Faith Practices

• School begins with daily prayer.

• Weekly Mass is celebrated each Thursday for staff, students and parents by the priests from the Vicariate Parishes.

In preparation for All Saints Day, each 5th  grade student researches the life of a saint.  On All Saints Day, the children, in costume, are part of a saints museum where visitors can listen to each saint’s life story.

• Students in all grades are taught the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the school participates in a prayer service twice a year honoring the Divine Mercy.

• In May, second grade students honor the Blessed Mother with a crowning in
  the courtyard.
   

Faith Leadership and Practices

• Students help plan and participate in the weekly liturgies by lectoring, ushering and altar serving.

• Students in Preschool - Grade 3 participate in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd:

Sophia Cavalletti began to work with children in 1954 in the area of children's religious formation.  We share her belief that God and the child have a unique relationship with one another particularly before the age of six and that the growth of this relationship should be assisted by the adult, but is directed by the Spirit of God within the child.  Children need their own place to foster the growth of that relationship, and being in the presence of God is both unique to the child and a gift to the adult who stops long enough to notice.  The children gather in the Atrium, a room specially prepared for them.

• Students in all grades participate in community service programs.  Seventh and eighth grade students accumulate 20 hours of service before they graduate from 8th grade.

• Students actively participate in Vacation Bible School.

• Students are given the opportunity to participate in school-wide service projects:  Hoops for the Homeless, Eastside Soup Kitchen, YMCA, Underground Railroad, Emmaus House, Kids Against Hunger, National Disasters and the Bernardine Franciscan Missions.

• Social justices issues are discussed in the classrooms.

• STEM Nights are held once a year focusing on Religion as part of the learning activities.