Fr. Edwin received honorary degree

Saint Anselm College, a Benedictine Catholic liberal arts college in Manchester, N.H., awarded an honorary doctorate to Headmaster Fr. Edwin Leahy, O.S.B. ’63, on May 16 at the 133rd Commencement Exercises. St. Benedict’s Prep and Saint Anselm share a long history. The Benedictine monks of St. Mary’s Abbey of Newark founded the college in 1889, and a steady succession of Gray Bee graduates have matriculated to the school each year.

In an engaging Commencement address, Fr. Edwin spoke of his own unlikely path to serving as Headmaster of St. Benedict's Prep for more than 50 years, and the power of community, using the example of bees. “Find a way to make honey out of the difficult places of life,” he encouraged the Class of 2026. “Find somebody in the cracks of life, on the periphery of life, on the rooftops and abandoned buildings of life, and bring the sweetness of your life to them. Don't keep the honey to yourself, share it with somebody else.”

Fr. Edwin advised graduates to be alert for the extraordinary in the midst of the ordinary. “Be alert for God speaking to you in the everyday of life, in the routine of life, in the burdens of life, in the sufferings of life… Charge on. Charge on.”

Fr. Edwin holds honorary degrees from Rutgers University, Saint Peter’s University, New Jersey Institute of Technology and St. John’s University, Minnesota.