Goodness Over Glory
MR MARK TANNOCK, PRINCIPAL
As the Principal of a school like Saint Ignatius’ College Riverview, I have the privilege and honour of attending many funerals of members of our community. A privilege because you are afforded the opportunity to be present with a family in their time of grief whilst also having an opportunity to hear the story of someone’s life.
In recent weeks I have attended two funerals and a memorial service. Two weeks ago, Mr Kevin Burges, the ‘oldest Old Boy’ of St Aloysius’ College and the father of a close personal friend, was farewelled at St Mary’s Church, North Sydney. Last Sunday in the Dalton Chapel, Father Rector presided at a beautiful memorial mass for Mr Tom Lyons (OR1956) surrounded by his loving family and many friends. This week I flew to Perth to attend the funeral of Mrs Christine Scatena, my best friend’s mother whom I have known since I was a boy.
All three services were rich and moving. They celebrated lives that were very different, but that were united by love and by faith. Kevin, Tom and Christine were deeply loving people who, in turn, were loved. And so, while all three were elderly, their passings were mourned by those who had cherished them as spouses, parents, grandparents, siblings, friends and colleagues. The lives revealed in their eulogies are ones to emulate. Lives of goodness.
Goodness (or the pursuit of virtue) is our greatest priority in the formation of the boys at Riverview. We value this above all else. We often fail at this (both personally and communally), but it is our essential priority, nevertheless. Goodness is the manifestation of an inherent belief that each member of the human family possesses a certain inalienable dignity that means they deserve to be treated with justice and mercy.
This prioritisation of goodness is the simplest manifestation we have of our identity as a Catholic, Christian school. Christians believe that inalienable dignity comes from our creation in the “image and likeness of God”.
The American social commentator David Brooks, in his book The Road to Character writes of ‘eulogy virtues’ and compares them to ‘résumé virtues’. Résumé virtues are those things you write on a résumé (or CV) that you hope will convince an employer to offer you a job or a position. Just open up LinkedIn , the business social media platform, and you will see what he means by these. Eulogy virtues, in comparison, are those qualities that people will speak of at your funeral. Whether you were kind, brave, honest, thoughtful and the like. Whether you were good.
Jesus calls on us to be good to others. This can be a challenging call from Christ. He not only asks us to be good to those we love and those who are in the most need of our goodness (the poor and the marginalised) but also the ones who are hardest to be good to – those people we don’t love, find it difficult to be around or hold in contempt. Those who have done us wrong.
Eulogy virtues are practised over a lifetime. They can’t be faked. If they are not genuine, no one will mention them at your funeral. They are the slow, but inevitable work of your goodness on others. So that’s the College’s timeless challenge to our students – find ways to bring your goodness into the world that so desperately needs it. Don’t spend time on your résumé virtues. They are fleeting. Each young man for others will be known, remembered and ultimately loved by his eulogy virtues.
As Hamlet said of his father: “He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.”
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Congratulations to 1st V Captain, Bailey Hanson (Year 12), who was part of the NSW U20s Basketball team that recorded a close 74–71 win over Western Australia in the Grand Final of the National Championships in Ballarat. Bailey was recognised with MVP honours, while Old Boy Bol Diing (OR2025) also featured as a starter in the championship side. We missed him last Saturday against Newington College and look forward to his return this week against Shore School.
