Pacific School of Religion Celebrates Resilience and Hope at 2023 Commencement

On Sunday, May 21st Pacific School of Religion (PSR) celebrated its 156th commencement with the theme: Journeying the Path of Greatest Resilience: Embracing Faith and Practicing Hope. The 20 graduating students chose the theme in recognition of the challenges they faced while completing their degree and certificate programs almost entirely under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Rev. Ann Jefferson, PSR’s director of community life and spiritual care said, “Despite the turbulence and uncertainty of the last three years students also wanted their commencement theme to reflect the ways faith and community have allowed them to build resilience and to share the hope they see for the future.” 

Rev. Dr. Mahsea Evans PSR faculty and alumnx, and pastor at First United Methodist Church in Roseville, CA gave the commencement address, focused on themes of resilience. He quoted Psalm 46, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble. Therefore, will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.” He said it spoke directly to the graduates’ perseverance and faith in the face of the upheaval of the past few years: the pandemic, racism, homophobia, and threats to our democracy among many others. “What is amazing is that as a testament to your resilience and God’s faithfulness, you not only came to PSR, but you struggled, and you thrived, and now we are here, arrived in this moment.” 

In an emotional moment, PSR’s President, Rev. David Vásquez-Levy presented a posthumous Master of Divinity degree to the family of Isamaeli (Eli) Mata’afa, a beloved student who was murdered in a random act of gun violence in October. Vásquez-Levy told the assembled celebrants, “Eli embodied everything our PSR family holds dear. He was a person of deep personal faith and was a leader and mentor in his community with a desire to create a world where all can thrive. He had much more to give before he was taken from us.” He closed with Romans 8:38-39, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

The choir from Eli’s home church, the Congregational Christian Church of American Samoa, sang, There’s a Sweet, Sweet Spirit in this Place following the presentation. 

Five other students were also awarded Master of Divinity (MDiv) degrees; Janice Taylor, Sundria Sam, Susan King, Lahoma J. Howard, and A. Joe Gonzales. Each student was also awarded a Certificate of Spirituality and Social Change (CSSC) and a Master of Art in Social Transformation (MAST), both of which they earned along the way to completing their MDiv thanks to PSR’s innovative stackable curriculum.  

Taylor described how the stackable curriculum helped her stay motivated saying, “As a young single mom, I’d been chasing higher education goals for 40 years. Sacrificing my education to the commitment of family care: a son, aging parents, grandchildren, serving the community, and the toll of life. Every semester, I did not know how I was going to start nor how I would finish, but I reminded myself: it all stacks up. I told myself to just get through today, which turned into weeks, then full semesters, then a certificate, then a MAST, and today my Master of Divinity degree. This week I fulfilled that 40-year dream as my children, grandchildren, my 90-year young mom, and community witnessed this crossing.”

Six students were awarded Doctor of Ministry degrees with a range of final projects that reflect the distinctive courses of study available at PSR including Patricia Gill’s, Wade in the Water: A Theology of Radical Resistance in the Negro Spirituals, Arielle C. Huettner’s, A New Role of Spirituality and Pastoral Counseling in Youth Suicide Prevention, Mark Chiang’s, Heart to Heart to Heart: A Conversation about Polyamory and Ethical Non-Monogamy in the Church, Elena Larssen’s, The Pandemic Pivot: Lessons We Learned That Will Lead Us Forward, Elizabeth Leavitt’s, Worship on the Threshold: Ministry With and For Religious Nones, and Safue Logo Ulufaleilupe’s, The Next Generation of the Samoan Church.  

Ulufaleilupe was joined by MAST graduate, Ryan Cassata to announce the recipients of this year’s senior gift which will be split between Everytown for Gun Safety, to honor Mata’Afa’s memory, and the ACLU for their work in LGBTQIA Advocacy and Policy. Anyone wishing to add a contribution to the senior gift can do so through PSR’s giving page. 

The ceremony also included an acknowledgment of this year’s student awards which honor excellence in building community, preaching, and ethics and were presented at Graduates’ Chapel on May 9th.

Closing the ceremony, Dean Susan Abraham said, “Today you become forever part of the PSR family. We are bound to you as you are bound to us. We are unspeakably proud of each one of you. We will follow where you will dare to lead. Go and do great things, wonderful things, loving things, in the manner of the One that called each of us into being.”