26.05.2020
‘The World Has Changed Before Your Eyes’ – Archbishop Writes to the Class of 2020
Archbishop Michael Jackson, has written to the Class of 2020 to express his support for them at this time. His letter has been sent to sixth year students in schools of which he is a patron or which have Church of Ireland connections in the United Dioceses of Dublin & Glendalough. These students would have expected to begin their Leaving Certificate exams next week, had they not been cancelled due to Covid–19.
The Archbishop commended students for their patience over the past weeks and months and congratulated them for finding ways to cope in the crisis. The Class of 2020 had been denied being part of a community and a very special year group in their schools, he said. They had also been working towards a specific goal since the start of the year.
“You have every reason to be confused by what has happened. And even now when decisions have been made about The Leaving Certificate for this year, there still is confusion. Confusion always raises important issues about fulfilment and fairness. These questions will remain. They are currently beyond your control. I want to encourage you to do some simple things that are within your control. In this way, I am encouraging you to keep control over your own lives in these difficult days of the coronavirus. We continue to live in times that are as dangerous to you as they are to me and to everyone else. We all need to stay safe,” Archbishop Jackson stated.
He urged the members of the Class of 2020 to honour their gifts and talents. He added that they had no need to fear this world. “You need to remember that you have everything to offer. The world has changed before your eyes to a world that feels a lot more closed in. In whatever ways others, who are also doing their best to care for your future, they too are caught in the eye of a public health pandemic that has neither secure science nor viable vaccine,” he said.
He also asked sixth years to hold on to their life goals and nurture them and to retain their friendship group.
You can read the letter in full below:
Dear Class of 2020
All of you have been very patient over the past months and weeks since any form of gathering in school with your friends was last possible. I want to congratulate you for coping in the ways you all have done. All this time you have not had the chance of being a community and being a very special year group in your school: The Class of 2020. You will have had a very strong focus from the start of the year, your last year in school, and you will have been working hard towards that. You have every reason to be confused by what has happened. And even now when decisions have been made about The Leaving Certificate for this year, there still is confusion. Confusion always raises important issues about fulfilment and fairness. These questions will remain. They are currently beyond your control. I want to encourage you to do some simple things that are within your control. In this way, I am encouraging you to keep control over your own lives in these difficult days of the coronavirus. We continue to live in times that are as dangerous to you as they are to me and to everyone else. We all need to stay safe.
The first thing I ask you to do is to honour your own talents and gifts. Many of these you have had to set to one side over the last two months but the day will return when you will be able to use them and to celebrate and share them publicly in a different sort of world that will open before you. You have the energy for this world. You have no need to fear this world. You need to remember that you have everything to offer. The world has changed before your eyes to a world that feels a lot more closed in. In whatever ways others, who are also doing their best, to care for your future, they too are caught in the eye of a public health pandemic that has neither secure science nor viable vaccine.
The second thing I ask you to do is to hold on to your life goals. In fact, I’d go further and suggest that you write them down either in a journal or in your phone in case you forget what they are at this time. Sometimes frustration can bring to the fore the clearest expression of what matters most to us. These life goals you will have developed partly by building them up gradually, partly by flashes of insight of your own and partly by the example of others. You may still want to be and to do what you wanted when you first entered secondary school. Your ideas may have changed. Both are entirely valid. But most of all these goals are your goals and they are precious for that very reason. There is no good reason for them to disappear. Please hold on to them and nurture them.
The third thing I ask you to do is to retain your friendship group. For some of us this is family, for others it is a smaller or a larger group of friends with whom we have shared interests and ideas and good fun inside and outside of school. Please continue to talk and to work your way through these very difficult times. Together you have more energy than you have individually. This energy you can still bring to this wonderful time in your lives. Many people look to you for inspiration. I encourage you to look after yourselves, not to give way to disappointment. I encourage you to enjoy your life, your family and friends. Remember that you are special and important to Ireland today and the Ireland of tomorrow.
Yours sincerely
+Michael
Archbishop of Dublin