Humble Wisdom, Beauty, and Virtue: Address to the 2024 Graduates

If I may address myself to the graduates in particular: I understand from Dr. Klaassen that you are a tight-knit group and that you enjoy spending time together. It is wonderful that you have formed such a community, and I strongly encourage you to maintain it over the years. You will form other friendships at your next school, but do everything you can to keep the ones you have.

Over your years, you acquired much in the way of knowledge. St. Timothy’s has also placed a great emphasis on the acquisition of virtue, the appreciation of beauty, and growth in wisdom. The three are very much related, and I want to take a minute to tell you something of their inter-connection. First, we must distinguish wisdom from knowledge, since the former includes an awareness of why things are the way they are and an ability to say how knowledge should be used. I think, however, that you are aware of this truth, so I will continue with the relationship between the three: wisdom, virtue, and beauty.

Wisdom does not exist without virtue. A knowledgeable person is not necessarily virtuous, but a wise person is. Virtues must be acquired, and acquisition suggests effort. An effort must be made to refrain from unvirtuous behaviour and thinking. This effort is made possible by the Lord Himself, Who does more than model virtue. The virtues, in fact, are His. Whatever we acquire, we acquire from Him. Not everyone is aware of this truth, but that fact alone does not change anything. Every human being is made in Christ’s image, and whether or not the Archetype of that image is acknowledged is another matter.

Wisdom is paired with a virtue in particular, and that virtue is humility. Humility allows wisdom to function wisely and charitably. However much you acquire knowledge as you continue your studies, you must still acquire humility, because without it, you will never be wise. In Ukrainian and other Slavic languages, we have a word that reveals the truth of what we saying: it is smyrennomudrist. It comes from the Old Church Slavonic word smyrennomudriye. It means humble wisdom. It is precisely the two combined into one. The world outside of God does not grasp this combination of virtue and wisdom, so you must learn it from your spiritual life.

So what about beauty? Beauty reveals the paradise that we both lost in Adam and regained in Christ. Beauty itself reveals something of God. If you learn order, grammar, rhetoric, it is not only to speak well or even elegantly, it is to pursue and cultivate beauty in everything. You must always be the artists who pursue beauty in the sciences, the humanities, or whatever you choose to study. Ugliness and disorder have no existence of their own, they only reflect a lack of beauty. As Christians, we pursue that which is, that which has a proper existence, not the absence of a reality.

When you appreciate, pursue, and cultivate beauty, you create from what God has given you. You and I cannot create from nothing, but we can take what God has made and reveal its inherent or inner beauty. This is a wonderful thing. By appreciating good music, good art, and good literature, you are being formed in beauty. Now, as you take the next step to further studies, you must, if you allow me to be emphatic for a moment, create beauty from what you have been given. You must start by recognizing sin as ugly, and root it out of your life by God’s grace. Then you are free to pursue and enjoy beauty.

Beauty is everywhere in Holy Scripture. How beautiful creation is! God brings it from nothing to beauty, not all at once but in stages. What a marvel creation is! Have you ever thought also about the instructions given in the Old Testament for the construction of the temple? How beautiful it was! Imagine that God was concerned about the materials, the furnishings, everything. Consider the first miracle in the Gospel of St. John. It is a miracle of beauty. It defies the utilitarian approach to miracles, as if God can only concern Himself with the practicalities of healing or raising the dead. No! Christ cares about the beauty of marriage, the taste of wine. All of them sing His glory! Of course, the human being shows forth the beauty of God in a very special and particular way, and this is why you should also consider studying what it means to be human.

When you begin to acquire these realities of humble wisdom, virtue, and beauty, you begin to see the world as God made it. You see other human beings as made in His image—that is to say, in the image of Christ, Whom we confess in the Creed as true God and true man. When you begin to see the world as God made it, you realize that there is an ocean of beauty to explore. You need not be afraid to acquire the best tools to do it. Acquire all the good in science, medicine, the humanities, the arts, and other areas. Study boldly. Enter the workshop that God has created for you. Pick up the tools. Hold them in your hands. Learn how to use them, and get to work!

I hope that all of this does not sound too philosophical. If it does, please accept my apologia that love of wisdom is a good thing!

Many of you will be continuing your studies in a Christian high school, and some will not. If you are going to a Christian school, be thankful for the opportunity to study there. If you are not, do not worry. Remember that you do not go to a school alone, you go as a member of Christ’s Church. Wherever you are, you will still face a challenge: how to stay true to what you have learned and continue to grow in what you have been given. Most importantly, you have Christ in the Church, and you have your brothers and sisters in the Faith. The Church is irreplaceable, because Christ has made it His very body. Draw what you need from Christ in the Church, and you will do well. Challenges lie ahead of us, perhaps even difficulties and more. Christ has left you the Church, however, so that you can grow fully into His image. Yes, there are challenges, but you have what you need to meet them. So there is every reason to be hopeful. Hope does not disappoint us, if we remain faithful.

St. Timothy’s has left you a great gift, but only you can decide to remain faithful. As Christians, we strive to remain faithful to Christ out of love, not out of fear or even promise of reward. I can only encourage you to remain faithful out of love. I can only encourage you to remain hopeful. I can only invite you to love. The world is yours in Christ. Enjoy it and glorify Him!

The Very Reverend Protopresbyter Maxym Lysack is the pastor of Christ the Saviour Orthodox Church, a multicultural parish of the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in the downtown of Canada’s capital city of Ottawa. He is married and has two adult daughters.