St. John School
Our Mission: The mission of Jackson Catholic Schools is to joyfully cultivate God’s goodness, beauty, and truth. Through our Catholic faith, we share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, grow in virtue and intellect, and form our students to lead and serve our communities as saints.
The 2024/2025 school year is off to a great start! It has been wonderful seeing all the smiling faces and hearing the halls buzzing with excitement. The school walls are filling up with the talent and beauty of the children. It is amazing to see! We’ve welcomed 37 new students in preschool through 6th grade, and it’s truly incredible to see our Saint John School family grow! We also welcomed the following new teachers to our school: Kathy Blanchard, 6th grade teacher; Amanda Parrish, 3rd grade teacher; JoAnn Stampfly, Music; Michelle Merwin, Technology. What a blessing it is to have a Catholic school. We thank our parish family for all you do to support Saint John School. We are particularly grateful for the generous donations of supplies for the school year from the Christian Service Giving Tree.
Virtues
SJS implements Disciple of Christ, Education in Virtue developed by the Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist. This program, “…speaks to students as created in the image and likeness of God, body and soul. It provides authentically Catholic formation, giving students the tools they need to live an integrated social-emotional life in the light of grace.” This program incorporates the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. This year to grow in our relationship with Christ we are focusing on the 4 cardinal virtues – Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude. These inform and form the daily life of SJS.
Eucharistic Procession
The first quarter is a focus on Justice with a related virtue of Obedience. Stemming off of these 2 virtues the Holy Spirit helps us with the gift of Piety. The Gift of Piety gives a tenderness and a devotion to the worship we owe God, not just because it is required but something we desire because He is our Father who loves us. After our first school mass we put these virtues into practice. With Father Chas’ leadership, Jesus, in the Blessed Sacrament, was once again brought to our school chapel. Immediately following the school mass, students, teachers, families, and parishioners joined in a Eucharist procession from the church to the school gym. Usually the walk back after church is filled with laughter and joyful conversation, but on that day it was silent and filled with prayerful reverence. The students knew something different was happening. They recognized Jesus was being brought back to their school. Once in the gym Father gave each class an individual blessing. Then class representatives followed Father Chas across the hall to the school chapel where the Lord was placed in the tabernacle. This was a public witness of the reality of Jesus truly present in the Eucharist. Now He is always with us in our school chapel giving us peace and joy. The beauty of having a chapel in our school is that we can go to worship Him at any time, He is never far away.
Finally, Seminarian Jacob Derry has been visiting our classrooms to meet our students and share his calling with us! We wish him the best as he heads back to Rome. Please keep Jacob and all the other seminarians in your prayers!
