Listen, if they can move Ascension Thursday over to Sunday, I can slide Good Fridays into Saturday.
So the little kids have gone home and now the big kids get the place to themselves. Let the debauch begin–it’s Senior Week.
I have just a few words of advice for our most recent batch of soon-to-be alumni. And if you’ve spent four years putting up with my petty French boarding school rules, you can pay attention to these:
You have no responsibilities but to show up alive for commencement exercises, so enjoy one last multiday revel. This is your final chance to behave like a dissipated libertine–unless you are graduating from the college of business, in which case this week serves as an introduction to your new lifestyle.
I don’t care what quality, state, or condition you are in for the graduation ceremony, but conduct yourself with a little decorum for The Lord and don’t show up to the Baccalaureate Mass blind drunk. That goes double for all CSCs.
A long black gown is your best friend. It gracefully masks an unsteady gait, makes an outright stagger look dignified, and can conceal several flasks of top-shelf booze. Trust me, I wear one every day.
Lads, if the Stadium is swelteringly hot on the morning of graduation, tall black knee-socks and dress shoes can permit you to wear shorts under the gown–or even less. Trust me, I wear one every day.
Architecture graduates, please don’t make fools of yourselves…oh, who am I kidding.
When you greet your parents upon their arrival for the ceremonies, give your mother several roses or other fragrant flowers. They will cover the stench of the liquor leaching out of your pores.
As you sit on the historic football field, with the stands half-full of family and friends, and your classmates all abuzz with excitement, you will be shocked to realize that’s the loudest you will have ever heard the Stadium.
After four years of close residential quarters, you no longer have to live with obnoxious, indolent, foul-smelling roommates ever again…until your children hit their teens.
You can now move from carping at Fr. Jenkins for draconian disciplinary policies, to carping at Fr. Jenkins for exorbitant football ticket prices. But remember, for as long as he is president of the University, it is always all Fr. Jenkins’ fault.
And don’t become maudlin, thinking about how this is over, or that is the last time, or you’re leaving never to return. You’ll all be back in the fall…like a swarm of plaid-wearing locusts.
EFS CSC
Son, in 199 years of religious study, I have only come up with two hard, incontrovertible facts: There is a God, and I'm pretty tight with Him.
Now I’m going to tell you a whole lot of things I’ve kept to myself for years. None of you ever knew me. I was along before your time, but you all know what a tradition I am at Notre Dame. And one of the most important things I ever said was, “Friends, sometime when my University is up against it and the breaks are beating the students, tell them to go out there with all they’ve got and win at everything for Padre. I don’t know exactly where I’ll be then, friends,” I said, “but I’ll be looking right over your shoulder.”
- Good Fridays w/Padre: WORTHY! - November 30, 2018
- Good Fridays w/Padre: The Horror - October 26, 2018
- Good Fridays w/Padre: BALLS! - September 7, 2018
