Litany of Commission for the Class of 2020
Since 1978, the Baccalaureate Service has included a Litany of Commission written by Dr. Sidney T. Davis, Professor Emeritus of Religion and Christian Education and former Dean of the Chapel.
Dr. Davis, himself a student of Dr. Ralph C. Brown, Class of 1915 and a graduate in the class of 1936, has been an inspiration to many throughout the years. A faculty member from 1947-76, Dr. Davis mentored and inspired many church leaders. He continues to inspire present and future graduates of the college through the use of this Litany of Commission.
This is one tradition that does not have to be missed this year even though the COVID-19 pandemic has caused such upheaval in this time of celebration. In fact, as I went through the litany this week, it struck me that it only needed a mention of the situation at the beginning and at the end in order for it to apply to the class of 2020. Here is the litany with those slight additions in italics.
The President:
Members of the graduating class of 2020, the Wesleyan of today: administration, faculty, staff, fellow students, families; are not able to be together physically in Wesley Chapel for Baccalaureate Service or in the Rockefeller Gymnasium for your Commencement exercises as we would all love to be. However, you are surrounded by an unseen cloud of witnesses – wherever you may be – who have given to all of us a rich heritage in love of learning, devotion to truth, concern for people.
Graduating Seniors:
We gladly take this heritage as our own this day. We pledge ourselves to its preservation.
Wesleyan Community:
We rejoice in your commitment to the excellence of great traditions. We support you. We pray for your success.
The President:
You have lived and studied among people of faith. Without the undergirding, strength and courage of faith in God, the Wesleyan community would never have been born and could not survive. Take faith and let it daily be your companion.
Graduating Seniors:
We take heart for we have seen faith at work. We would be people of faith and receive it as our own: Faith in God, faith in our fellow human beings, and faith in ourselves as persons of God.
Wesleyan Community:
We, too, are people of faith and know its sustaining power. May it be yours: Faith to keep you strong, steady and serving
The President:
Go then, for there is now a noble commission given to you. Because of the special gifts with which you have been endowed, because of the nurture of those gifts by the spirit of Wesleyan, you are hereby commissioned to go out into the world to make a difference to change it for the better, to enrich it with your own brand of creative goodness, to redeem it when it falters. Go then, and God go with you!
Graduating Seniors:
We accept our commission. We dare to go because we must. Indeed, circumstances have required us to go long before we were ready. God grant that we shall be of good courage, and be faithful to the trust invested in us by our families, by Wesleyan, by the Church, and by God.
All: Amen
This Litany is not virtual. Yes, we would have preferred to say it in person. No, it is not changed because of the circumstances. In fact it may be more true today than ever! You are commissioned by generations of the Wesleyan community who have come before you to go out into the world, to make a difference to change it for the better, to enrich it with your own brand of creative goodness, to redeem it when it falters.
