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Minutes before the annual Mass for High School Seniors was to begin, the student speaker sat in his place on the altar at St. Patrick’s Cathedral composed and ready.
When asked if he were nervous, Nicolas Camacho of Salesian High School calmly said with a smile, “It’s actually a great honor. I’m basically representing all the seniors.”
Before the April 25 Mass began, Camacho took a few moments to speak with CNY near the podium where he would later deliver an address to the graduating seniors who were situated in the pews—their uniform colors of reds, blues and greens creating a colorful display.
He said with a laugh that when he delivers a graduation address to his fellow Salesian students as valedictorian, it would be much more relaxed than the one he was about to give. However, if the Salesian senior was nervous, it did not show.
Camacho told of his anticipation about speaking in front of Cardinal Dolan. He said he hoped he would have a chance to greet the cardinal personally, which he did at the end of Mass.
With graduation only a few weeks away, Camacho focused his talk on how Catholic education prepares students for the future. “We are all from Catholic schools,” he said. “We are all headed down the same pathway.”
One of the main things all the students share, he said, is, “We are learning about life.” He said that a goal for the class of 2012 going forward is to “truly be evangelists of the Good News.”
The Mass was one of two for the thousands of Catholic high schools graduates in the Class of 2012; the other was celebrated April 24. The student speaker at that Mass was Kieffer Peralta of All Hallows High School in the Bronx.
During his homily April 25, Cardinal Dolan told the students he hoped they learned an important lesson in their years of Catholic education—“It’s about God and about other people.”
He referred to Pope John Paul II’s “Law of the Gift” and explained it as a philosophy that says we are at our best as a human person when we selflessly and sacrificially give ourselves away to another.
The cardinal highlighted examples of those who followed the law of the gift, such as Clara Almazo, the grandmother on Staten Island who selflessly gave up her life on Holy Thursday to save her grandson as a car careened towards them, and FDNY Lt. Richard Nappi, a 9/11 responder who died in a Brooklyn blaze April 20; as well as the students’ parents, faculty and school benefactors.
Above all, he said, Jesus Christ reminds us of this “supreme lesson.”
The cardinal said, “I like to propose that is what your Catholic education is all about.”
A senior attending the Mass, Kathleen Dorado of Dominican Academy in Manhattan, highlighted the giving nature of her Catholic education during an interview. She said she realized during her four years of school that teachers and faculty “are there for you.”
“That’s what I really appreciated about my time at Dominican Academy,” she said.
Click on the links below to read the full text given by the student speakers from the two Masses for High School Seniors.
