“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
(Luke 6:31)
Eucharist Day
This annual event fosters devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Each class spends time in prayer before the Eucharist and is led in a gospel reflection by a priest from one of our seven parishes. The day culminates with a school-wide Eucharistic procession and Benediction.
School Masses
The school community comes together at least monthly to celebrate Mass in the Katie Fitzgerald Center. Each grade has the opportunity to host the Mass, which includes proclaiming the readings, writing the petitions, serving as ushers, gift bearers and altar servers. The liturgy is enhanced with singing led by our school choir and cantors. Our primary students learn the Mass responses and appropriate behavior from their Middle School Prayer Partners.
Throughout the school year, each individual class in grades 2-8 celebrates a private Mass in the school's quiet chapel. The small size of the chapel allows the students to experience the Mass up close and personally.
Service
In the example of Christ, Mary of Nazareth students are encouraged to reach out in service to those in the local community as well as abroad. Students have raised funds to help the homeless, collected winter coats for the poor, collected change to support Shady Grove Pregnancy Center, purchased a llama and buffalo for an African community, and held a carwash to support hurricane victims to name just a few of the school's charitable activities.
Individual grades often have their own service projects. Our Kindergartners recycled soda tabs to help the military; first grade sent care packages to the Marines; second grade made storyboards for abused mothers; third grade sent letters to Army personnel in Afghanistan; fourth grade created coloring books and crafts for children in the hospital; fifth grade collected toys for the Children’s Inn at NIH; sixth grade hosts and plays games with seniors from a local nursing home; seventh grade sorts and shelves food at a food pantry; and eighth grade serves meals at a soup kitchen.
Vocations Awareness
Mary of Nazareth School maintains a religious presence through instruction and visits by the priests and deacon from our parishes and faculty members in consecrated life. Our Vocations Week activities include boys' and girls' vocations dinners, closed circuit vocations infomercials, and guest speakers. Our eighth grade students attend the annual Archdiocesan Vocations Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
May Crowning
The Mary of Nazareth Community honors Mary, our patroness, with a Mass and May Crowning. In gratitude for her many graces and the intercession of our Blessed Mother, the eighth grade students crown Mary and make an offering of flowers. Each individual grade also honors Mary with a classroom May Crowning and prayer service.
March for Life
Our eighth grade students have the opportunity to live their faith by attending the annual Rally and March for Life sponsored by the Archdiocese of Washington. Along with their peers from across the country, our students give witness and stand up for the dignity and protection of all life by attending Mass, praying, and marching to the Capital.
Holy Communion
After much instruction and preparation our second grade students and their families join together to celebrate Mass and receive Jesus in sacrament of the Eucharist. It is a time of joy, thanksgiving and reflection as these boys and girls participate more fully in the liturgy and come to understand the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
Prayer Life
A relationship with God is developed with a regular and varied prayer life throughout the day. The primary and intermediate grades pray in the morning, mid-day, and in the afternoon. The middle school students pray before each class. All students learn the traditional Catholic prayers and families are encouraged to pray them as well.
Communal Prayer
The school prays as a community with the opening daily prayer, grace after meals, and the closing prayer. At the end of the week, the community listens and reflects on the Sunday gospel and applies it to our lives.
Rosary
Students become familiar with the recitation of the rosary. The rosary is recited as a school and led by students on closed circuit television.
Reconciliation
The students have the opportunity to receive the sacrament of Reconciliation twice during the school year as offered by the priests of our seven parishes.
Stations of the Cross
As part of their Lenten prayer, students may reflect on the Stations of the Cross in the school chapel, or walk the Way of the Cross following the stations hung in the school hallway.