Christian Service

Students are encouraged to be active members of the Christian faith community. This entails promoting moral values, fostering an attitude of Christian service, and continually growing in the Truth of the Catholic Church. Saint Mary’s students strive to be models of Christian love, honesty, decency and integrity.

In addition to satisfying academic requirements, each Saint Mary's Knight/Lady Knight must completely satisfy the Christian Service Requirement.

Saint Mary’s High School seeks to encourage participation in Christian service as an integral part of the student’s life. Each student is given an opportunity to live out Christ’s Gospel admonition to love one another as they
themselves would like to be loved. However, in order to love in this way, they must go beyond simply doing good works for the sake of the works themselves, but must learn to respond to the needs of others, no matter how profound, with true mercy as our guide.

                                    “Do small things with great love. It’s not how much we do,
                                    but how much love we put into the giving.”

                                                                              -Blessed Mother Teresa

The goal of the service requirement is primarily to help students look beyond themselves and into the hearts of others and at the same time cultivate, through experience, a thorough understanding of a mercy that is grounded first and foremost in love rather than pity.

• In order to graduate from Saint Mary's High School, each student must complete 30 hours of Christian Service during each of the freshman, sophomore, and junior years – 90 hours total.
  
  
• For registered members of a Catholic parish, the student must complete a minimum of 15 of these hours each year in service to their parish. Students may fulfill this service requirement after school hours, in the evenings, on weekends, and during the summer.
  
  
• Students transferring to Saint Mary’s for their senior year, must complete a total of fifteen Christian Service hours during that year.
  
  
• A list of service opportunities is available from the Campus Minister.
  
  
• All students are expected to have the accumulated number of hours recorded with the Campus Minister by April 1st each year.
  
  
• The Principal, in consultation with the Campus Minister, makes the final decision as to which service hours will be accepted to meet the graduation requirement.

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