“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
2 Tim 4:7
The halls of Holy Family High School in Broomfield continue to bustle with activity well after the final bell. Excited students and their families tramp the halls to the gym, and the squeak of shoes and shouts from the athletes echo all the way to the front lobby. But just up the stairs, something new is happening.
The dark school chapel is crowded with students, their younger siblings and parents, as well as staff, teachers and alumni, many of whom have brought their own families along. The chapel is illuminated by candlelight, and as the last notes of the O Salutaris Hostia fade away, those present fall into silent Adoration, with their gazes fixed on the silver and gold monstrance that houses the Eucharist.
“I was taking papers downstairs,” Maddie, a senior at Holy Family, explained, “and I heard a parent on their way to the volleyball game ask, ‘Hey, what’s going on up there?’ ‘Oh, we have Adoration,’ I told him. And then I saw him in the chapel later that night. We’re reaching parents. We’re reaching all the people. You can’t get that level of Adoration during a normal school day.”
This event is part of a new series called Encounter, an evening of Eucharistic Adoration, praise and worship music, confession and witness testimonies. These events have allowed students to meet the living God in the Eucharist.
“Encounter really makes the students take initiative,” Maddie said. “We’ve brought people who are not Catholic, and they would come and really enjoy the quiet and the chance to pray.”
The Encounter events are part of a larger movement at Holy Family called Ut Fidem (Latin for “keep the faith”), a grass-roots style, student-driven small group ministry that aims to draw students into deep and lifelong encounter with Christ. Students interested in deepening their faith and friendships form small groups, meet weekly with a mentor for an hour and engage in intentional formation through prayer, Scripture studies and community building, all of it centered around the Eucharist.
But don’t let Stephanie Devenny – the movement’s director – hear you call it a “club.”
“It’s not a club because it should help everyone involved to make their faith the center of their life, and that’s a lifestyle change,” she explained. To be in Ut Fidem means students voluntarily give up time each week, usually early in the morning, to cultivate their faith, accompany one another in prayer, and be, as Devenny puts it, “an active participant and not a bystander. This isn’t an extra club to check off and put on a resume. We’re trying to reawaken young people in the Catholic Church.”
For seniors Matt and Brady, the experience has fostered deeper friendships with the other young men in their group and allowed them to see the workings of grace in their own lives. Matt said the experience has been a much more personal experience than what you can get in a Theology class. For Brady, Ut Fidem has been an opportunity to grow in his faith.
“It’s helped me to realize in a greater way how God wants a personal relationship with each of us. And while it’s true that the truths of the faith are true for everybody, God is reaching out to me in a specific way,” he shared.
For Maddie, the decision to join a group was easy because “it was an excuse to talk about Jesus with my friends.”
The need for greater investment in the spiritual lives of students has been of the utmost importance to Micah Greenmyer, the science department chair. With the key support of Principal Mary Vulcani who likewise saw this need from her years in Campus Ministry, Greenmyer sought out schools that had succeeded in reigniting the faith on their own campuses. With the help of the administrative team, Holy Family found Dowling Catholic in Des Moines, the birthplace of Ut Fidem. After researching the program, he met with the Iowa school and presented it to Holy Family’s administration and board. Now in its first year, Ut Fidem is already drawing young people and their families closer to the Lord.
While many are familiar with the devastating statistics about large numbers of US Catholic youth who say they do not practice their faith and that they have never experienced the love of God, this growing movement at Holy Family High School aims to change the narrative. The initial goal for Ut Fidem was to end the 2023-2024 school year with 4 groups, a goal they tripled, ending the year with 12 groups. This year, having graduated 5 groups last spring, Holy Family is on track to end the year with 19 groups.
Devenny explained that all that growth occurred through students’ word of mouth, getting excited about Encounter, and inviting their friends. In addition, she just announced the official launch of Ut Fidem for the school community's parents.
The rapid growth of the program is an incredible testament to the Lord’s desire to draw near to his people, and to work even in unseen ways, Brady said: “It’s a really cool reminder that God is working in ways that we don’t see.”
The Holy Spirit is hard at work to enkindle the hearts of Catholics in Northern Colorado, but Devenny is hoping for even more.
“I want Holy Family to become a center for evangelization in the state. I want kids to come here and know something’s different just by walking into the building. I want them to know that these kids and families are actively living a personal relationship with God and his Church. We have an opportunity to be a light in this state, to reignite the spark in the students and the family for Jesus and his Church. I want them to be missionary disciples, not just to keep the faith,” she concluded.
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