‘Love always wins,’ Assumption grads hear

By Tanya Connor  | The Catholic Free Press

WORCESTER – Love – expressed in various ways – was a central focus at Assumption College’s 102nd commencement, which drew thousands to the DCU Center Sunday.
“Love always wins,” said Robert Lewis Jr., quoting his mother in his Mother’s Day commencement address. CEO of the Boston-based non-profit The BASE, he said “the purpose of life is to give it away” and urged listeners to be generous with their loving-kindness.
“I want to say this publicly: ‘I love you,’” he said, and got the audience to give graduates a standing ovation.
Assumption awarded 456 bachelor of arts degrees; 144 graduate studies degrees and certificates; and 35 continuing and career education degrees, according to the college.
Mr. Lewis praised Assumption and its president, Francesco C. Cesareo, for supporting The BASE, which he launched in 2013 to help inner-city student athletes attend college. He asked the four of them who were graduating from Assumption on Sunday to stand.
The college was one of the first three institutions of higher learning to partner with The BASE, providing scholarships and other opportunities to 11 students, according to information from the college. Nationwide, The BASE serves 1,400 individuals, it said.
Assumption gave honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees to Mr. Lewis and Sister Ann Credidio, a Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who established Damien House for lepers in Ecuador. She’s been dedicated to working with people with leprosy for more than 30 years.
Mr. Lewis embraced President Cesareo and Assumptionist Father Dennis M. Gallagher, vice-chair of the board of trustees, who presented him for the degree, and salutatorian Julia Nicole Demkowicz, who introduced him as commencement speaker. During his talk he said, “We don’t shake hands; we hug,” expressing a desire to build a society in which people are closer to each other.
He said his mother had a fourth-grade education and he lived in public housing and attended public school.
“I was a welfare kid,” he said. “Welfare is what got me through. … I started The BASE because I wanted to shift the narrative. When you look at me, what do you see? Your future. …  Don’t call us at-risk. … Don’t call us disadvantaged,” but, instead, college graduates.
“Assumption College, you are who we’ve been waiting for,” Mr. Lewis said, and asked, “Who are we waiting for?”
“Us,” responded graduates.
“Lead with your soul,” he told them.
President Cesareo also challenged graduates to do that.
He talked about having love and respect for suffering people, helping them with alms, words and in other ways.
Society needs people with a moral framework grounded in a Catholic worldview, “who understand that policies, decisions, and actions devoid of values have negative consequences,” he said. He told graduates not to be afraid to be instruments of God’s love, to speak the truth and live the values of their alma mater.
Valedictorian Zachary John Fournier said the graduates have no greater call than to love others and to manifest that love in service, and he recounted some ways they have served.
He told of miners being light to each other other while trapped in a dark, collapsed mine shaft in Chile in 2010. He said Assumption graduates are called to light the way with their gifts, sometimes in their own darkness, for their peers, community and world.
“This is not a call that ends when we receive our diplomas,” he said, adding that Pope John Paul II said the future starts today, not tomorrow.