At Catholic Schools Week Mass, students give thanks as a community of disciples

Archbishop Weisenburger recounts Catholic school experience; 10 students earn scholarships in Alliance's annual contest

DETROIT — The Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament was packed to the brim Jan. 29 with Catholic school students from every corner of the Archdiocese of Detroit for the annual Catholic Schools Week Mass.

The yearly celebration is an opportunity to give God thanks for all the work that is done in Catholic schools, specifically the opportunity to live the faith together in community, said Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger, who braved a sore throat when delivering his homily.

In his first Catholic Schools Week Mass as archbishop of Detroit, Archbishop Weisenburger told the students he only attended Catholic school for one year — his second-grade year, when his family moved from Oklahoma to his mother’s native Kansas while his father was serving as a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War.

“And for the one year when I was in a Catholic school, it was one of the most frightening years of my life,” Archbishop Weisenburger said. “Not frightening because it was a Catholic school, but because my father was overseas in great danger. And that school circled the wagons (around us). They were an incredible support for us, and it reminded me that our schools are so much more than just wonderful places of academic excellence, scholarship, athletics and the arts.

“Our schools are about faith lived in community,” Archbishop Weisenburger continued, “our Catholic faith lived in community, where our young people learn more and more about the Church, and those who are not Catholic are exposed to the Church and come to see who we are and what we can do together.”

Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Robert J. Fisher celebrated Mass, and the singers from the music ministry group at Bishop Foley High School in Madison Heights provided the musical assistance.

Archbishop Weisenburger commended the Bishop Foley singers for leading the assembly in the celebration.

“It was amazing to be here today, leading the whole church in song,” Matt Daniels, Ph.D., director of music at Bishop Foley High School and Guardian Angels Parish in Clawson, told Detroit Catholic. “The last time we were asked to do this, the seniors in our group were in the ninth grade, and they lit up like Christmas trees because they remembered how special the experience was. This is something they will always remember.”

For the 10th year in a row, Alliance Catholic Credit Union awarded scholarships to 10 students who submitted entries in its “Live It. Show It. Share It.” Scholarship competition.

Keith Burke, vice president of marketing with Alliance Catholic Credit Union, presented 10 scholarships to students who submitted reflections about their visits to one of the 12 designated archdiocesan pilgrimage sites as part of the Jubilee Year of Hope.

“With this past year being the Jubilee Year of Hope, we wanted to do something special and align it with that,” Burke said. “So we invited the students to visit one of the 12 pilgrimage sites that the archdiocese has designated to take a picture of something that struck them at the site and then to write a reflection about it, what it meant to them and how it impacted them.”

Sisters Veronica and Mary DiFranco, a junior and a freshman at St. Catherine of Siena Academy in Wixom, respectively, visited Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Chapel in Livonia.

“We decided to visit the chapel on the campus of Madonna University because it was so very close to home, so it just felt right,” Mary DiFranco said.

“The environment of it was just very, very beautiful,” Veronica DiFranco added. “It was very quiet. It truly allowed us to kind of focus on the crucifix and focus on prayer with Jesus.”

The weeklong celebration of Catholic schools has allowed students the time to thank their parents and teachers for providing them with a Catholic education. Mary DiFranco, in particular, was grateful to attend daily Mass at St. Catherine’s.

“Encountering the Eucharist every single day at Mass to begin the school day is truly such a blessing,” Mary DiFranco said.

May Bluestein, Ph.D., associate superintendent for curriculum, instruction and assessment for the Archdiocese of Detroit’s Office of Catholic Schools, said Catholic Schools Week, and in particular the Catholic Schools Week Mass, is “a culmination of the beauty of our Catholic schools.”

“Among all the service projects and all the activities happening in our schools to celebrate who we are, the summit of it was this Mass, joining together in the celebration of the Eucharist and seeing all the beautiful schools here today, all the students, all the leaders, all the staff who are here to accompany them,” Bluestein said.

This year's Catholic Schools Week theme, “United in Faith and Community,” is a chance for students, teachers and staff to remember that community makes Catholic schools special.

“As Archbishop Weisenburger spoke so beautifully in his homily, Catholic schools are more than just academic excellence, the arts, learning, all these wonderful things,” Bluestein said. “It goes beyond that. We are united in faith together in our Catholic communities.”

After Mass, students and teachers lined the aisle of the cathedral to take group pictures with Archbishop Weisenburger and Bishop Fisher. Students also had the opportunity to venerate a first-class relic of St. Carlo Acutis, the millennial saint who was canonized last year.

As she looked out at a cathedral filled with priests, teachers, principals, and parents, Bluestein expressed her gratitude to the thousands of people whose sacrifices help make a Christ-centered education possible in southeast Michigan.

“I am a parent of three children in one of our Catholic schools, so I understand that sacrifice,” Bluestein said. “I used to be a teacher in one of our schools for more than 13 years, so I also understand the sacrifice of teaching in a Catholic school. To see all the voices and the support and the love of our community come together in this Mass is truly the work of the Holy Spirit, and it shows me, as a parent, that all those sacrifices are worth it.”