Article by Phoenix writer Marianist LIFE Team ’25:
While many students began winding down after their comprehensive exams, Kellenberg’s Marianist L.I.F.E team were excited to see what their week would have in store. In June, twelve seniors had the unique opportunity to travel to California to deepen their faith.
L.I.F.E. stands for Living in Faithful Experience. Marianist high schools from all over the country come together to learn and pray to Jesus through Mary. At the beginning of the retreat, we journeyed out to Occidental California where we handed in our phones and technology. Free from distraction, we got to experience in an extremely personal yet different way over the course of the week. Some were extremely emotional, while other experiences were fun and exciting. With the addition of morning mass and prayer services, each school took a turn leading a prayer service, and ours was the second to last night before going home. At that point in the trip, I felt like we had truly gotten close as a group, so it was really cool to see how our leadership styles molded together while planning our service. We read the Gospel story of the Wedding at Cana, reflected on it, and, to bring some Kellenberg to California, performed a dance to “My Lighthouse.” This was one of my favorite moments because it balanced prayerfulness with fun.
It was so special to see how schools incorporated their high school traditions into the prayerful time. Almost every night, we had something called “songspiration” where we sang and danced to worship music all together in the lodge. We also did meet with our mixed Marianist L.I.F.E. community, or “mixed MLC” for short, multiple times a day. This entailed us being put into a group with other students from around the country and talking about our personal faith lives, our school’s faithfulness, and brainstorming ideas on how to best encourage the faith back at our schools.
From the dance circles to the tear-provoking discussions, embedded in all of the religious or community building activities was service. In everything we did and planned to bring back to Kellenberg, we were exemplifying Jesus through Mary through the integration of service and the Marianists. Though the people we met at our L.I.F.E retreat are thousands of miles away, our dedication to the Marianist mission keeps us together. Our friends from L.I.F.E still share all of the prayer services and community service activities we implement in all of our respective schools, and it’s really special to know that our bond is still alive.
As we progress into the school year, the support from the Kellenberg community and from our LIFErs miles away inspires us to uniquely give back to Kellenberg through service. To kick off the year, we took part in the Tunnels to Towers run, inviting students from different service clubs at Kellenberg to give back by serving beyond the bird’s nest. As we continue to work behind the scenes for different religious and school events or introduce mass, our tiny experience with service this past continues to inspire us.
