“I want others to see Jesus when they look at me,” Alex Lynch used to say.
On graduation weekend at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, the most powerful lesson for graduates came from a graduate who wasn’t there: Alex Lynch, a senior Finance major from Indianola, Iowa.
He died of cancer a week before he graduated, but he was visible at commencement in the yellow ribbons most graduates wore to graduation.
“After receiving his degree, he left the world within 24 hours to his final goal, the final destination of his soul,” said Archbishop Joseph Naumann.
The Emeritus Archbishop of Kansas City, Kansas, celebrated the college’s Baccalaureate Mass on May 15. But “there was already a Baccalaureate Mass — last week,” he said.
On May 7, college chaplain Father Ryan Richardson had used the same readings of the Baccalaureate Mass to celebrate Mass for Alex, for students from the college and his family on their Iowa farm. Then the college’s president, Stephen D. Minnis, and chair of the School of Business, Mike King, presented Lynch’s degree. He died the next day, May 8.
Archbishop Naumann said, “Alex transformed culture with his life, through his selflessness with his time, with his capacity for friendship and his ability to invest in friends, for never complaining, his eagerness to help others, his joyful presence, and never being self-absorbed with his own suffering but interested in others and their story.”
The Archbishop was citing a testimony by Jack Figge that described what happened in the days before Lynch died, in a piece at the college’s Media & Culture website.
“When news began spreading that Alex passed away Friday night, an off-campus party stopped,” Figge wrote.
“Those gathered prayed a decade of the Rosary and the hosts dispersed the crowd, encouraging students to go to Adoration,” he added.
St. Benedict’s Church, where perpetual adoration is offered on campus, “was filled with students until late into the night, praying for Alex, sitting with the Lord. The next afternoon, 215 students gathered for Mass on a Saturday afternoon, in the midst of finals week, to pray for the repose of Alex’s soul.”
They gathered, he said, because “in four years at Benedictine, Alex established deep, deep roots and friendships with people from across a plethora of majors, extracurriculars and friend groups. He learned people’s names and their stories, all while sharing his own.”
Antonia Smith, one of three class of 2026 valedictorians, mentioned Alex in her commencement remarks, saying, “There was never a time that I passed Alex without receiving a, ‘Hello, Antonia’ — which is no small thing, since I’m an identical twin!’”
Lynch’s family was honored at commencement, but the most moving moment came the morning before.
At commencement President Minnis welcomed to the stage Alex’s parents, Jeremy and Jana, and his brother, Connor, who is a seminarian studying at the North American College in Rome.
But the day before, at the senior class’s last student meal in the dining hall, Dr. Edward Mulholland spoke about Alex’s style of friendship and said, “Do that.”
He talked about how students make plans to eat in the dining hall. “People just say, ‘Hey, we’ll get there before you and we’ll save you a seat, we’ll be waiting for you.’ It then can become a crew that lasts for a few years.”
Mulholland called the dining hall, “My favorite classroom at Benedictine College. It is where I have taught most often, and where I have learned most often. … I have learned that the best relationships are ones that are rooted in prayer, fueled by grace, peppered with laughter, and ultimately revolve around the true, the good, and the beautiful.”
Alex gave seniors their marching orders, said Mulholland: “Welcome others in, widen the circle, with Benedictine College hospitality … and as you do, hear Alex say to all of us at the Lord’s banquet table: ‘I’ll get there before you and I’ll save you a seat. I’ll be waiting for you.’”
