This is the text of my Acceptance Speech for the Honorary Doctorate in Divinity, Liverpool Hope University, conferred by the Chancellor, Baroness Cox at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.
In his Hope lecture in this Cathedral a few weeks ago, Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminded us that we are interdependent to the very core of our being. The one God in whose image we are made is not a solitary, isolated being but a God whose inner life is a communion of love. When we honour each other, we honour that one God – just as when we dishonour each other, we dishonour God, as you reminded us so powerfully last night, Chancellor.
Today is the first full independent Graduation Day of Liverpool Hope University. There is something very beautiful and deeply symbolic about the fact that the first Degree given today is in Divinity.
In a sense, this honorary Doctorate is for all of us – it reminds us of who we are. Divinity is our calling and our destiny. The love at the heart of our one God has brought us into being so that we can share God’s divinity by reflecting that love between us. All the other degrees conferred today are in recognition of hard work, intense study and high achievement over the past two, three or four years – I congratulate all who are being so justly rewarded.
My honorary Doctorate in Divinity, on the other hand, is pure gift. As such it can remind us of the totally gratuitous gift God gives to each of us – and our whole human family – a sharing in God’s own divinity.
Some years ago Dr John Ashton, then Director of Public Health for Liverpool, wrote a very imaginative health strategy paper in the form of a walk through the city – half reality, half dream. He envisaged Liverpool as an Open Universe City – long before it was chosen as City of Culture.
We are gathered here together in this Open Universe City of Liverpool within this beautiful Cathedral. This is truly a holy place – not so much because of the building but because of who we are. This is my second graduation ceremony today – I have come from a school leavers’ Mass at St Basil’s Primary School. I promised the children I’d tell you all the message of their final song; ‘Tell everybody I’m on my way’. Very appropriate words for all graduating today.
Like those children, we too are on our way to the fulfilment of our divinity. Our interdependence links together the web of each of our lives, forming a rich tapestry in the eyes of God – in my case, including my family, those in the parishes I have served in and the wonderful people of a HIV-AIDS healthcare team closely linked to our shared parish.
The divinity we share is a challenge to each of us to be true to who we are. It is also a challenge to Liverpool Hope University to be true to its Christian, ecumenical mission – working for justice, reconciliation and peace in its own structures and in the wider world.