lives of our graduates. First and foremost, allow me to congratulate you, your parents and families for this very significant achievement in your life. You have passed one of the many road marks set before you in this life and we are all very proud of you. We seek God’s guidance and blessings on you as you move forward to pursue your dreams.

Yes, I supposed the journey was not easy. But you have grown in different and beautiful ways. You have learned so many things that otherwise you may have not learned under comfortable conditions and circumstances. Indeed, making it through 6 years of high school took a lot of toil, time, money, and hard work on your part. It involves dealing with some very real and difficult challenges. And as we all can testify, making it through life will include continuous struggles and challenges that we must have to deal with. But the wonderful thing about facing all these challenges is that God has endowed us with gifts and power to overcome and succeed.

Today, you will begin another chapter in your life’s journey. And usually, this is the time where we, as adults, place the burden of high expectations upon your backs and watch to see you succeed. We usually put so much, and sometimes unfair, expectations on our graduates by wanting all of them to become leaders of our industries and institutions. But the reality is that God has not created every person to be a leader, and in placing unrealistic expectations on these graduates, we are actually setting them up for failure. Today, I suggest that we place but one expectation upon these graduates. “To Be All God Has Created Them To Be.” Some of them may be created by God to be leaders of the industry, or to be doctors, nurses, engineers and some other specific vocations. But we as a community must support them in whatever direction and vocation God intended them to be.

Our dear graduates, we look at you this morning as young men and women who have been blessed with life, wholeness, vitality and promise. But remember, the journey that you are about to take is long, dusty, even dirty at times. They are filled with adventures and wonders, challenges and triumphs. Your feet will get dirty along the way. It is the human condition that we all have to bear and share. As someone said, “As you walk down the road of life, watch out for traffic!” There is the unknown future in front of you.

And so, as you embark on a new journey, I’d like to share some principles which I hope would serve as your guiding light in your pursuit of a meaningful, enriching and fruitful life ahead.

The first principle is, Know Yourself. To succeed in life we need to have a sense of self-understanding and purpose. The stoics believe that the first and cardinal rule in leading a successful life is “know thy self.” It is based on the assumption that one could not make any significant progress in their lives unless they understand and know themselves. This first rule is implicit in what we read in Ephesians 4:1-3. It says, “I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called…” In this passage, the Apostle Paul admonishes us to understand ourselves in relation to what we have been called for because our vocation in life is better understood in the light of how we assess and look at ourselves. Vocational identity is found in discerning who we are. We need to understand how God has made us, how we are unique, how God has enabled us to serve, what are the abilities God has endowed us with, and where is God calling us to make a difference in the world.

I understand that many of us hesitate to hear this call to self- knowledge; something blocks us. We have been taught all our lives to ignore ourselves and to focus our attention on others. Well, don’t get me wrong. I’m not telling you to become selfish or to adopt the “mind your own business” mentality. Yes, we need to be concerned about other people’s lives. But you know, we cannot serve with love and we cannot make a difference in the lives of others if we refuse to understand ourselves. To know ourselves and to be true to ourselves is to be true to God and others. To be true to ourselves is to be true to how God has made us, how God has crafted our personalities, how God has given us ability and talent. God calls us to make a difference in the world. However, this calling should always be consistent with who we are. I think it is helpful to think of self-knowledge as something that we gain when we respond to four questions:

1. What are my gifts and abilities?
2. What is the deepest desire of my heart?
3. Where do I personally sense the needs of the world?
4. What is my unique personality and capability?

Knowing ourselves does not only include identification of our abilities and talents but knowing our heart’s desires. What is it that I long for? What brings me joy and a sense of fulfilment? Yes, the desires of our heart matters. We always think of our hearts desire as evil. But the Psalmist assures us that God longs to give us our desires: “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4). Our desires can be twisted and self-destructive when they are shaped by greed, insecurity, a longing for comfort and ease, or an inclination to control or manipulate others. They can be rooted in pride rather than humility, love, and kindness. But when we are right with God and genuinely long to respond fully to him in a way that is consistent with his call on our lives, then we must acknowledge the desires that he has placed in our hearts.

Now, let me ask you, what do you long for more than anything else? Do you aspire to that which is noble and honourable? If you could only be one thing and do one thing in your life, what would you want it to be? When you set aside your longings for security, wealth, comfort, fame and even acceptance, what do you long for? It is worth noting that we will only be effective in fulfilling our vocation if we joyfully do what we are called to do. Without joy we cannot be effective. It is therefore important that we come to terms with what it is that gives us joy, even if it means giving up comforts or wealth, fame or power. Today a lot of people are complaining about their job. For them, work has become a drudgery, a mere compliance, a mere source of income or for a living. It is not uncommon to hear about employees who are always absent, always late and some are even sleeping on their job! Why? The reason is simple. They don’t find joy and meaning in what they do.

In our journey, it is important for us to know and remember who we are, who we are becoming, why we are here and where we are headed to. These questions are necessary because they remind us of what is most important and they keep us focused on our deepest goals. Today, people are motivated by a misguided sense of significance that makes them think that if a person is highly educated and well informed, he or she must be wise and important. And yet, if we are honest, we will see that underlying all our so-called amazing human achievements in the field of education lies an inevitable awareness that we have begun to lose a sense of what our actions mean and ultimately what our lives mean.

