“My role is to introduce or reintroduce students to Jesus Christ.”
These words of Fr. Noah Morey ’08 may seem simple, but the weight of them, in today’s culture, is enormous. Fr. Morey serves as chaplain at Bishop Ireton High School in Arlington, Virginia, helping introduce (or reintroduce) 1,148 students each academic year to Jesus Christ. Doing so stands in contrast to an unfortunate trend: for young adults in the United States, the Catholic Faith has become increasingly forgotten. According to Pew Research Center, only 23% of Catholics under the age of 30 are still attending Mass in person — a number that has only continued to decline over the past 50 years.
Young people desperately need proper formation or they will be swept away by today’s culture, especially during the high school years. In Christendom’s home Diocese of Arlington, Fr. Morey, along with Frs. Christopher Tipton ’12 and Peter McShurley ’14, are now taking on that challenging mission, serving as the chaplains of three of the four diocesan high schools.
The Diocese of Arlington’s four diocesan high schools serve approximately 3,800 students each academic year, promoting spiritual, intellectual, creative, social, and physical development amongst the respective student bodies. Between Frs. Tipton, McShurley, and Morey, they are serving 2,606 of these students both in and outside the classroom. Thousands of souls stand in their fatherly care during each academic year, a fact that they do not take lightly.
Fr. Christopher Tipton serves as chaplain at St. John Paul the Great High School.
“I am a father to these students who face the brunt of the culture war in our society,” says Fr. Tipton, who serves as chaplain at St. John Paul the Great High School. “Many of them are victims of a promise for fulfillment that cannot be attained or a love that does not satisfy. The voices of these ideologies are very loud, strong, and enticing. However, there are many who notice, when introduced to the truth, the same thing St. Augustine noted in his Confessions: ‘Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.’ These teens have great dreams and goals. As their Chaplain, I am humbled to serve them by bringing Christ to them as a priest and bringing them to Christ as a father.”
Day-to-day life as a chaplain varies for each of the priests, just as every school day varies. According to Fr. McShurley, the parts that remain the same primarily involve the sacraments.
“I look after the sacramental life of the school, which involves offering Mass in our school chapel, offering confession times and times of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and interceding on behalf of the students, faculty, and staff,” says Fr. McShurley, who serves at Bishop Denis J. O’Connell High School. “At Bishop O’Connell, we also have a great retreat program where we offer 13 overnight retreats in addition to our day retreats every year. These retreats give our students an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ and foster re-enlivening the faith life of our students.”
Fr. Peter McShurley serves as chaplain at Bishop Denis J. O’Connell High School.
From there, a chaplain aims to serve whatever the needs are of the student body, according to Fr. McShurley. Sometimes this means offering a presentation in class or simply being in attendance for sports games, student events, and more. Other times, it means answering students’ questions about the faith or offering guidance to them in their spiritual and moral lives.
“Working with young people is a great blessing,” says Fr. McShurley. “The high school years are very formative and being able to be an instrument to spread the Gospel and encouraging students to virtuous living, while a difficult task, is one that is very worthwhile.”
High school students are hungry for meaning. Oftentimes nowadays, they are finding that meaning in social media and the trends of the day, rather than in the truths of the Gospel. Frs. Tipton, McShurley, and Morey are working hard to change this at their respective schools, bringing the truths of Jesus Christ to the students entrusted to their care.
For Fr. Morey, he sees his education at Christendom as key to his preparation both for the priesthood and, by extension, for high school ministry, because it taught him “the importance of being rooted in the truth and goodness of the human person.”
Fr. Noah Morey serves as chaplain at Bishop Ireton High School.
“Through this work and ministry, I am certainly learning a lot each day about service as a priest and about the human person in general,” says Fr. Morey, who serves at Bishop Ireton High School. “When my students are struggling at home or in school, I endeavor to listen to them compassionately and refer them to Jesus, who allows me to play a small role in their formation and education. While working daily in a high school presents many challenges and opportunities, I see my role as scattering and planting seeds, which will germinate in God’s good time. As St. Paul said, ‘I planted, Apollos watered, but God gives the growth. So, neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.’”
That goal — of planting seeds and helping people along the path toward sainthood — was one of the things that drew all three to the priesthood in the first place. Now, they are fulfilling that mission in a profound way at these high schools, helping young people during one of the most formative times in their lives.
Each recognizes the profound task before them of “introducing or reintroducing students to Jesus Christ.” That mission will be challenging at times, especially in a culture that works to pull young people from the truths of the Gospel. But, Frs. Tipton, McShurley, and Morey have been called and formed for this very task, ready to go out and truly live out Christendom’s motto to “restore all things in Christ.”
“We get to see and work with not only future leaders but also with future saints,” concludes Fr. Tipton. “We get to assist those who will hold on to the hope given by Christ and share that same hope with others. With the teens I have seen graduate in my short time here, we have some pretty awesome saints on the way.”