Sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ, or evangelization, can bring souls to Him, the source of salvation.
At Grove City Our Lady of Perpetual Help (OLPH) School, it appears evangelization is reaping results.
“This is evangelization gone right,” said Karen Cook, director of adult faith formation at the parish.
The parish has 25 young people on track to receive sacraments at the Easter Vigil in the spring. Of those children, 11 are students at OLPH, and one is a freshman at Columbus Bishop Ready High School who began his faith formation at OLPH.
Four of the 12 students will be baptized Catholic, while another four students, who had been previously baptized, will enter the Church. The other four students – two come from one family and two from another family – will enter the Church with their families.
Julie Dilley, the director of religious education at OLPH, said the school is observing many “reversions” in families, or families who were previously Catholic, left the faith and are returning to the Church.
The school has an increasing number of students preparing to receive their First Holy Communion at a non-traditional age. Catholic students at the school traditionally receive their First Holy Communion in second grade.
“As a church as a whole, I feel like I’m getting less and less children in our traditional sacramental formation programs,” Dilley said. “Traditionally, second grade’s First Communion, eighth grade’s confirmation.
“For whatever reason, there are families that are maybe not active in the faith as much as they were raised Catholic, but then, what’s happening when they come to our school, they are reminded of all that they had when they were this child’s age.”
The increasing number of conversions and reversions could be attributed to ongoing evangelization efforts at OLPH. Faculty and staff are committed to bringing the Good News of Jesus into the school and making sure that Christ’s Presence is known.
“When you go around the school, Jesus is visible everywhere – the artwork, the classrooms,” said principal Julie Freeman. “When non-Catholic families come in for that tour, our building should look very different. We are a Catholic building.
“The artwork is very important to me – that that surrounds them, that those images, the bulletin boards, that they see the verses – they see it everywhere, and the parents see that, too.”
Freeman said having visuals for students throughout the school is one of the “big things.” Each classroom has a holy water font, a crucifix and pictures of Pope Francis and Bishop Earl Fernandes.
Sacred art is displayed throughout the school, along with the Stations of the Cross in the hallway. Many classrooms also have a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Six years ago, the school was consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary. The consecration was suggested by a student, Freeman said. Images of the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart of Mary are displayed throughout the building.
The school unites in prayer three times a day over the loudspeaker. Teachers also pray in their classrooms, especially during transitions throughout the day, which, Freeman said, can be challenging times for children.
“This school does a phenomenal job of weaving the faith through everything so that it is normal and natural and incorporated and just a part of how life should be and not something that’s compartmentalized,” said Melissa Zuk, the parish marketing and communications manager.
Teachers model Christ and Christian discipleship for their students. Father Joe Yokum, the pastor at OLPH, said the “greatest way” the Catholic faith is integrated into the classroom is having the faith modeled by teachers.
Each week, students practice a different virtue. During the first week of December, students practiced gratitude. When Father Yokum visited the school dressed as St. Nicholas on Dec. 6, the saint’s feast day, the fourth-grade teacher asked students how they can demonstrate gratitude to Father Yokum for visiting their class.
The school also has “faith families,” which are groups of students ranging from kindergarten through eighth grade, led by a staff member. The groups allow students in upper grades to be mentors and role models for the younger ones. Faith families spend time in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament together.
There is an expectation every day, Freeman said, to have Jesus in the children’s lives. The school community is “very lucky,” she said, to have the gift of faith and give that to students, who, possibly, “can take pieces of that and extend it to their family.”
Cook, who leads the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults (OCIA) at the parish, which is for people preparing to enter the Catholic Church, said many adults are returning to the Church because of their children or grandchildren who attend OLPH school.
“It’s the students impacting their families, whether it’s grandma or whoever, and so, adults are returning, completing sacraments,” she said.
To serve the number of children seeking to become Catholic, the parish offered a summer catechesis program for the past two years. The class meets five hours a day for a week.
“They want to be a part of His kingdom, and they want to receive Him in Holy Communion to the point where finally mom’s like, ‘Our whole family wants to do this,’” Dilley said. “This is something that the kids have really shown. They come in our school. They feel the love. They see Jesus all around them.”
The parish also offers a Tuesday night youth OCIA class for students in grades two through 10 who are preparing to celebrate sacraments at the Easter Vigil. The class coincides with the adult OCIA class lead by Cook. Both classes are offered on the same evening.
The catechists work closely, Dilley said, and there is usually a “commonality” between the youth and adult OCIA classes, so parents and children preparing to enter the Church as a family can discuss their faith formation together.
