“It is customary at occasions such as this for some old person to pass on his accumulated pearls of wisdom and life story to the young.
But this is not a customary year. It is a year marked by distinctive tragedy and challenge, by events that no one at last year’s commencement ceremony could have possibly anticipated.”

Seton Hall Address (2002)
Context: It is customary at occasions such as this for some old person to pass on his accumulated pearls of wisdom and life story to the young.
But this is not a customary year. It is a year marked by distinctive tragedy and challenge, by events that no one at last year’s commencement ceremony could have possibly anticipated. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon took the lives of so many — Seton Hall graduates among them — and have affected us so deeply that it is impossible to speak here today without acknowledging the witness to tragedy which this University and its students have borne.
These events delivered a four-fold shock to us and our country. The shock of our country, under attack. The shock that others would hate so much that they would kill themselves to hurt us. The shock of death to the youthful and innocent. The shock that the murderers would claim to have acted in the name of God.