For recent Saint Viator High School graduates, their high school career ended where it started: at Mass.
Members of the Class of 2013 gathered one last time in the school’s Alumni Memorial Chapel for a send off Mass, where Fr. Corey Brost, CSV, celebrated the liturgy. Even before the opening hymn, he conceded: “I miss you already. This place will be different without you.”
During the Mass, Fr. Brost urged the teens to think of the values they had learned during their four years at Saint Viator.
“Along with the academics and new friends, God has something in store for you,” he said, “and if you want that, you have to stay rooted.”
When asked to identify some of those values they now saw in themselves, their answers varied.
“I know to be open to meeting people, and not to judge them,” Sara Fecko said.
Her classmate Emma Leidlich agreed, adding: “Trust in yourself.”
Ethan Jedziniak called on his Kairos retreat experiences and said he hoped to live every day as the fourth day. “Be true to yourself, every day.”
Emma Hogaboom summed it up this way: “I’ll carry my faith with me, and know that God is always with me.”
As a memento, officials with the high school’s Alumni Relations office gave each student a card with the poem, “Anyway,” written by Mother Teresa, and encouraged them to display it prominently.
“Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough,” the poem concludes. “Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.”