The leader responsible for working with young people at Delaware St. Mary Church says the parish has one of the most successful youth ministries in the diocese because it’s run by and for young people.
“It’s kids working with kids,” Carolyn Ferroni-Schlabach said concerning the parish’s Life Teen program. Under her guidance, the program sponsors weekly meetings and twice-monthly Sunday Masses which regularly attract 60 to 90 eighth- to 12th-grade students, not all of them Catholic.
The program is led by a core group of about 30 young people, many from Ohio Wesleyan University, which is a short walk from the church, and some from the Pontifical College Josephinum, about 15 minutes south on U.S. Route 23.
“Most parishes have trouble attracting and retaining young people, but we’re very fortunate because we’re in a college town, next to a campus which, despite the name, has more Catholic students than any other denomination,” Ferroni-Schlabach said. “We take advantage of that, and it’s good for everybody because there is a mutual interest.
“It’s good for the college kids because it keeps them involved in the church at a critical time in their lives, and it’s good for the high school kids because they’re likely to pay attention to something set up for them by their peers and people who could be their older brothers or sisters.”
She said about half the youths planning Life Teen events have grown up in the parish and been involved in ministry to younger people. “It starts with the college kids and spreads from there,” she said.
Father David Schalk, parochial vicar, has worked closely with students at OWU since arriving at St. Mary just after his ordination. As a young man himself, he’s able to relate with other young adults and is usually on campus three or four times a week throughout the school year.
Each Wednesday, he hosts a noon luncheon featuring talks on a faith-related theme with either a guest speaker or himself. In addition, Father Schalk leads a recitation of the Rosary each week, and there is a monthly Mass on campus,in a chapel named for the late Protestant minister Norman Vincent Peale, an OWU graduate.
“Most colleges would have on-campus Masses more often, but St. Mary’s is unique because it’s so close to the school that most students just walk here before Mass every Sunday,” he said.
“The students are an integral part of our Sunday morning, and I think it encourages us to see so many young faces here each week,” said Father James Black, pastor.
This past summer, Father Schalk led a group of students on a mission that combined sightseeing and service. The group went to Italy, worked with the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded by Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and saw the holy sites of Rome and the Vatican. “That was a memorable adventure in the way it brought the two elements of travel and meeting people’s needs together,” he said.
A group of 36 young people from the parish is going to France and Italy for an 11-day pilgrimage this summer. Ferroni-Schlabach said the parish also will have representation at the National Catholic Youth Conference in November in Kansas City.
In addition, plans are being made for the youth group to work with the very poor for a week in the summer of 2010 at a domestic mission, probably somewhere in Appalachia.
The Life Teen Mass features music from a local group, Cross Connections, with teens serving in all the minister positions and colored banners representing the six high schools the parish serves – Delaware, Big Walnut, Buckeye Valley, Olentangy, Olentangy Liberty, and Olentangy Orange – hanging from the church walls.
Assisting the young people who work with Life Teen are a group of mothers who cook weekly, a technical team for videos and photos, and a team of parents who help set up an environment based on the theme for a particular night. The program follows the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ curriculum for high school students, which is highlighting Scripture-related themes for this school year and issues of morality for the next.
Other youth group activities at the parish include ongoing service for the elderly and shut-ins; an Advent series; Bible studies beginning this summer at a popular downtown sandwich shop; a leadership retreat in August; a retreat for senior high students in March at the Heartland Conference Center in Marengo; two overnight Confirmation retreats; a day retreat for sixth- and seventh-graders; and a summer camp for junior high school students, with their senior high peers serving as counselors. The camp includes service projects such as working at a soup kitchen and with at-risk youth in Columbus.
Besides Life Teen, the youth ministry sponsors two programs run by a group of volunteer mothers: Tweens and God, for third- and fourth-graders, and Saturday Night Live 2, for fifth- through seventh-graders. Ferroni-Schlabach said about 40 young people attend each of these monthly programs after the 4;30 p.m. Saturday Mass.
These are in addition to the weekly Parish School of Religion programs run by the parish’s religious education director, Ann Manning, and attended by about 400 students.
An elementary school has been part of St. Mary’s since 1885, about the same time the church was built. The current school was built in 1925, with an addition completed in 1959.
A major expansion in 2005, including an additional wing and a new gymnasium, has allowed the school to grow to a record number of more than 360 students, plus 60 in preschool. These include two classes of kindergarten through fifth-graders, and one each of sixth- through eighth-graders.
The school emphasizes its own version of the three R’s, which students see every day on a large banner in the commons area. Its theme for several years has been “Reverence, Respect and Responsibility,” said Becky Piela, who has been principal for 1l years after teaching at the school for several years in the mid-1980s. She also was principal at Columbus St. Mary Magdalene for several years.
“We have a staff that’s very traditionally Catholic,” she said. “We expect students to participate in and know the Mass, and to know the appropriate gestures such as when to genuflect. It’s no accident that reverence is our first ‘R.’
“We say a lot of Rosaries. In October, we have a living Rosary. During Lent, there are living Stations of the Cross, and there is a traditional May crowning.
“One way in which we’ve tried to incorporate faith into daily life that seems to have a particular impact on the students is the silence we observe in the commons area each Wednesday during Lent. It’s hard to have a student keep quiet during lunch, but they do it, and they talk about it afterward as being something which makes them think about the meaning of the season and of Jesus’ passion and death.
“The silence seems to keep the noise down on other days throughout the Lenten season. You can tell when it’s over, because the week it ends, the kids seem louder than ever.”
This year, students took part in a service project called “Chores for Change,” in which they performed various tasks in return for donations to the Kids ‘N Kamp organization, which assists children and families dealing with childhood cancer.
They also have contributed to the Heifer Project, which helps poor families in more than 50 nations acquire and raise animals.
Each kindergarten child who enters the school is assigned a fourth grade buddy who helps the new student become adjusted to school life and takes part in activities throughout the year with him or her. That link continues until the kindergarten student becomes a fourth grader and gets a younger buddy.
Piela said students linked in such a way tend to stay close to each other as they continue in school, so that the buddy system actually links kindergarten, fourth and eighth grades. “Kids stay with their buddies and it’s a way to make sure everyone takes part in things,” she said. “Since everyone has a buddy, it’s hard to be a loner.”
She said it’s also an effective tool against bullying, with older students often telling their peers, “Don’t pick on my little kid,” if they find their buddy being bothered. It’s a practical way of putting the respect and responsibility components of the school’s three R’s into action.
Either Father Black or Father Schalk celebrates an all-school Mass once a week, and both priests visit the school two or three times weekly to have lunch with the students.
“We’re very fortunate to have priests who want to be very visible and spend a great deal of time not just at school, but going to games, youth group activities and retreats with the students,” Piela said. “The example they provide is so important, because it encourages the children to be part of the church and reinforces everything that we do and that we hope parents are doing to pass on the Faith.”