The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Bishop visits Elyria Catholic High School
Elyria Catholic High School students are called to be blessings and to bring Jesus into the lives of other people, said Bishop Edward C. Malesic of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese.
Malesic was installed as Northeast Ohio’s bishop in September 2020.
However his public visits have been hampered by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The Elyria Catholic High School visit was his first time in a Catholic school celebrating Mass with high school students in more than a year, he said.
“It is so good to be here with you,” Malesic told the students, faculty, staff and guests gathered in the school’s Coliseum.
The school marks Sept. 17 as its Founders Day for the leadership of Monsignor William Newton and 19 students who attended their first day of classes at the newly formed Elyria Catholic District High School in 1947.
The founders of Elyria Catholic High School started it because they wanted a place where the students would learn academics, and advance in wisdom and grace, Malesic said.
The school will give the students every skill they need to be happy, he said.
But, they have another long-term goal: eternal life with Jesus, Malesic said.
“This is a basic teaching of the church, that God so loved the world that he sent his only son so that everyone who believes in him has life,” Malesic said. “He came not to condemn us, but to save us. Remember that.”
Everyone has sins and quibbles and dislikes, but Jesus came to save everyone from the craziness in the world “and sometimes from the craziness that’s in our hearts, too,” he said.
Jesus rose from the dead to come back to people who are weak and flawed, Malesic said, counting himself among them.
As a freshman biology student in college, Malesic said reading the gospels helped him understand Jesus is alive and cares for him.
He said he still has that small green volume of scripture.
“Jesus wants to be with you, too, always,” Malesic told the students.
Elyria Catholic High School is a school of Christ, he said.
The day’s scripture readings came in part from Paul’s first letter to Timothy and from the gospel according to Luke.
In his letter, Paul instructed Timothy, his pastoral protege, about how he should lead others in faith.
The passage includes the now famous warning that “the love of money is the root of all evils.”
The gospel recorded how Jesus traveled with the 12 apostles and the women who provided for them out of their resources.
Malesic encouraged the students to develop their talents to make their living in the world.
Some of them might be his doctor or lawyer some day, he said.
But everything people have in life, is a blessing from God to be used in service to others, Malesic said.
“Don’t love money more than you love one another, or than you love God,” he said. “Remember that in life, don’t seek money more than you seek God.”
Malesic shared some biographical information from his own student days.
Remarking on the Elyria Catholic High School’s homecoming this celebration weekend, Malesic said in junior high school, he was king of the sweetheart dance.
“Don’t ask me how, I have no idea,” how it happened, he said, prompting chuckles.
Escorting the sweetheart queen, their first dance was to the Led Zeppelin song “Stairway to Heaven.”
“Perhaps that was God’s first sign that I would be called to a different life than most of my classmates,” Malesic said.
Elyria Catholic High School has the Panther as its mascot.
Malesic also is a Panther — from Central Dauphin East High School, where he grew up in Harrisburg, Pa.
During worship, Malesic was assisted by Deacon Larry Gregg of St. Raphael Parish of Bay Village and student servers Will Hricovec, Kayla Linden, A.J. Schwanenberger, Jacob Raab and Emma Basinski.
Students Carmen Rush, Lexi Pluta, Thomas Niederst and Zachary Taylor were readers and Whisper Carter and Levi Ellis bore gifts for communion.
Annika Bredel, Shannon Davis, Hailey Hendrix, Rachel Horvath, Emmie Robertson, Ethan Zientarski and Michaela Van Dyke served as eucharistic ministers.