Our guest celebrant and homilist was Fr. Peter Purpura, Rector of St. James Cathedral Basilica. In his homily Fr. Peter offered these thoughts on how we can take the life of St. Edmund as an example for our own lives.
"We have in many ways of life, people that we hold up. we hold them up and say this is who we should strive to be and to imitate. In our Catholic faith these are the Saints. The Saints are the ones whom our Church holds up. These men and women were like you. They enjoyed all the great things about life, endured difficulties, some persecuted for their faith, some ailments they suffered within their bodies. They were like us in all of these ways, but what made them exceptional is that they persevered until the end in their Christian faith. In every moment they sought to love the Lord their God with whole being and to love their neighbor as themselves. In coming to know them, we come to know something of God himself.
When we look at St. Edmund's life we see a man dedicated to education, who tried to impart wisdom to his students. In seeing him we can understand something of the wisdom of God. Not just simple knowledge, but things that are given to us which are of greatest importance as we come to know who we are and who God is.
Allow St. Edmund and all the Saints to be the witnesses you need now to aspire to something greater, to not be just one in the crowd but to stand out for the good reasons because you are identified as someone who seeks to love God with your whole being, who seeks to love other people as yourself, and who seeks to serves others with mercy and compassion."
At the end of mass Fr. Michael Gribbon, Chaplain offered a special blessing to the student leaders of our clubs, teams and organizations asking the Lord to strengthen them in their special ministries within our community. Mrs. Allison McGinnis, Principal welcomed our 30 Under 30 honorees who were in attendance and thanked them for their example to us of men and women destined to do great things with hearts of love and compassion in our world.