Bellarmine University
CONVOCATION MASS: “Watch Carefully How You Live”
Rev. Ronald Knott
August 16, 2015
Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but
as wise, making the most of the opportunity.
Ephesians 5:15-20
When I was preparing to preach on these
words from St. Paul to the Ephesians, I immediately thought of the great
American poet, Robert Frost, who ends his famous poem, THE ROAD NOT TAKEN, with
these memorable words. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one
less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
Students, you stand at such a “fork in
the road.” Starting today and over the next few years, you will have a whole
series of important choices to make! As the road continues to fork, you will be
free to choose from a variety of paths and each path you choose will have
consequences! As you stand at each fork, weighing your options, you need to
know that along with the freedom to choose will come the responsibility to
choose wisely. In the past, your parents made choices for you and forced you to
accept them, then when things did not work out and you could blame them for
their choices. Today, with the freedom to make your own choices, you must now be
ready to accept responsibility for your own choices you – good or bad – and live
with the consequences of those choices. That’s is why St. Paul’s words to you today
need your careful consideration. “Watch
carefully how you live, not as foolish persons, but as wise, making the most of
the opportunity.”
Failure to choose, putting off
deciding, is also a choice! Failure to
choose has tremendous implications as well! In this regard, there are plenty of
people who try to follow the advice of Yogi Bera who said, “When you come to a
fork in the road, take it!” George Bernard Shaw, on the other hand, has sounder
advice when he said, “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating
yourself!” I discovered his words during my own college days, and I have tried
to live out his challenge about “being a force of nature instead of a feverish
selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will
not devote itself to making me happy.” In
another place Shaw spoke about being pro-active in creating the lives we want.
“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are! I don’t
believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people
who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find
them, make them.”
Students! In the great scheme of
things, compared to the world as a whole, you are privileged to be here! Opportunity
is knocking at your door! However, even if opportunity is knocking, you still
need to get up and open the door! As one proverb puts it, “Opportunity may
knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell!” Believe me, the temptation
to blow this opportunity will be unrelenting. Like kids in a candy store, many
college students have crashed and burned in their first semester! It has always
been easier to “go with the flow” than “grab the bull by the horns.” That’s why
the words of St. Paul to you today are so important! “Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but wise, making
the most of the opportunity!”
What happens if you do not watch carefully how you live,
living like a fool and blowing this opportunity? It will be the difference
between “having a life” and a joyless, dull, survival existence. You will no
doubt be one of those people who Henry David Thoreau described when he said,
“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song
still in them.” You will no doubt be one of those people that Thomas Merton
spoke of when he said, “The biggest human temptation is to settle for too
little.” You will no doubt be like those John Greenleaf Whittier spoke about in
his great poem, Maude Mueller, who look back on their lives with sad regret for
opportunities missed, “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest of
these, it might have been!” There is nothing more stinging to live with than
the knowledge of a great opportunity missed for which you, and only you, are to
blame! The secret to making the most of this opportunity is to stand up to your
own laziness and cowardice, to refuse to be ruled by your passions and
addictions, to develop the personal discipline to delay gratification and to do
hard things for your own good! In other words, you simply must take charge of
yourself!
What happens if you do watch carefully how you live, living
wisely and making the most of this opportunity? Again Thoreau puts it quite
clearly when he says, “If one advances confidently in the direction of his
dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with
success unexpected in common hours.” And
again, “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of
man to elevate himself by conscious endeavor.”
Jesus put it this way when he said to us, “I came to bring you life, life
to the full.” “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find, knock
and the door will be opened to you!”
Students! Watch carefully how you live!
Don’t be a fool! Make the most this opportunity!
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