Freeman said many families come to OLPH School for non-faith reasons, such as academics or because they feel it is a safe school. While some families do not come for the faith, their children are impacted by learning in a Catholic environment. Freeman said it is important that parents journey in faith with their children , developing a relationship with Christ and growing in their own faith formation, because, unlike a public school, they are choosing to be there.
“We had a new kindergartner come in this year, a new family to us completely, and he’s in my faith family, and we went over to Adoration,” Freeman said. “Well, that was his first time in church, and he’s like, ‘What building is this? Who is that on the cross?’ Like, ‘I don’t even know what that means,’ and those are amazing times, honestly, to help walk with them and to let them know how much they’re loved by Jesus.”
Students are able to receive the sacraments weekly, and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is offered every Friday.
Father Yokum said students have a strong point of contact with him during and after receiving the sacraments. Students attend a weekly Mass, and Father Yokum offers the sacrament of reconciliation for students Monday through Wednesday each week.
“We also have a fair number of our non-Catholic students who desire to come in,” he said. “They want to see what their classmates are doing, and they had that opportunity to talk to me and to be able to have that point of contact with a priest and to have that moment of experiencing the reality of Jesus in the priesthood, in the Church, in and through the sacramental life from our weekly Mass to the encounter in the confessional. ”
Although non-Catholics cannot receive absolution from a priest for their sins through the sacrament of reconciliation, students can learn about the sacrament by observing their peers or speaking to Father Yokum and receiving counsel from him.
“Certainly, the confession for a non-Catholic coming into the confessional is not the same as it is for a student who’s Catholic, but that encounter is so important,” he said.
Freeman said parents are always invited to attend Mass and Adoration with their children. The school has a “KISS Mass,” which is an acronym for “Kids Invite Someone Special” to Mass. The children can invite someone to attend Mass with them.
“Last year, there was a participant in OCIA who had come to one of our KISS Masses,” Freeman said. “One of our students invited a relative to the KISS Mass, and her testimony was that because of the KISS Mass, that drew her to participating in OCIA.
“Later, I read her testimony and thought, ‘Wow,’ but that’s why that invitation is always there for the parents, for the families, for the neighbors, for the community to come and see what we’re about because you’re hearing these kids say it, you’re seeing it in what they bring home, so come join with us.”
Communication from the principal is also a form of evangelization.
“Julie (Freeman) is very much an evangelist in the way that she communicates,” Cook said. “Every email that comes out from her, it begins with something of the faith, and it’s invitational, and it’s encouraging.”
“All of Freeman’s emails reference back to events happening at the parish, as well as all the things that are happening in the school,” Zuk said. “She does a really good job of cross-promoting that we are one entity. It’s not, the church, and then the school’s a separate thing.”
Faith-based communication from the school is also done via radio. The school acquired a license from the Federal Communications Commission, and they broadcast on a local radio station.
“We’ve now obtained a radio station , a local radio station that we project and pray the rosary at the end of the school day, and so, all the parents … can join and pray for their students in school as they’re waiting in line to pick up their students,” Father Yokum said. “It’s just another outreach, another point of contact.”
The school uses a radio transmitter located in the parish gathering space. The transmitter extends for a mile radius and is broadcast on 101.9 FM.
A parent volunteer leads the rosary Monday through Friday. He also talks about the saints, upcoming middle and high school youth ministry events and spreads awareness about opportunities at the parish to get families involved, Zuk said.
In October, the month dedicated to the rosary, the transmitter was relocated to the school office, and students joined in leading the rosary on the radio station, which also was a way to evangelize to parents.
While Catholic schools are a tool for evangelization, Freeman and Father Yokum said some individuals voiced concerns or fears that the EdChoice Scholarship will change the dynamic of the Catholic school.
Unlike the traditional EdChoice Scholarship, which provides tuition money to families living in a low-performing school district, an expansion of the EdChoice Scholarship was signed into Ohio law in July . All Ohio families, regardless of their zip code, can receive tuition money toward a participating Catholic school of their choice .
Because of the EdChoice Scholarship expansion, more non-Catholic families might choose to attend a Catholic school. By choosing to send their children to OLPH, those families will encounter the person of Jesus Christ.
Freeman said OLPH remains “unapologetically a Catholic school” focused on Catholic social teaching, which is founded on the life and words of Jesus Christ. The Catholic faith is the school’s priority.
Some individuals voiced concerns that, as a result of the Ed Choice Scholarship, the school could become similar to a public school and lose its Catholic identity by welcoming an increasing number of non-Catholics.
“That kind of saddens me when I have other people say, ‘Oh, well, you shouldn’t take those kids ,’” Freeman said. “This is our opportunity to let everybody know who Jesus is, and this might be their only opportunity.”