Holy Cross of San Antonio

Holy Cross

of San Antonio

Baccalaureate Mass: Tuesday, May 25 at 7 p.m. — The Holy Cross Convocation Center Commencement: Wednesday, May 26 at 7 p.m. — Wheatley Heights

Spirit of Resilience Is Alive And Well!

Any educator will admit that every graduating class has its specific qualities and overarching attributes. This is to say that some classes may be much more social justice minded, while others are strong academically, and still, others tend to be so very steeped with athletic talent that it is hard to stop their success. The Holy Cross Class of 2021 is no different. If we were to ascribe a specific attribute to these young adults, it would be that of resilience. To their credit, they have demonstrated the one overarching quality of what makes a Holy Cross education so crucial. From the very beginning, when Father Basile Moreau began educating street children in post-revolutionary France, the very spirit of Holy Cross schools and their pupils revolved around being the best person one can be despite less than ideal circumstances. During this school year, with all the trials and circumstances that all of us faced, the class of 2021 demonstrated that the Holy Cross spirit of resilience is alive and well!

As the pandemic began, most schools considered reducing school activities, but Holy Cross kept every one of our sports teams and extracurricular activities in place. Understanding that these opportunities to engage in community would be the catalysts that would hold the Holy Cross family together, we went full steam ahead with our extracurricular programming. With the strong leadership of our seniors, our community responded with active participation. Our 272 Knights (sixth through twelfth graders) not only fielded our usual array of athletic teams but excelled in every measure — that is to say that each team successfully competed in the TAPPS 4A playoff structure. This especially true of our renowned cheer team that not only won their 14th NCA National Championship but also took first place at the TAPPS 4A State Competition during their very first year competing in any TAPPS event!

In addition to athletics, Holy Cross implemented “Knight” Days” on Fridays. These days allowed our academic clubs and extracurricular groups to meet without a time constraint and club sponsors to facilitate both online and in-person meetings to make sure that community could be felt by all involved. These Knight Days helped our Theatre Troupe participate in the TAPPS 4A Virtual One-Act Play as well as allow them to organize productions both at Christmas and this upcoming May; DASA (Debate Arts, Speech and Academics) Team to take third place in the state for Lincoln Douglas Debate and enter in the largest amount of entries into the TAPPS 4A Art State Competition (still awaiting results as of the writing of this article). Other clubs, such as the Holy Cross Rock Club, were fantastic stress relievers as students from all grade levels could beautify our campus with their painted rocks.

Again, all of this success came from a very abnormal school year. It was described to us once that this pandemic forced every industry to build a plane while it is flying in the air, and this adequately describes the way all schools dealt with this past school year. At the early stages, fear, caution, and uncertainty ruled most of our actions. However, the most impacting lesson that this pandemic taught us was that the Holy Cross community is resilient and can persevere through just about anything as long as they are given the vehicle to stay together.

We are so very proud of our resilient graduating class of 2021. They helped create unified, and grace filled experiences together during a very fractured and segmented school year. Though we will miss this class very much and always hold them in our hearts, we know that they are ready for anything that will come their way. We can’t wait to hear of their successes. ✪