The familiar tune, Pomp and Circumstance, was composed by Edward Elgar in 1901 and was the first piece in the recessional music for the coronations of both George VI and Elizabeth II. Written in steady 4/4 time, it is perfect for marching in procession, and its stately quality adds solemnity to any formal gathering. It has since been commonly used at virtually all high school and most college graduation ceremonies, the first on June 28, 1905, at Yale.
In the course of a life, there are great transitions when the choice of words and music ought to be chosen with care. We could name many, but here are the four most important ones: birth, coming of age, marriage, and death. Each occasion needs its own kind of speech and ceremony—birth, in which we name children and bless them, either through dedication or baptism. We say important things that create a future where none existed. Then there is the transition to vocation as one comes of age. This is usually followed by marriage. When a man and woman are married, there is a pronouncement, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” It doesn’t just describe something; it makes something new happen. Finally, at death we pronounce commendations, farewells and committals.
These acts are not casual. They command reality and change relationships. This is why ceremony and ritualized speech are absolutely necessary: they mark and transform life’s critical transitions. The liturgies we use in special moments is a way of managing and ordering time, giving form to the turning points in human and community life. Without liturgical forms—blessings, prayers, vows, and declarations, we, as humans, get lost in time. If all days and occasions are the same, and we fail to recognize the priority of certain moments, we flatten time and diminish its meaning. At each of these points, formal speech and public rituals are not just optional—they are essential to being truly human. They allow individuals to be received, sent, united, or released by the community. Conversely, a life without ceremony is a life that cannot properly recognize beginning, initiation, transformation, or conclusion.
We have lost much of this in modern life, which has emptied ceremonies of their real power. I notice that weddings and funerals are notably “democratized.” It’s not that they lack expressions of sentiment; rather, they often fail to include the very things which need to be said. Holy thoughts need holy words, words that are somehow removed from the business of the world, composed and uttered with careful reflection. Without meaningful rites of passage and ceremonial words, people become disoriented and fragmented—unable to grow properly through the stages of life.
Which brings me to commencement ceremonies at New Covenant. Graduation is a moving from one stage to another. It marks the end of childhood and the beginning of adulthood. It is therefore an initiation to another way of being oneself, a better, wiser, and more mature self. It is the door through which a young person passes to independence, full responsibility, and the embrace of work. How we dress, what we say, what we sing, and what we do, are all calculated to manage this moment, to capture the essence of what is happening to the students who have come to this time in life. A New Covenant graduation is a joyous event, but you won’t see beach balls bouncing around the crowd, nor will you hear cow bells jangling, and the like. Rather, we script the ceremony in such a way to make a statement to the student, and the more prominent we make the ceremonial form—the more importance we attach to it—the more we impress upon the students the gravity of what is happening. We respect our students by dignifying the moment they have come to.
And something heavy is happening. Those who were once children are changing the relationship they have had with parents, with family, with their teachers, and with the school community. So we change their names. We no longer call them students; we call them alumni. We are by no means imagining that they are complete. In truth they are beginning again, which is what the word “commencement” means. The faculty at New Covenant, together with parents, have only laid a foundation, upon which these young men and women will go forth to build. I commend them all and I hope you’ll take a few minutes to meet them in the pages of the April 28, 2025 edition of Quid Novi.
