This past Friday, March 2 marked the class of 2018’s last prayer day as a student at Xavier College Preparatory. Prayer day is a day where every class at Xavier spends a Friday coming together, going to mass and writing letters to our Senior future self.

The freshman and sophomore classes spend prayer day on campus at Xavier in Founders Hall and in the chapel. Then, the junior and senior classes spend the day at Mount Claret Retreat Center. Being at Mount Claret is a fun and memorable experience spending time with your classmates, teachers and Father Kevin Grimditch.

Every prayer day there is a topic that the teachers as well as Father Kevin focus on. The first senior prayer day was about discernment and how a lot of seniors are discerning college and many of the decisions they will be having to make. This past Friday, the topic of the day was college and moving to a new lifestyle, especially since so many seniors know where they will be attending in the fall. The other topic was making sure that you will be close to God during college, through the Newman Centers that are readily available at colleges.

One of the best parts of the last senior prayer day was Mr. Bruce Wyman playing the guitar and singing an emotional song. The other amazing part of the day is that the seniors were all given their letters back from freshman, sophomore, junior and first senior prayer day. Reading the letters is very emotional especially seeing how much has changed over the four years at Xavier. The letters are very memorable especially if you talk about events that you might have forgotten about at the time. Senior Molly Melvin said, “After reading my freshman year letter I was overwhelmed with emotion and was very surprised how much I had grown as an individual.”

Leaving the last prayer day as a second semester senior was weird to say the least. The last senior prayer day was just one of the many lasts Xavier seniors will be experiencing especially these next few months.