You see, this generation has more access to information about the universe, human personality and about anything than all previous generations combined! High school graduates have been exposed to more information about the world that Plato, Einstein and all other great men in human history were deprived of. But with all of our knowledge, society today is peopled with a bumper crop of brilliant failures. You may begin to plot out your goals and figure out things you want to pursue in college. You may get yourselves busy accumulating a lot of information about anything. You may become more concerned about how you can get a high grade and a scholarship or whether you are going to graduate with honors. But if you fail to understand the meaning and purpose of life, you will end up achieving nothing. Skills and knowledge are not enough to face life’s challenges and problems. We need wisdom and discernment to understand who we are and what God wants us to be.

Second, the journey requires on our part a clear and God-centered vision. You know, the most valuable thing that I have learned from CPU can be summarized in the word EXCEL. For me, this word stands out quite prominently and this has been the driving force that prompts me to achieve my goals. I think every normal person desires for excellence. Here at CPU this desire for excellence is embedded in our vision of excellent Christian education for life that caters to the total development of every person, that every individual will become mature person who lives fully Christ’s life in the world. Now, if we want to excel and if we want to become successful in life then we must put God at the center of our goal and in all our endeavors.

I know of a man in the Bible with a clear and Christ-centered vision. His name is Apostle Paul. Paul’s dream was to live for Christ alone and for him—the somum bonum or the highest goal in life is to know Christ. In Philippians 1:21 he says, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Oh, what better goal there is than to live for Christ, our Saviour, the one who died for our sins? As the saying goes: “Only one life ‘twill soon be passed, only what’s done for Christ will last. Everything we do for ourselves won’t last for eternity. Even heroes and heroines and their heroic deeds will soon be forgotten. Only things done for Christ will last for eternity. Very often, our goals are self-centered rather than Christ-centered. Instead of making him the center of our lives we push him aside. Instead of being the director of our plans we simply ask him to put his stamp of approval to things that we have already decided. We treat God as a spare tire

The book of Proverbs reminds us of the futility of planning and doing things apart from God. Proverbs 16:1-3 says, “Man makes his plans but it is always God who has the last words. Commit your plans therefore to the Lord that he may bless and make it successful. And then Proverbs 3:5, 6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not in your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him. You see, regardless of how much experience and knowledge we have, there’s still a lot we don’t know, and when it comes to God, there are things we will never know or understand in this life. In going forward, humility will be absolutely necessary.

And so, we must submit our lives to God, and as we come to Him, we need to honestly admit our limitations, our brokenness, our pains, our doubts, our fears and our frustrations, allowing Him to mould us and shape us according to His perfect plan and purpose for our lives. Yes, here we are reminded of how much we need God to sustain us, and we come with open hearts and minds to be nourished and strengthened by God.

Third, to be successful in our journey, we need to learn how to walk harmoniously with significant others. We are part of a larger community. There are others who are also journeying with us. It is important to stress that our self-knowledge and self-awareness happen in community. We come to know ourselves not in isolation from others but as part of the body of Christ. Saint Paul wants us to realize that we will see who we are within the context of the community of which we are a part. We all fulfil our vocations as members of a community.  It is in our communal associations with others that we find ourselves. It is in community that we come to an appreciation of our gifts and abilities. It is in community where we share our gifts and talents for the well-being of others. It is in community that we see how we are unique and how the desires of our hearts are different from but complimentary to the desires of others. It is in community that we grow in appreciation of the needs of other people.

This crowd here is very diverse. We come from different places representing different cultures, traditions and perspectives. We are uniquely different one from the other and yet, we are one. And if there is one common thread that binds us as one, it is God’s love and our common calling to serve him and our fellow human beings. Here, we are united by God’s call in loving and serving others. As we seek to serve and encourage one another, the Gospel image that should motivate us is that of Jesus kneeling on the floor, towel wrapped around his waist, as he washes the feet of his disciples.

My friends, I want to let you know that my hope and my commitment to respond to God’s call to love and serve others is strengthened and sustained by the awareness that I have known you, and that I have co-travelers in this journey. They are there to support and encourage me along the way. To become successful in our journey, we need to support, sustain and nourish one another. Being mutually dependent, brought together, and sustaining one another in love is the characteristic of our calling, and that is what we are experiencing here at CPU. That is how I understand the Central Spirit that we always orient ourselves to. It should give us hope. Yes, we have different personalities, different backgrounds and perspectives, endowed with variety of gifts and talents. Yet, it is the same Spirit that works in us and we are called to work together as members of the same body, the body of Christ, growing together toward unity of faith. Paul admonished, “I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”(Ephesians 4:1-3)

We are called to build together the body of Christ, a community of faith where healing occurs, strength is renewed, and new growth takes place until each individual bears the fruit of the Spirit. Remember, we are called for a purpose. We are called to serve God and humanity. And so we are expected to translate our skills and knowledge into concrete actions in a way that our lives would become a blessing to others.

As you go forward from here, may you be assured that the Lord of the journey is always with you. Perhaps, at times you might be overwhelmed by the trials and difficulties of life. But faith in God can help you look at life positively and give you hope and joy in the midst of challenges. Stay strong and keep the faith. If you do so, the word of God in Isaiah 52:12 gives you the assurance that “you will go out in confidence and joy, and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you will burst into songs, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” So go on your way, with open hands. Follow God’s leading as you continue your journey of life. And may the God of ultimate power, grace and love bless you on your journey. Again, congratulations and God bless!