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Nine AHA students become Eucharistic Ministers
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October 11, 2022In his Pastoral Letter on the Eucharist, Cardinal Joseph Tobin rhetorically asked: “What can each of us do to help our brothers and sisters here in northern New Jersey return to the grace and beauty of the Eucharist?” Students at the Academy of the Holy Angels (AHA), an all-girls preparatory school located in Demarest, have recently answered this call by taking on leadership roles within the Church as Lay Eucharistic Ministers (LEM).
Recently, nine AHA students were commissioned as LEMs by Father David Milliken: Caterina Cardamone of Glen Rock, Raphaela Cárdenas of Clifton, Bianca Cifelli of Hillsdale, Dominique Dela Gente and Ella Oaten of Tenafly, Kathryn Fragola of Bergenfield, Katherine Gallagher of Wyckoff, Natalia Gonzalez of Paterson, and Autumn Morrissey of Saddle River. They can now serve communion at Mass and to the homebound.
Catholic schools have a vital role in instilling faithfulness and Catholic leadership within the next generation of students. The importance of keeping young people engaged with the church and encouraging women to take on leadership roles in the church were both topics discussed in the Archdiocese of Newark’s recent SYNOD report.“Pay it forward, and become angels for a lifetime,” Father Milliken said, challenging those present at the commissional Mass to serve others.
“Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion should receive sufficient spiritual, theological, and practical preparation to fulfill their role with knowledge and reverence,” according to The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The young women were prepared for their new roles by Kathleen Sylvester, Academy of the Holy Angels’ Director of Campus Ministry, and Maryanne Miloscia, Campus Minister.
To become members of the Eucharistic Minister training program, Sylvester said, senior students must meet several requirements. First, they must fill out a form ensuring they are fully initiated Roman Catholics in good standing with the Church. Then, they must submit a letter of recommendation from their parish priest, as well as letters from two AHA faculty members. Additionally, the girls submit an essay detailing their service history to their parishes and explaining why they feel they are suitable candidates to be chosen for the program. Only the most qualified applicants are selected to go through the training process.
“The training sessions help ground the students in the theology of the Eucharist, Biblical teaching, and encourage them to explore what the Eucharist means to them and the community,” Sylvester said. The preparation process consists of six hours of comprehensive training where students reflect on the teachings of various saints and Biblical stories relating to the Eucharist, including the Old Testament story of the manna in the desert and Jesus’s miracle of the loaves and fishes from the Gospel of Matthew.
“As part of the first training session, they also do a ‘bread making meditation’ in which they make a loaf of bread from scratch,” Sylvester said.
Many of the girls cited the bread-baking activity as the most memorable aspect of the training. “They reflected on the importance of bread as a symbol in the scriptures and how each ingredient symbolizes various aspects of human spirituality,” Sylvester said. “When mixed, these ingredients become something new, something life-giving: food.”
Ella Oaten, one of the newly commissioned LEM students, said she decided to pursue the Eucharistic Minister training as an opportunity to be more connected with God and to her Catholic faith.
“I was excited to take on this role in my school and am looking forward to helping during our school Masses,” Oaten said.
Student Autumn Morrissey said she sought to become a Eucharistic Minister because she valued her Catholic upbringing and sought a way to serve her church and community more.
“This program is the perfect way for me to do that. Just from my training sessions, I have already learned so much and feel a real connection,” Morrissey said.
Immediately after their commissioning, the new Eucharistic Ministers distributed Holy Communion to their peers, faculty, and staff at the annual Feast Day Mass, commemorating the Academy's founding. On Oct. 2, 1879, Sister Mary Nonna Dunphy, SSND signed the deed for the Academy’s original campus in Fort Lee. The signing coincided with the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, and AHA took its name from the holiday. The academy, the oldest private girls’ school in Bergen County, moved to Demarest in 1965.
Each student LEM has been urged to serve the AHA community, build up the church, and be faithful to the ministry.
While the Academy of the Holy Angels serves a Catholic mission, the school welcomes young women from a broad spectrum of cultural and religious backgrounds."I am particularly pleased to celebrate our newly commissioned Eucharist Ministers who are responding to the needs of their community,” Principal Jean Miller said. “It is my hope that they will recognize the importance of being an active member of a faith-filled community and that this is only the first step of many years of service to their parishes."
“The academy’s current leaders continue to further the SSND [School Sisters of Notre Dame] mission to provide each student with the tools she needs to reach the fullness of her potential — spiritually, intellectually, socially, and physically, by offering a first-rate education in a nurturing environment where equal importance is placed on academic excellence, character development, moral integrity, and service to others,” AHA Public Relations Manager Jennifer Crusco said.
Featured photo: Nine Academy of the Holy Angels students became Eucharist ministers this year. Pictured (L-R) are: Dominique Dela Gente, Raphaela Cárdenas, Kathryn Fragola, Ella Oaten, Katherine Gallagher, Caterina Cardamone, Bianca Cifelli, Autumn Morrissey, and Natalia Gonzalez. (Courtesy Academy of the Holy Angels)
