Catholic schools provide the tools of faith, and the Lord provides the courage, says Bishop Emeritus Foys at high school senior Mass

Maura Baker

Staff Writer

In commemoration of their final year of high school, senior students, alongside their faculty and administrators, gathered, April 4, at Covington’s Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption to celebrate the annual “Senior Mass.”

Bishop Emeritus Roger Foys was the celebrant in the stead of Bishop John Iffert, accompanied by the diocese’s high school chaplains. Students filled the pews of the cathedral with their fellow classmates, denoted by banners hanging by the aisle.

In his homily, Bishop Foys noted the significance that the Mass occurred concurrently to the feast day of St. Isidore of Seville, a Spanish bishop and saint and the patron of students, technology and computers.

“His family, his mother and father,” said Bishop Emeritus Foys, “were intent on providing them (St. Isidore and his brothers and sister) with the truths of the faith. They schooled them, and gave them the best education they could.”

“You’re all still very young,” Bishop Foys said as he addressed the students present, “You have a full life ahead of you, and there will be times in your life where you will need the courage to not only profess the faith with your lips, but to live the faith by your lives.”

“Catholic schools have given you the tools to do that,” he said, “and the Lord will give you the grace to have that courage.”

“You are seniors,” Bishop Foys proceeded, “You’re at the top of the class. Next year, as I heard from one of the students who spoke before Mass, you’ll be back at the bottom,” he said. “That’s life, you know, peaks and valleys.”

“But, through it all, you can rely on the Lord and rely on the gift of faith that was passed on to you by your parents. It is a day of celebration, it’s a day to be sober about our faith and how we intend to live our that faith,” he said, concluding with a quote from St. Paul, “God begins every good gift in us and, if we are faithful, it will bring every one of those gifts to completion.”