Speaker at High School Seniors Mass Says Her ‘Faith Has Flourished’

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Angelina Vuktilaj of Maria Regina High School in Hartsdale, who served as the student speaker at the first of two annual High School Seniors Masses celebrated at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, told the Class of 2016 that “our faith…has flourished because of our Catholic school educations.”

The Mass took place April 20 with more than 1,800 students attending. Cardinal Dolan was the principal celebrant and homilist. The second was to be celebrated April 27. Students served as lectors, gift bearers and altar servers.

“God is helping us discover who we are and what road we are meant to continue on, while on this journey that we call life,” Angelina said.

During his homily, Cardinal Dolan told the students that Jesus came to “bring light into the darkness.” He said that now that they are soon to graduate, “You are being sent out with all the knowledge and faith you have to be the light of Christ in the world.”

Maxwell Maleno, a senior at Regis High School in Manhattan, told CNY, “My Catholic education at Regis has challenged the way I interact with others and view the world around me, allowing me to apply virtue into my everyday life.”

“I know that I will bring the morals and drive to learn that have been fostered in my time at Regis into my next environment. Cardinal Dolan reiterated my hopes for the Class of 2016, saying that we ‘will bring light into the darkness’ of the surrounding world,” he said.

His Regis classmate Vincenzo Guido said, “A core element of our Catholic education is the celebration of our faith and Christian virtues. To celebrate our accomplishments in communion with our fellow students from throughout the Archdiocese of New York at the Seniors Mass offers us the chance to reflect on our achievements while also calling to mind times in which we have failed.

“My Catholic education—Jesuit education at Regis!—has pushed me to wholly invest myself in not only an academically rigorous curriculum, but has also given me the unique opportunity to critically analyze complex issues through the lens of Catholic social teaching,” he said.

Magdalena Losada, who attends The Ursuline School in New Rochelle, said, “With God as my strength I have no fear of what life may bring—misfortunes or happiness—because I know I will have my faith as my rock.” She said is now a person who is able to turn “to God and to find solace in Him. I have become a woman in the faith who is ready to defend it and proclaim it.”

Her classmate Vilma Fermin said, “The senior Mass represented the closing of a chapter that I have been a part of for over four years. I have been attending a Catholic school since the fifth grade. Many of the students at the Mass were people that I have grown up with and attended school with, so it was very nice to share the Mass with them, despite attending different schools.

“Although, we are graduating high school and going off to different colleges, whether religiously affiliated or not, we all have one thing in common and that's the Catholic education that made us who we are,” she said.