How to catch FileNotFoundException for new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext() [on hold]

I am trying to create a program where I want to input the spring configurations file from user just to create some demo application. If I directly call new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(filePath), it throws FileNotFoundException if the file doesn't exist.

I want to catch this exception and display the user an error message instead of terminating the application. Even if I surround the call to constructor by try-catch or using throws declaration, the exception is not caught and the application terminates printing the stack trace.

Any ideas how can I catch the thrown exception?

The caller function -

private String getFlavours(ModelMap model, String configFile) {
    FlavourService flavourService = new FlavourService();
    String results = null;

    try {
        results = flavourService.generateFlavour(configFile);
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        System.out.println("In FNF Execp");
        model.addAttribute("errorMessage", "Requested configurations file not found");
        return "index";
    }

    model.addAttribute("results", results);
    model.addAttribute("configFile", configFile);
    return "springDemo";
}

The called function -

public String generateFlavour(String configFile) throws FileNotFoundException {
    String path = "somepath"; //this is path from classpath
    String filename = configFile;

    context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(path + filename);

    //code to generate required output

    return output;
}