Our prayer and liturgy can sometimes get disconnected from our service and work for justice, but at Saint Viator High School’s Service & Song, Viatorians demonstrate the essential resonance between these areas of our faith lives for our young people.
Service & Song 2025 was last week. The camp serves middle school students with high school students as their leaders. Each day begins with prayer, song, and Scripture and leads into service activities. The camp began in 2013 with the vision of Fr. Corey Brost, CSV, and it continues with Associate Ann Perez, Vice President for Mission and Identity, and Fr. John Eustice, CSV, Chaplain, now at the helm.
Each day’s morning prayer has a thematic focus from Mass: gathering; proclaiming the Good News; preparing the altar; becoming the Body of Christ; and sending forth. “We connect discipleship and our commitment to people sometimes accounted of little importance with celebrating liturgy and prayer,” Ann said.
Each day’s theme drew on one part of the Mass and led into a great celebration of family Mass to conclude the week.
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Then, leaders and participants go out to do a variety of service:
- Packing sessions at Feed My Starving Children
- Yardwork in the Province Center’s Viatorian Community Garden
- Yardwork at Laudato Si’ Gardens at St. Theresa Parish in Palatine and St. Mary of Vernon in Indian Creek
- Packing lunches and delivering them with a tour at Journeys: The Road Home, which provides shelter and services to those experiencing homelessness
- Sorting donations for resale stores of WINGS, a domestic violence service provider, at their Elk Grove Village facility
- Yardwork and housework at Home of the Sparrow, for people experiencing homelessness
- Cutting cloth and creating blankets and cards for SALUTE, which assists injured military veterans
- Preparing colorful greeting cards for elderly people for Color A Smile
- Organizing donations and cleaning closets for Little City, a program supporting adults with special needs
Fr. Jhobany (left and bottom right) and Larry were out serving in the Viatorian Community Garden with their groups of young people.
The week also includes a live service project, benefitting Wheeling Township Food Pantry. “Groups walk the neighborhood to distribute flyers on Tuesday, and other groups collect the food on Thursday,” Ann said. “Then on Friday, a group visits the food pantry and helps sort the delivery. So, campers, leaders, and adults all contribute together.”
Ann and Fr. John had Viatorian teamwork from faculty and staff members Associate Brigette Brankin, Associate Kurt Paprocki, Pre-Associate Pat McGarry, and Br. Rob Robertson, CSV as well as Associate Larry D’Urso, an alumni parent, and Fr. Jhobany Orduz, CSV, who will start as a Saint Viator campus minister later this summer.
The week concludes with family Mass. “Teaching a little bit of the Mass each day made it so that, by time we reached Mass at the end of the week, there wasn’t much teaching still needed,” Fr. John said. “Everything came together at closing Mass, which made total, natural sense following the week we had shared.”
Larry and Br. Rob (top left) got to take a group to see Journeys The Road Home’s Fitzgerald Family Journey Center, while many Viatorians joined young people in a packing session at Feed My Starving Children, including Pat (top right), Br. John (blessing the food at bottom left), and Ann (bottom right)
This is all in service of the school’s mission, as many participants are future students: “Guided by the Viatorian mission, all members of the Saint Viator family discern who God wants them to be, discover what the world needs, and transform the communities they encounter.”
Fr. John witnessed a young person who had the sort of realization he hopes to see at Service & Song. “She shared that she didn’t realize how many needs were out in our community before this week – and also that she realized how much need remains,” Fr. John said. “She felt that this work is still unfinished.”