During the Academic Awards Assembly on February 5, 2025, Assistant Head of School Michael Nerbonne gave the following speech as he addressed students on this year's theme of "Witness."
View video recording of speech ►
"Let all the nations gather together,
and let the peoples assemble.
Who among them can declare this,
and show us the former things?
Let them bring their witnesses to justify them,
and let them hear and say, It is true.
“You are my witnesses”, says the Lord,
“and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe me,
and understand that I am He.
Before me no god was formed,
nor shall there be any after me.
I, I am the Lord,
and besides me there is no savior.
I declared and saved and proclaimed,
when there was no strange God among you;
and you are my witnesses, says the Lord.
Isaiah 43: 9-12
In our year of “witness”, I have been noticing and listening for the various ways in which the concept of “witness” has been interpreted and represented over the ages, particularly in scripture and literature. In this passage, the God of Israel challenges his chosen people to gather other nations with their gods, and to have the people of those nations provide witness to those same gods. God then goes on to contrast those gods and nations with his relationship to Israel, noting that his people will be his “witnesses”. But, we might ask, witnesses to what, exactly? I want to suggest this morning that they are being called to witness to God’s love and devotion and fidelity to them. “You are my witnesses”, says the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am He.”
In a kind of reversal of the passage from Isaiah, literature is replete with examples of men and women calling upon God or the gods to serve as a witness. We can think of the common phrase, “With God as my witness.”
In Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, characters often swear oaths by calling upon Zeus to give credence to their pledges, and in Greek tragedy characters very often invoke the names of various deities to witness their prayers or promises.
John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost, “For me, be witness, all the Host of Heav’n”, and John Dryden expressed in a similar vein, “That still I love, I call to Witness all the Pow’rs above.”
But here Isaiah describes God returning the favor, or perhaps a better way of saying it would be returning the honor, of asking us to bear witness to Him and to all of His goodness to us throughout the ages and each and every day of our lives.
So, how are we to bear witness in our own lives? In his opening remarksthis year, Mr. Sullivan noted that the ancient Greek word for witness is martus, which gives us our English word martyr. Although we attendand serve and cherish a School named for a holy martyr, Sebastian, I am confident most of us will never be called upon to lay down our lives as witnesses in martyrdom for our faith.
But we can be witnesses in other very powerful and meaningful ways. One way is by honoring the brotherhood and friendships here which so many of you celebrate in your chapel speeches.
And what is the relationship between witness on the one hand and friendship and brotherhood on the other?
The essay writer and poet, David Whyte wrote that the heart of friendship “is not improvement, neither of the other or of the self, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”
I want to highlight another very powerful form of witness which we observe in all of you in myriad ways throughout the year. This is the way in which you serve one another here on campus and your fellow citizens in the wider community. Service is witness, both to our common humanity and dignity as children of God, and also to our love of neighbor, especially those most in need of our generosity and assistance.
Columnist, David Brooks, in an article which appeared in the New York Times just a couple of weeks ago, highlighted the central role of service in any institution, but particularly schools, devoted to witnessing to the importance of character development. He wrote, “Community service, whether it’s feeding the poor, sitting with the homeless or championing some cause, is not just to make society better; it is done to usher a transformation within the person doing the service….People don’t become better versions of themselves as they acquire intellectual information; they get better as they acquire emotional knowledge…to know how to gracefully do things with people, not for people.”
So, when you participate in the Miracle League, you bear witness to the inherent worth of every person made in God’s image no matter their apparent disabilities. When you tutor younger students at St. Pope John Paul II Academy or support San Miguel School, you bear witness to the importance of educational opportunities in breaking the cycle of poverty. When you participate in the food drive or the warmth drive or in preparing meals for Fr. Bill’s and Mainspring, you bear witness to the demands of the Gospel to feed and clothe the needy and the poor.
When this great senior class of 2025 leaves campus in just a few short weeks to engage in their senior service responsibilities, they will understand the School’s priority and prayer for them that they devote their significant talents in service to others, and they will embrace andbear witness to the truth of the gospel that from those to whom much is given, much will be expected.
And here on campus, whenever you provide help to one of your St. Sebastian’s brothers by tutoring, or mentoring or educating, or in some other silent, unrecognized way, your bear witness to our unity and solidarity and fellowship in Christ.
May we continue joyfully and prayerfully to bear witness to those around us, our friends and brothers here in this community, as well as all of those whom we serve outside of these walls.
Thank you and God bless."