Bishop Parkes Challenges AMU's Class of 2026: “How Did You Love?”

On May 8, Ave Maria University opened Commencement weekend with a Baccalaureate Mass at Ave Maria Catholic Parish, celebrating the Class of 2026 alongside their families, faculty, staff, and students. Bishop Stephen Parkes of the Diocese of Savannah delivered the homily, drawing on the Gospel of John 15:12-17 to issue the graduating class a challenge as simple as it is demanding: love.

"Love one another as He has loved us," Bishop Parkes said, reflecting on Jesus' words. "In John chapter fifteen, it's interesting to note that Jesus says, 'This is my command.' This was not a suggestion."

Bishop Parkes opened by noting the occasion fell on the one-year anniversary of the election of Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born pope. Marking the moment, he offered graduates a framework for a life well-lived drawn from St. Augustine: "To seek God is the greatest adventure, to fall in love with Him is the greatest romance, and to find Him is the greatest human accomplishment."

Throughout his homily, Bishop Parkes emphasized that God's love is not a reward to be earned but a gift to be received and shared. "We receive God's love not because of who we are, but because of who He is," he said. He called graduates to embrace what he described as a twofold mission: to be open to love and to go out as courageous, joyful witnesses of that love to the world.

He pointed to the Blessed Mother, patroness of Ave Maria University, as a model. "Her incredible response of love in the way that she lived her life should inspire each one of us to follow her example," he said, recalling the Magnificat.

Echoing the Acts of the Apostles, Bishop Parkes reminded graduates that the early Christians were sent out into the unknown with nothing but faith, and that God watched over them. He quoted Mother Teresa: "God has called me not to be successful, but He has called me to be faithful."

He offered graduates a threefold counsel for life after graduation: stay close to God in prayer, stay close to the Church, and stay close to your family. "If you do those three things, it's pretty amazing—everything else falls into place."

His homily closed with a question he said each person will one day face before God. "I don't think he's going to want a laundry list of all of the good deeds we did in our lives," Bishop Parkes said. "But he may ask us one very simple question: How did you love?"

The spirit of that question carried into the remarks that followed. Before the final blessing, Chairman of the Board of Trustees Patrick Rainey introduced Mother Olga of the Sacred Heart, founder of the Daughters of Mary of Nazareth, whose religious order maintains a community on the AMU campus. In introducing her, Rainey recalled the moment he first saw Mother Olga pause before the life-size statue of Mother Teresa in the Thomas and Selby Prince Building—struck not only by the resemblance in stature, but by "her spirit of love and mercy, which she exudes at every moment."

Mother Olga, who was born in Iraq and came to the United States in 2001, grounded her remarks in Jeremiah 1:5—"Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart." Drawing on her ministry in hospitals and prisons, and her own vocation story, she told graduates that a mission does not require certainty, only faithfulness. She pointed to Jeremiah 29:11 as her anchor—God's promise of plans for a future and a hope, declared not once but three times in a single verse.

"Whether you know what you are set apart for or not, I want you to trust Him," she said with a smile.