By Elizabeth Landry
Staff writer
Many Catholic school administrators and teachers from throughout the Diocese of Syracuse filled the pews at Holy Cross Church in DeWitt for the annual school year opening day Mass on the morning of Aug. 28. There was a buzz of excitement as they all reconnected with each other after the summer break.
Courtney Crespo, who has taught fifth grade at Notre Dame Elementary School in Utica for 13 years and will be a math specialist this year, shared how she thinks of school faculty as her family rather than co-workers. Her favorite part about working at a Catholic school is “the kids and the community in which I work. It’s a family. I don’t go to work; I go to be with my family at school. Everyone has become more than just my co-workers and the kids just brighten [my] day. They can ask questions about faith that they can’t ask in a public school.”
As Mass began, however, a somber tone became more apparent. Both Dr. Amy Sansone, superintendent for Catholic Schools, and Bishop Douglas J. Lucia asked all who were present to keep the families affected by the tragic shooting during a school Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, the day prior, in their prayers.
“We all know we’re thinking about those tragic events yesterday in Minneapolis,” said Dr. Sansone in her opening remarks. “We’re just so grateful to join in prayer for those families who were touched, to just pray for everybody who’s a little more nervous coming to school, and keep that eye out the way we always do for our students and our families, because we know them so well and we’ve got the faith guiding us.”
Safety is top of mind for everyone in the Catholic school community — an important priority that Corey Stone, fourth-grade teacher at Immaculate Conception School in Fayetteville, highlighted as a primary goal for the coming school year.
Stone said his goal is “for my students to continue to love learning and to know that our school is a safe place for them to come … for the kids to know that our classroom is a safe place.”
Shortly after the start of Mass, Bishop Lucia read the message he’d sent to Archbishop Hebda of the Archdiocese of Minnesota-St. Paul, which offers prayerful condolences from the people of the Diocese of Syracuse.
“It’s with those sentiments that not only do we gather this morning to ask God’s blessing upon the beginning of our school year, but certainly we pray for all our sisters and brothers involved in Catholic education, especially across this nation, that the Lord will watch over them and keep them in His care,” Bishop added, after he finished reading the letter.
‘Where do you find beauty in your life?’
This is the question that Bishop explored and provided answers to in his homily. He shared how St. Augustine (whose feast day is Aug. 28) often pondered this question and wrote a poem about it, as well. This poem, which is called “The Beauty of Creation Bears Witness to God,” Bishop said, “might reflect a little bit of what we might be feeling, especially, not just in light of yesterday, but just the beginning of the school year and everything that’s going on in our world.
“Sometimes I’m sure in our daily lives,” Bishop continued, “we do wonder, where is beauty to be found? And yet, Augustine reminds you and me this morning that our beauty is no farther than our God. And as we say, even in the Psalms, the Lord is near. In fact, the chief tenet of our Christian faith is the Incarnation, which acclaims that God is with us. … Even when we encounter the ugly things in life, one thing that Jesus Christ shows us by His death on the cross is that He doesn’t flee from the ugly. He doesn’t flee from the challenges. And so my invitation to you, especially as witnesses of the faith, is to know that that same message is for you and me.”
Posing the question of how we can communicate this message with young people, Bishop pointed (literally) to soon-to-be-canonized Blessed Carlo Acutis, of whom there was a new statue displayed near the altar. He told the story of how Carlo, as a 5-year-old, led his non-practicing Catholic parents back to the faith, and how, as a teenager, he sought to make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate than him.
“What really impressed me is how he sought to find God in others,” Bishop said. “And so, my other message today is I think that’s our mission in the year ahead, to help our young people, like Carlo did, to find the beauty of God in one another.”
“The Beauty of Creation Bears Witness to God” by Saint Augustine
Question the beauty of the earth, the beauty of the sea, the beauty of the wide air around you, the beauty of the sky; question the order of the stars, the sun whose brightness lights the days, the moon whose splendor softens the gloom of night; question the living creatures that move in the waters, that roam upon the earth, that fly through the air; the spirit that lies hidden, the matter that is manifest; the visible things that are ruled, the invisible things that rule them; question all these. They will answer you: “Behold and see, we are beautiful.” Their beauty is their confession of God. Who made these beautiful changing things, if not one who is beautiful and changeth not? Amen.
