The week of September 23, 2024, Junior Nora Nilaj hosted 96-year-old Cardinal Ernest Simoni in her home for two days. The Albanian Cardinal is best known for surviving Communist Albania.
Cardinal Simoni was born on October 18, 1928, in Troshani, Albania. In 1963, Simoni was arrested by Communist authorities for offering a mass in honor of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. There, he was imprisoned with an original life sentence that was eventually shortened to 28 years. In 2014, he got to meet Pope Francis and told him his story. The Pope was so moved by this he made Simoni a Cardinal, calling him a living saint.
Nilaj’s family, originally from Albania, had been in contact with the Cardinal through emails and phone calls and had met him once briefly. Recently, he decided to come to the United States to visit states with the highest Albanian population, including states like Michigan, Massachusetts, New York, and Florida. Cardinal Simoni asked Pope Francis for permission to come to America, and when he got the okay, he reached out to the Nilaj family and asked to spend two nights in their home.
The Nilajs picked him up from their family friend’s house in Jacksonville who also knows the Cardinal. Nora’s initial reaction to meeting him she says was, “very special”, it was her second time seeing him but the first time he came into their home.
“He has a very special bond to our family so seeing him very happy and smiling made us all very happy. The first thing he said when he walked in the house was I look just like my dad. He told us repeatedly God bless us and kept saying that he won’t forget us in his prayers. We had dinner that night, waited one hour and after the hour he celebrated mass in our living room,” said Nilaj (‘26).
Cardinal Simoni spent a day at Jesuit High School and spoke during their convocation to the student body (using Nilaj’s brother John Luka Nilaj (‘24) to translate). The convocation was interactive, so the students got to ask questions to the Cardinal. They asked him for one piece of advice to the youth: “Always have eyes on god and never forget God,” and to “Stay away from the temptations that are being faced at this age including, drugs and sex because that is what can harm your relationship with God the most during these years”.
While staying in the Nilaj home, a requirement when being a Cardinal is that he has to encounter the mass every day, so he did a full mass in their living room, even using Nora’s desk from her bedroom. Simoni brought his own communion, but the Nilaj family had to purchase all grape wine for the mass.
“This experience was so amazing, getting to be a part of such a sacred mass with a Cardinal in my own home is something I will never forget,” said Nilaj (‘26).
Though he only slept one night in their house and was there for only two days, Nilaj had some big takeaways.
She said, “My relationship with God can always be stronger than it is,” and, “actions speak louder than words. Catholicism isn’t just telling people, it’s acting on it.” She also shared how inspiring it is that he is 96 years old, and he takes care of himself and is in great shape, seeing how his faith affected him not only mentally, but physically.
