Chapel + Masses

Celebrating Our Faith at The Woods

We acknowledge God's companionship in our work in several ways:

• Our Grade 8 students lead the student body in prayer, via our loudspeaker, to begin each day.
• Our Lower and Middle School students participate in weekly chapels together. During this time, our students reflect on how we can see God's presence in all things and how we can harness our talents, gifts, hard work, and joy for God's greater glory. To this end, we utilize student presentations, messages from guest speakers, and use film, music, and the arts to explore virtue, character, and right judgment.
• Student prayer leaders take students' petitions during every religion class.
• Middle school students regularly practice the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius who founded the Jesuit order of priests more than 500 years ago.
• We celebrate Masses throughout the school year, which bring students, faculty, parents, and alumni together. Each grade at The Woods is in charge of at least one Mass where they participate in the readings, help carry the gifts, and more. 
• Our Middle School Choir celebrates the word of God through song at each Mass and our Orchestra and Instrumentalists accompany as well. 
• Middle School students also have the opportunity to serve as Altar Servers, assisting the priest during Mass. Altar servers carry the cross, the processional candles, hold the book for the priest celebrant when he is not at the altar, carry the incense and censer, present the bread, wine, and water to the priest during the preparation of the gifts or assist him when he receives the gifts from the people, wash the hands of the priest, assist the priest celebrant and deacon as necessary.