By Father Stephen P. Judd
Maryknoll Missioner, Butte, Mont. and Cochabamba, Bolivia

“There is a season...” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

Summertime in Montana is the season for high school class reunions and neighborhood gatherings. For many, these annual festivities bring out ambivalent feelings, dredge up unpleasant memories of adolescent behavior, or even failed dreams and stir up a lingering competitive urge. On the other hand, they often evoke the best of the human spirit that can lead to unique renewal experiences, open up spaces for reconciliation, a healthy self-acceptance and healing of relationships on every level.

Our relationships reflect the values of the reign of God. In that spirit, here are some reflections I shared with my Butte Central classmates on the occasion of our recent 45th Reunion.

In the buildup to this long-awaited 1963 Class Reunion, two reference points stand out as templates to attempt to frame the class reunion experience.

One came in the brilliant suggestion that class members submit short autobiographical sketches beforehand as icebreakers to help us in the sometimes awkward stage at the beginning of the normal reunion experience. These sketches served us well to trace the common threads and disparate twists and turns in our life journeys.

The same classmate laid out a challenge to the Class of 1963 to revisit the immortal words of John F. Kennedy that so characterized the era in which we arrived at Butte Central: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” It was a call to aging “baby boomers” to think about giving back something to community, Church and country. One national newspaper calls this stirring of the consciousness of the 1960s generation as the phenomenon of “encore careers” – a trend that is more than a retirement pastime.

The second reference point is an echo of those sometimes turbulent and transforming times, recalling that 50 years ago NASA was founded in response to the Soviet Union’s Sputnik space program. We remember that many of our teachers and parents were caught up in the competitive spirit to beat the Soviets to the moon. Great resources and energy were expended and our academic curriculum was driven by this facet of the Cold War mentality. The class of 1961 sent two of its members to NASA careers.

NASA symbolizes the soaring greatness of our nation but also its capacity to overreach. Perhaps we have learned a lesson in humility from its failures as well as its successes: that science has limits – not all the answers to solve the problems of the world.

The readings chosen for our reunion’s Eucharistic celebration (Ecclesiastes 3:1-9, Philippians 1:3-11 and John 15:7-15) happily converge to point us in the direction of yet another opportunity and paradigm for service in this “season” of our lives – one that more adequately reflects the experience and the wisdom gained throughout the past 45 years.

We tried and did excel in careers and life callings, encouraged by hard-working and self-sacrificing parents born in the hardship of the Depression years. Some of us could even be excused for being seen as “overachievers,” if that meant study and an appreciation for excellence. But achievements in the sciences, the arts, the teaching and healing professions and parenting do not totally define us.

Somehow or another we have taken to heart Jesus’ words from the Gospel, “you did not choose me, but I chose you to go forth and to bear fruit and to bear it abundantly.”

We lived that spirit out in a time when there was not the range of career options or the pressures to succeed that today’s college students face. The value of long-term commitments and finishing what we started were passed down to us by financially strapped parents whom Tom Brokaw calls “the greatest generation.” Brokaw wrote another provocative book simply entitled “Boom” which comes close to describing our life journeys.

Yet, it’s St. Paul’s words – “I give thanks for your partnership in the Gospel with me” – that truly resonate with us today, namely that we are not finished products who can hang up our spurs with the conventional retirements of our colleagues when we approach the age of 65.

Catholic education still generates a passion and commitment to work for the common good, to pay back and to leave a legacy of values not measured by the proverbial bottom line.

Who we are and are still becoming is more important than honors, degrees or economic status. That is why St. Paul’s words, “may the God who began a good work in you, bring it to completion,” capture what we are all about.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that “in American life there are no second acts.” He was wrong when it comes to us. We are aware that we are formed in the image and likeness of our Creator God to be disciples and servant leaders. There are second and third acts and even more than one more encore if we accept the challenge of servant leadership in a changing and more complex world.

The new stages of our healing, our callings, and vocations find meaning if our experiences are channeled toward lives of service, and what educational theorists call the stage of “generativity” in our maturing process. Simply stated that means mentoring the next generation and sharing our wisdom and expertise.

Our Catholicism and everything that has gone before leads us to even more responsible actions as planetary citizens in our later years. There are many worthwhile acts to come.

Justice Voices columns are coordinated by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development committee of the Helena Diocese.


Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 24, No. 8, August 15, 2008.