How Faith, Friendship and the Eucharist Are Leading Holy Family High School Students to the Catholic Church
- Clare Kneusel-Nowak
- 13 minutes ago
- 5 min read
This Easter, 10 Holy Family High School students will be baptized and received into the Catholic Church, and another 9 will be brought into full communion with the Church at a special Mass celebrated by Bishop Jorge Rodriguez.
These 19 students have been preparing to receive their sacraments, thanks especially to Holy Family's Dogmatics class, which was instituted last year by the school chaplain, Father John Stapleton, and campus minister, Myrna Remington.
Among the Catechumens, I had the opportunity to speak to three students who decided to take the plunge into the Catholic faith despite all growing up in non-Catholic or non-practicing households.
Finding Christ in the Eucharist
Freshman Karson came to Holy Family for the Poms Team, which went to Nationals last year, but she says she’s becoming Catholic because she’s encountered Christ in the Eucharist. When she learned about the Dogmatics class, which would allow her to receive her sacraments, she jumped at the opportunity.
“The Catholic faith has always been super interesting to me,” Karson said. “But I've never really known where to start with it.”
Karson explained that she grew up attending church on Christmas and Easter, but her family wasn’t super involved. Joining the Holy Family community made it easier to explore Christianity more broadly.
“Being surrounded by Catholics…I could just be at lunch and talking to my friends about it,” she said of her newly deepened faith. “That's something I couldn't do before at a public school. And I really like it.”
Her Freshman Theology classes, which are entirely focused on studying Scripture, have helped deepen her understanding, but it was the Eucharist that captivated her and solidified her decision to become Catholic.
“Sometimes it’s hard to find a ride to Mass,” she said, “But when you do go, it's really worth it. It's so worth it when you go. And even if you can’t make it to the Masses they have after school here, try to pray every night and read the Scriptures.”
Her advice to others her age?
“Don’t be like ‘Oh, I gotta go to Mass.’ Make it fun. Learn for it to be fun.”
Finding Christ in Another
Senior Matt explained his decision to become Catholic was fostered especially by his encounter with Christ in another student at Holy Family.
Matt, who was raised Greek Orthodox but didn’t practice, has attended Catholic school since kindergarten.
“I never really bought into it fully,” he said. “I was just kind of like, yeah, God's real, but I just kind of did my own thing.”
That all changed when he attended the Kairos retreat, a three-day retreat in the mountains for juniors at Holy Family.
“I went on Kairos, and it was a life-changing experience for me,” he said, explaining that during adoration, he really prayed. “I never heard God directly talk to me, but the whole point of Kairos is encountering Christ.”
His friend John, whom he’s been friends with since third grade, was also on that Kairos, and the two of them stayed up talking every night until 4 a.m.
After that, Matt began asking more questions about the faith and finding good answers.
“There's an explanation for everything,” Matt shared, saying he started to find intelligent resources for Christianity online and among the people he knows. “It's really affirming to know that these people actually know what they're talking about.”
From those late-night conversations, Matt and John’s friendship grew.
“When I got to the point where I decided to take the Dogmatics class, I asked John to be my sponsor,” Matt recalled.
This last semester, Matt attended Kairos again as a senior and a leader.
“I was sitting in Adoration and thinking about how the whole point of Kairos is the encounter with Christ. I never really realized that John was kind of my encounter with Christ,” he said.
Finding Yourself in Christ’s Love
Senior Francesca decided to go through with the Dogmatics class during a pilgrimage to Rome with a group from Holy Family led by Dave Good, a Holy Family teacher known for these pilgrimages.
“Father John and I were buddies [touring the Churches], so I was able to ask him questions about everything,” she noted, saying the beauty of the faith struck her heart even before she had worked out the teachings of the Church intellectually.
Father John Stapleton, Holy Family’s chaplain, encouraged her to sign up for the Dogmatics class to receive her sacraments.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, maybe,’” she recalled responding.
Francesca also grew up in a non-practicing family.
“I grew up Christian,” she said, “but I didn't really know God until I came to Holy Family.”
Francesca’s grandparents are Catholic, and she remembers attending Church some Sundays when she visited them.
“My grandma would teach me stuff about the Rosary when I would go to visit her…I was definitely exposed to things, and it was a part of my life in a very small way,” Francesca explained. “But I got to Holy Family, and it was kind of like I was thrown into a country where I didn't speak the language.”
Francesca found her Theology classes especially fruitful.
“I've learned so much and have come to really know who God is and what faith is all about… It doesn’t matter what’s going on in your life — it’s true and good, and it just always remains that way.”
Ultimately, Francesca was interested in taking Dogmatics to learn more about Catholicism but wasn’t sure if she was ready to commit to becoming Catholic, even asking if she could sign up for the class and decide later. Though she already had her schedule for her last year of high school completed, she decided to add Dogmatics at the last minute.
“The first thing that attracted me [to Catholicism] was coming to really know my identity as Christ's daughter. That was probably the biggest thing... And at the center of all of it is God’s love,” she said.
In short, for Francesca, the love of Christ was the answer to the ambush of the world’s lies.
“I think it's hard to be a girl,” she said. “But when I came to know how God sees me — that’s the truth. In the world, there are all these lies, but that's the truth. So knowing that he says this about me and that these other things are lies, and that he loves me so greatly — that’s the center of it all: the love of Christ. And my heart is drawn towards that love.”
How Encounter Evangelizes
There is a growing hunger among young people for the Catholic faith. Those Holy Family students being received into this Church have chosen the Catholic faith because they want to find Christ in it.
During his address at the 15th World Youth Day in Rome in 2000, Pope St. John Paul II exhorted those massive crowds of young people from around the world not to tire in their search. He said, “It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise.”
These Holy Family students have found Christ truly present in the Eucharist. They have found Christ in the faithful testimony of other Christians. They have found Christ in the beauty of the Church. And finding Christ, they have found themselves to be loved.
All evangelization efforts succeed or fail insofar as they bring people into communion with Christ. Young people want to know what is true. They want to know who they are. They want to know that they are loved unconditionally.
They want to know Christ.
