It was a cold day in late December, the last day of school before a two-week winter break and the entire Nazareth Academy student body was gathered in the Sisters’ chapel adjacent to the school. The room was full of the kind of energy that comes when Catholic school students get an “out-of-uniform” day or when the classes are shortened because of a morning assembly. The occasion for the gathering was the Nazareth Academy All School Christmas Prayer Service. But this wasn’t going to be your typical high school Christmas gathering. This prayer service was going to bring together four organizations and the energy that seemed full before the service began would prove to be nothing compared to the energy that came during the service.
The particular theme and tenor of the 2007 Christmas Prayer Service at Nazareth Academy was the result of the inspiration of one of CTU’s current high school Peacebuilders. The heart of Peacebuilders Initiative is a week-long summer program held at Catholic Theological Union. During the summer program, 50 high-school youth gather together for prayer and worship, study theology, engage in hands-on ministry, reflect together and build community. At the conclusion of the summer week, these participants are commissioned to return to their communities to create and implement a peace project that uses their passion, skill and commitment to build peace and justice in their own community. Brooke Borowiak, a student at Nazareth Academy did just that and the Nazareth Academy Prayer Service was the result.
During the summer program, Brooke was connected with Harmony, Hope & Healing (HHH) for her afternoon ministry. HHH is a creative music program offering dignity and spiritual healing to the homeless and underserved in the Chicago area. HHH currently works in six different sites throughout Chicago providing opportunities to experience healing and spirituality through music. While ministering with HHH this past summer, Brooke developed relationships with the men, women and children who have come to form the choirs of HHH. These individuals inspired Brooke through their stories and their music and though not in the choir herself, she decided she wanted to bring them to Nazareth Academy to sing with the school choir. She worked with the Campus Ministry office and the Choir director to make this her peace project.
On that cold day in late December a large choir formed on the risers at the front of the Sisters’ chapel and together the women and men of Harmony, Hope & Healing and the young students of Nazareth Academy filled the room with the spirit of Christmas as they sang of hope and strength. As the Nazareth Academy students began to stand, clap and sing along, the mission of Peacebuilders Initiative was embodied; “Young people formed in the ways of reconciliation and peace.”
In Brooke’s own words…
“On the last day of our ministry site meetings, I was saddened to come to the realization that I would never see any of the women again from the St. Martin de Porres House of Hope. I had felt the same connection to these women and children as I did with the other peacebuilders.
I knew, just at that moment, what I wanted my Peace Project to accomplish. I wanted my friends and everyone in my community to be able to feel that spiritual connection that I had felt all throughout that week, for the first time in my life. After I talked to Marge, the director of HHH, we thought it would be really awesome if the chorus from St. Martin de Porres House of Hope could come to sing with the Nazareth community. When I…told my campus minister what I wanted to do for my project, both she and the chorus director were extremely excited.
When the day of the first meeting of the Nazareth chorus and the leaders of HHH came and went successfully, I knew that what I had been striving for had become a reality. Trying to help the members of the Nazareth community to feel that overwhelming sense of love and completion and connection through faith had actually come to life. The whole Nazareth chorus was moved by the life stories that were shared. If there had been any doubt in me before, I knew now that this was what God had wanted me to do all along, to share my experience with my community and to help them to experience God in the same way that I had.”
