Bishop Nelson Perez went back to school – literally – on Sept. 18 when he spent the morning celebrating Mass, enjoying lunch, touring the school and chatting with students at St. Joseph Academy in Cleveland’s West Park neighborhood. The all-girls school has an enrollment of 725.
The liturgy included commissioning 35 seniors as extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist. The school’s gymnasium was filled with students, parents, faculty and staff for the Mass.
During his homily, Bishop Perez turned the tables, asking the students to tell him about their school, which was founded in 1890 by the Sisters of St. Joseph. One student told him SJA is “an all-kinds-of-girls school.” Others mentioned family and community.
The bishop told them to be grateful, to always have gratitude. “Sometimes we take things for granted, but everything is a gift – every single thing. We call things our own and sometimes we’re possessive, but everything is a gift. We even started life as a gift – 23 chromosomes from mommy and 23 from daddy. You had nothing to do with it,” he said. “And when you leave this world, you’ll have nothing to do with that, either.”
He said he loves the school motto, “sursum corda,” which when translated from Latin means “lift up your hearts.”
Bishop Perez used the analogy of a newscast, which he said usually begins with the hard news – the worst news. “It’s not always uplifting. Then you hear the soft news, things like the Indians won again yesterday. I know because I was there and it was awesome,” he said. The bishop encouraged the students and other “to lift up your hearts everywhere. We lift up our hearts to whatever is there – joys, challenges, successes, etc.”
He said the Gospel talked about a centurion whose slave was sick and he was concerned about him, so he lifted up his heart to Jesus, even though he felt he was unworthy to do so. Bishop Perez linked the centurion’s concern for his slave, a member of his household, to each of us and other households or communities.
“We all come from a household that includes our family, friends and neighbors. Our world is really pretty small. It’s made up of a group of people placed in your ‘household’ by God. They are people who will walk with you, support you and help you on your way,” he said. The centurion was a man of faith and went where he knew there was a source to answer his prayer.
“Lots of things make this school great, but there is one thing that makes it unique: Christ is at the heart of this school, which is rooted in the Catholic tradition. You can learn things like algebra at any school, but here in the Catholic tradition, your mind and soul are nurtured. What a gift,” he said.
“Never, never, never underestimate the power of God’s spirit working in you, through you and despite you. Remember that in 25 years because you never know where you will be or what you’ll be doing. Twenty-five years ago I never dreamed I would be the Bishop of Cleveland, yet here I am. We never know what God has planned for us.”
Bishop Perez concluded by sharing some thoughts that Pope Francis shared at last year’s World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland, urging people to work together and to seek reconciliation.
He acknowledged the Sisters of St. Joseph who were at Mass, as well as the parents, faculty, administration and diocesan education officials, Christopher Knight, superintendent of Catholic schools, and Frank O’Linn, associate superintendent for secondary schools.
After Mass, Bishop Perez met with five seniors and a junior over lunch and discussed a variety of topics, including their heritage, plans for the future and what was the reaction of the family of one girl, who has Argentinian relatives, to an Argentinian pope. “They were so excited they were crying,” she replied.
The students, accompanied by SJA President Mary Ann Corrigan-Davis and Jeff Sutliff, principal, also took the bishop on a brief tour of the school. Highlights included a stop in the Maker Space, where students showed some of the new technology and explained how they created things with a three-dimensional printer.
The bishop also visited a science classroom that featured a state-of-the-art anatomage table, an anatomy visualization system that allows students to do virtual dissections on a life-size projection of a human body.
And he didn’t go away empty-handed. After Mass, students presented the bishop with a Jaguars ball cap and demonstrated the “Jaguar Rumble.”