Anchorage teen eager to finally join Catholic Church

CatholicAnchor.org

Why does a 15-year-old girl decide to join the Catholic Church?

For Jamie Nagel, a 10th grader at Lumen Christi High School, the answer boils down to two things: the wonderful community she has experienced in the 7-12th grade Catholic school, and the theology classes which caught her attention and held it.

“I began to have an idea about being a Catholic in junior high,” Nagel recalled of the year she first began attending Lumen Christi. “But I didn’t really act on it or talk to anyone until freshman year.”

Stacy Robertson’s religion classes in junior high introduced Nagel to religious ideas she’d never heard of, and by the time she studied “Intro to Catholicism” with instructor Denise Mespelli freshman year, she was feeling a pull towards the church.

She started to talk with Mespelli, and later St. Benedict Church pastor Father Leo Walsh, youth minister Oriele Jones, and Bob McMorrow, director of evangelization and catechesis.

Nagel comes from a Lutheran family, where, she said, “I was raised Lutheran but we didn’t attend every Sunday.”

She moved to Alaska from Minnesota as a young grade school student, attended public school, and was on track to attend Hanshew Middle School. Religion was not on her mind.

But her parents began to look around for alternatives to the large public middle school.

“They wanted a smaller school, more of a one-on-one education,” Nagel said.

They decided on Lumen Christi, and their son Shon is now in 8th grade at the school as well.

This choice isn’t unusual, said principal John Harmon. The school has a large number of Lutheran students in a school population that is 40 percent non-Catholic. A near-by Lutheran elementary school feeds some students into Lumen, as there is no Lutheran high school.

When Nagel began to think about joining the Catholic Church, she and her mom talked. Her mom wanted her to at least be confirmed in their family’s faith, and asked her to go through Lutheran confirmation classes, which were held in junior high.

“I went to all the classes. Then I sat down and talked to her,” Nagel said.

She said her mom understood her desire to become a Catholic, and mainly wants her to be a believer and a good Christian. She’s very supportive of her decision. Nagel’s parents are divorced, and she lives with her dad now. He too is supportive.

Both parents will attend the Easter Vigil at St. Benedict Church where Nagel will receive her First Communion. Along with her theology classes at Lumen Christi, Nagel is meeting regularly with Jones and McMorrow for instruction.

Jones says Nagel is “very mature for her age. She’s a very sweet girl, fun to be around and very positive.”

Like Nagel, Jones thinks that “the community environment” at Lumen Christi nudged Nagel towards the Catholic Church.

“The teachers, my friends. Everyone was so supportive,” Nagel said. “Even my friends at school who aren’t Catholic, or staff members who aren’t Catholic, tell me, ‘That’s so nice, that’s so exciting.’ Everyone is so happy for me.”

Nagel has a great respect for the Lutheran Church, but said the more she inquired into the faith, the more Catholicism made sense to her.

“When I would ask questions in my Catholic classes, I would think, ‘This answer makes sense,’” she said.

She’s looking forward to being a full participant in the Mass. It’s one thing to go up and receive a blessing, she said. It’s quite another to receive the Eucharist.

Although Nagel said her dreams about a career “change all the time,” she is thinking about the medical field right now, and that’s probably why biology is one of her favorite classes.

The other? Theology. She said she enjoyed Hebrew Scripture last semester and Christian Scripture this semester.

Harmon said that non-Catholics choose Lumen Christi for many of the same reasons Catholic parents do.

“First of all, it’s the academics and the challenging curriculum, and the fact that our graduation rate is 100 percent,” he said. “Then, there are the values of self-discipline, respect for self and others, good stewardship of resources. There’s Catholic social teaching and moral values.”

Beyond that, parents are attracted by the small class sizes. Lumen, with grades 7-12, has an enrollment that runs between 85-90 students. Athletics even enters the picture, Harmon said, noting that in a small school, there’s a far greater chance for each student to participate in a school sport or other extra-curricular activities.

Non-Catholic parents are informed that their students will be required to participate in theology classes each year, and will attend the regularly scheduled Masses and other devotional activities.

“If they are not Catholic and feel uncomfortable saying the rosary, they can sit silently and pray,” Harmon added. But even non-Catholics take their turn reading Scripture at Mass or bringing up offertory gifts.

Nagel is not the first non-Catholic student to be received into the Catholic Church while enrolled at Lumen Christi, but she is the only one this year.

Harmon called her “an exceptional young woman. We’re really proud of her.”