Junior High Religion

All junior high students grow in their faith through daily religion classes.

In Junior High we use The Spirit of Truth textbook series. The four units for middle school students to build on their understanding of: Personal growth, with an emphasis on our vocation to love and our responsibilities to God and each other; Morality, with an emphasis on conscience formation through God's gift of an objective moral standard and prayer; Church history, with an emphasis on what we can learn from history about our identity as Catholics, and how the saints have shaped the liturgy, hierarchy, and doctrine of the Church; and Prayer, with an emphasis on its elements, qualities, and challenges, ways of praying, and Mary and the saints as models of prayer.

Seventh and eighth grade students participate in a two year Confirmation program guided by the Chosen series. Chosen is a catechetical journey for teenaged Confirmation candidates. This program is designed to provide the essential intellectual and spiritual catechesis that is so vital to sacramental preparation.

Chosen follows the same three-phase catechumenal model used to prepare people to enter the Catholic Church through RCIA. These three phases, The Way, The Truth, and The Life, are expressed in the organization and structure of the catechetical presentation, following the classic Scripture passage in which Christ reveals his identity to Thomas and the other apostles: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father, but by me’” (John 14:6).

It takes a whole Church to raise a disciple. Each time a youth is confirmed, he or she takes his or her in the wider community of faith-among among those who have played a vital role in helping him or her to reach the sacramental milestone.

All junior high students also complete a required number of service hours each year.

The Theology of the Body for Teens (TOTB-Teen) curriculum uses activities, prayer and stories to answer questions about sexual morality and their changing bodies. As eighth graders all students will participate in this program as part of their religion class.