Increasing Catholic Identity with the Saints at Santo Niño Regional Catholic School

Santo Niño Regional Catholic School in Santa Fe serves 8 parishes in the Santa Fe area. The school is going into its 13 ^thyear and has beautiful facilities.  In his work, Architects of Catholic Culture, Timothy Cook states, “The Catholic Experience of God also occurs within community, a community that is universal and inclusive, which includes the communion of saints.”  This communion and community is what we all share at the school.  

As teachers, staff, students and parents, we are called to be like our Lord Jesus Christ, to follow and work towards perfection, but we are also human.  Humanity can never fully achieve the perfection that is Christ, but we do have models in humanity: Saints.  There is a saint for everyone and anyone, patron saints for sports, cooking, and just people that we admire.  Saint Augustine did many wrong things, theft, etc…in his life before he became a Christian, and a great saint and defender of the faith.  

This year, students and teachers were challenged to change the name of their classrooms to saints. Instead of room 301, we will have room Saint Benedict, or Saint Aquinas.  Already, our hallways have painted Archangels and the Guardian Angel. Now, students will attend classrooms named after saints.  To reinforce their relationship with the saints and how the saints are our friends, each classroom door will have an image of the saint painted above the door and the prayer of the saint beside the door.  We are not stopping at just the classrooms either.  The cafeteria will have Saint Pascual and the gym will have a large life size (kid friendly) image of Saint Sebastian painted on the wall. In total, there will be about 30 saints painted around the school. 

A local artist, Doug Nava, has volunteered his time and talent to help us accomplish this quite large task.  We will have about 30 saints painted around the school which will help create that community and communion of saints.  The students will be taught all about the different saints and even get to dress up like their class saint at different times of the year.  The saints are our friends and the students will call upon them for their prayers and intercessions on their behalf.