On May 27^th, 2022, this year’s seniors embarked on their last mass together as a class in the Sacred Heart Academy chapel for the annual Baccalaureate Mass. Baccalaureate serves as a thanksgiving to God for bestowing the gifts demonstrated throughout their years at SHA on the graduates and to ask God to bless them in their new chapter. The Mass also serves as a sending off allowing the graduating class to reflect on their time at SHA: from roaming SHA’s halls, stage, and fields, from freshman to seniors to graduates while forming a strong sisterhood. In her opening speech to her audience Delfina Ferro, senior class president, reflected on said sisterhood stating “I remember thinking and being confused and asking how can I become sisters with a bunch of strangers in only four years it just didn’t seem like it was possible…I realized the true meaning of sisterhood means that we support each other, we accept each other, it means that despite our differences we are there for each other it is a connection that lasts forever Sacred Heart is more than just a high school it’s a community it is a family”.

Graduation is a bittersweet time because while the excitement associated with a new life is thrilling, parting from the one lived for 4 years is tough. Ava Debrizzi who read from the book of Jeremiah 29:10-14 recounts the words Jeremiah spoke to the Jewish people before their exile into Babylon reflecting on this toughness and the grace God restores to them. Though the verse is indicative of the triumph that comes out of woe, there is always something sad about goodbyes, yet the graduating class knows that out of these goodbyes a bright new future looms.