By Carol Zimmermann
WASHINGTON (CNS) – University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind., graduates were asked May 21 to take stock of where they are going and what they will do with their talents.
“Today you have the opportunity to decide what you will be beyond this point. Will you say yes to God’s plan in your life?” Sister Normal Pimentel, M.J., recipient of Notre Dame’s 2018 Laetare Medal, asked the university’s graduating seniors.
Sister Norma, a member of the Missionaries of Jesus, urged the graduates to think about what their response would be to the world “which needs you to make a difference and speak for the voiceless and help the voiceless have a voice.”
The Laetare recipient, who has overseen the charitable arm of the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, since 2008 – providing those in need in the Rio Grande Valley with emergency food and shelter, housing assistance, clinical counseling and pregnancy care – recounted her own experience as the child of Mexican immigrants and encouraged the graduates to accept God’s call to stand in solidarity with those in need.
“Today our country, our world for that matter, is divided, polarized in two opposing sides,” she said. “Those who believe we are called to primarily defend and protect ourselves – and those who believe we have a moral responsibility to defend and protect everyone we can.”
The Laetare Medal given to Sister Norma is part of a long tradition at the university, presented annually since 1883 to honor a Catholic “whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the church and enriched the heritage of humanity.”
Notre Dame’s graduation ceremony, delayed for an hour because of rain, was attended by approximately 21,000 family members, friends, faculty and graduates. The main speaker was Judge Sergio Moro, a Brazilian federal judge who has been a central figure in efforts to confront corruption.
In his address to students and their families, he said he realized how small the world is after asking himself what a judge in a Latin American country has to do with a university in the United States.
“Everything is connected in this small world and you could have a reasonable expectation that what you do here in the United States, or more specifically at the University of Notre Dame, could have a positive impact abroad, all around the globe,” Moro said, adding, “This makes your responsibilities even bigger.”
He also urged graduates to always fight for the common good.
“Never forget to act with integrity and with virtue in your private and public life,” he said.