Holy Angels Academy: Community, Faith and Truth
Christina E. Doane
My parents made the decision to send me to school when I was going into the fourth grade at nine years old. I had been homeschooled up until that point and was frankly ecstatic to be able to go to a school like the ones on TV, with a location that wasn’t my house and kids my age who were not my siblings. We visited one day and took a tour of the building; I was quite impressed, particularly with the playground and the organ in the chapel. Overall, I was pleased with what I saw and more than willing to attend.
I remained pleased as the school year began and went on, but I also began to discover things about myself. I found it a little hard to keep up in class since the teacher wasn’t going at only my pace, and I wasn’t familiar with how to turn a book to a specific page quickly. I found out I wasn’t as confident as I thought I was. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to do math with analog clocks. Yet, throughout everything, I got the help I needed. If I asked for help, the teachers had no trouble slowing down and going over it until I got it. The classes were small enough that there was plenty of room to take a minute and make sure everyone was caught up. As long as I communicated the problem, they were more than willing to accommodate me.
What’s more, my view on being Catholic changed quite a bit. For a long time, I had gone to Mass with my family without giving it a whole lot of thought to my relationship with Christ. My faith was mostly an obligation to me for a while. Holy Angels gave me the opportunity to learn a lot more about the principles of the faith, hear about the lives of the saints, and attend daily Mass. It helped me to view Catholicism as something much more personal to me. I even decided on my confirmation saint by reading a copy of Saint Maria Faustina’s diary that I found in a pew in the school chapel. As the years have gone by, the matters of faith have grown more complex and difficult to understand. I’ve been given the opportunity to wrestle with these matters, and I know I have people here who I can ask for guidance.
On top of everything, the people at this school are one of its most remarkable aspects. Everyone knows everyone else to some degree. There is an air of amiability and kindness that is always apparent. The friends I have made here are some of the most important people in my life. The small community allowed me to take part in practically any activities I wanted, be it plays, the choir, or sports. I am grateful to have been part of a community that is based on kindness, opportunity, and the Catholic faith.
Although every student at some point falls into the mindset of growing weary with school, at the end of the day, I don’t regret any time I have spent here. I believe my school has allowed me to become someone who believes in the truth and will be able to handle the questions life presents. The instinct I had about the school as a child proved to be correct, and I am overwhelmingly grateful to have attended Holy Angels Academy.
Holy Angels Academy Leads Towards the Greater Goal
Grant Mucci
I was blessed enough to be born into a Catholic family. I always went through the motions of being a Catholic, but I never had a desire to do these things. As I started getting older, I began to have doubts about the faith. I started high school with a weak relationship with God and very little desire to fix what I had left of one. I started my freshman year out at one of the biggest high schools in Louisville and quickly got pulled down the wrong path. To me, it seemed that all my classmates had the mindset to just “live life.” Being a young man, I went right along with their mindset. I made a lot of good memories, but something felt wrong about the way I was living.
During the summer before my junior year, my family toured Holy Angels Academy, and initially, I wasn’t at all interested in the school. I hadn’t planned on going to school there, but when I found out that my younger sisters would be going, I felt that God was calling me to go to Holy Angels. So, at the start of my junior year, I was at a school with people who were living a completely different lifestyle than I was. I worried about finding my place at Holy Angels, but I quickly found that I was not out of place at all. I found that it wasn’t just a school but a community of people who not only wanted to grow in the faith but also encouraged those struggling. Holy Angels has allowed me to take a step back from the things of this world and look at what truly matters: what comes after this life.
I was never a great student, and school has not come easily to me. I didn’t exactly thrive academically in high school, but it has prepared me well for what is to come. I saw two sides in high school — I saw what it’s like not to have a relationship with God, and I saw what life is like with one. I am far from a perfect Catholic, but I do know that without God, life will be a whole lot worse. While Holy Angels wasn’t as focused on preparing me to get a job and make money, they have taught me that there is a greater goal.
I have been counting down the days til I could graduate since my freshman year. The last four years of my life have been a journey that changed the way I look at religion, my life, and the world in general. I have taken chances on things and I have failed a lot, but I can confidently say that I feel prepared to go into the world and live a life for God.
