Graduating Seniors Express Thanks for Catholic Education at Cathedral Mass

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As Cardinal Dolan surveyed the more than 1,800 fresh-faced high school seniors from across the archdiocese proudly turned out in their uniforms in a packed St. Patrick’s Cathedral April 15 for the first of the annual graduation Masses his own pride was evident.

“It’s a lot of sweat, it’s a lot of love, it’s a lot of tears to keep our splendid Catholic high schools rolling,” the cardinal told the seniors, “and every once in a while we’re tempted to ask, is it worth it? And on a day like this it is so evident that you bet it’s worth it! It’s worth all the sweat and all the blood and all the tears we pour into our beloved Catholic high schools because you are worth it. So thanks be to God for what we’ve got.”

That pride was manifest throughout the congregation as well—pride in each other, pride in their schools and pride in their own achievements, mixed with gratitude and perhaps a little melancholy as the excited seniors began their final journey together towards graduation.

It was the first of two Masses at St. Patrick’s Cathedral to begin the formal graduation season that will culminate at commencement exercises all over the archdiocese in June. The cardinal offered second liturgy April 22.

Students at both Masses served as lectors, gift bearers and altar servers. At the April 15 Mass, Emily Flaherty of Our Lady of Lourdes High School, Poughkeepsie, sang solo; Andrea LaPointe from St. Joseph Hill Academy, Staten Island, gave the first reading while Keith Guerrant from Cardinal Spellman High School, Manhattan offered the general intercessions. The gift bearers were: Amanda Waggoner of St. Joseph Hill Academy, Staten Island; Sofia Mendez of St. Catherine Academy, the Bronx; Adrian Corbin, LaSalle Academy, Manhattan; Sabrina Yu, Dominican Academy, Manhattan; and Margaret McHugh, Our Lady of Lourdes High School, Poughkeepsie.

The altar servers were: Kaitlyn Gould, St. John Villa Academy; Angela Barbosa, St. Catherine Academy; Daniel Ogulnick Our Lady of Lourdes High School, Poughkeepsie; Gerardo Ramos, St. Raymond High School for Boys, the Bronx; and Valerie Baez, St. Raymond Academy for Girls, the Bronx.

At the end of the Mass Ambrose Gonzalez of Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx offered words of gratitude to Cardinal Dolan on behalf of the seniors and left no doubt about what Catholic education meant to him. He had received most of his education in the public schools system before enrolling at Cardinal Hayes.

“Your Eminence, I am not a product of a 12- or even a four-year Catholic education,” he noted. “Rather I came to Cardinal Hayes High School at the beginning of my junior year having attended public school for a good part of my elementary and early high school education. When I first attended Cardinal Hayes I didn’t know what to expect. But Catholic school showed me the right path I should take in truly becoming the man that God had intended me to be.”

Ms. McHugh, one of the gift bearers, concurred. “My Catholic education has been very important in my life,” she told CNY. “Going to Our Lady of Lourdes High School taught me to always keep God at the center of my life and he’ll get me through anything.”

Ms. Yu, another gift bearer, expressed surprise at how many fellow grads from all over the archdiocese filled the pews.

“I was quite surprised to see so many Catholic schools,” she said. “I didn’t realize there were so many around the city in the other boroughs.”

Dr. Timothy McNiff, superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese of New York, said the Graduates Mass each year is an appropriate capstone to the students’ Catholic education experience.

“What makes it a punctuation mark for me is these are our very best and to get them to come to God’s house to celebrate the liturgy right before they are ready to leave is special,” he said. “You know I love what the cardinal said. Our first thing is to introduce them to Jesus Christ and have them develop a relationship with Christ for the rest of their lives.

“First and foremost that’s the most important thing. But then you have to supplement it with a quality academic experience because one cannot come at the expense of the other. Sister Marie Pappas, C.R., who used to be in the schools office, said a few years ago if you don’t have a good academic program, it’s not a Catholic school. So those are the two things we try to provide to the students. Now we’re ready to send them on to their next experience and I think we have them very prepared to do that.”