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Liturgy:
Students attend Mass weekly, normally on Friday mornings at 8:30am at our parish church (a block away from the school). Students actively participate at Mass in the pews and as altar servers, lectors, and ushers. Classes take turns serving as the choir, leading the liturgical music. Reconciliation services are available for students at least twice during the school year (Advent & Lent).
Virtue:
The Catholic school’s task is fundamentally a synthesis of culture and faith, and a synthesis of faith and life: the first is reached by integrating all the different aspects of human knowledge through the subjects taught, in the light of the Gospel; the second is the growth of the virtues characteristic of the Christian.” (Congregation for Catholic Education, The Catholic School 37)
St. Benedict uses the Virtues in Practice program created by the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville, Tennessee. The program covers 27 virtues over a 3-year cycle (year of faith, year of hope, year of charity) and incorporates 81 different Saints as models of particular virtues. Students participate from Junior Kindergarten through 8th grade. During each month of the school year, there is a focus on one particular virtue. During that month, students learn what the virtue means, what Saints modeled that virtue, and how we can practice that virtue in our everyday lives. At the end of each month, students in grades 1-8 nominate classmates who they feel have demonstrated practice of that virtue.