Cabrini Teaching Fellows empowers young Catholic educators to make students ‘saints’

The immersive training and community program molds teachers to grow and integrate Christ into their vocation and beyond.

(Photo provided)

by Jay Sorgi

A community of young Catholic teachers in Denver aims not only to infuse the faith into every aspect of their vocation in the archdiocese’s Catholic schools, but also to bring others closer to Christ.

Cabrini Teaching Fellows, a groundbreaking professional and personal formation program, has gathered recent college graduates from across the country with a deeply passionate faith and brought them to Denver to serve six Catholic school communities across the archdiocese while living in household communities themselves.

“I am serving and teaching children about God. I knew I wanted to move somewhere, but I just felt a little bit scared, and I needed help,” said Mary Noble, a Cabrini Fellow from Virginia who graduated from Christendom College. She teaches at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic School in Denver.

“I needed a community, and I wanted training,” she continued. “I learned about the Cabrini Teaching Fellows from our career director at my school, and it kind of just answered all the questions I had, checked all the boxes.”

Educational leaders in Denver Catholic Schools realize, after two years of having Cabrini Fellows in their schools, that the teachers are exactly the educators they’re looking for, particularly because of their ability to connect a Catholic missionary’s heart to the challenge of educating young people in the Catholic intellectual tradition.

“It's not just about following a gimmick or a trend of the decade, but it's truly imparting the timeless teaching of the Catholic Church. It begins with us as teachers, not only to impart knowledge, but truly to impart wisdom, which only comes as a result of our own personal formation,” said Sister Ines Sandoval, OCD, the principal of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic STEM School in Wheat Ridge.

She says that her school takes holistic faith formation of her teachers seriously, beyond focusing on teaching skills.

“Their spiritual life, their formation as practicing Catholic Christians, their own full embracing and living of the faith is something that we find as essential to truly do the work of bringing souls to Christ in a Catholic school,” she said. “That's what I've been experiencing with the Cabrini Fellows.”

The three-year program provides teachers with mentorship from experienced Catholic educators and retreat experiences, as well as an immersive orientation before their first year of classroom leadership.

“It was really three weeks dedicated to the theological and philosophical undergirdings of Catholic education,” said Carsten Logan, who is from Edmond, Oklahoma, and graduated from Oklahoma State University.

“That follows up with about a week and a half of real practicals,” he continued. “How do we really implement our main mission of Catholic education? What does that look like on a day-to-day level? What's it look like on a classroom management level, in an interaction with students and parents, and with your coworkers? That's kind of what the summer formation looked like.”

“Even just seeing some of the curriculum that they're utilizing, the outline of what they have set in place to form these young up-and-coming teachers, it's beautiful,” said Sister Sandoval. “I feel like it aligns perfectly with what we're about in our Catholic schools here in Denver, a seamless cohesion there between the type of formation we're giving within our school and how I see the Cabrini Fellows forming.”

The program searches nationwide for students who not only desire that training, but also for the community setup that the Cabrini Teaching Fellows offers. It mirrors the household concept at some Catholic universities like Franciscan University.

Their community life fosters shared prayer and sacramental life through Mass and Lectio Divina, as well as opportunities for fellowship with fellow Cabrini Fellows, such as dinners featuring homemade soup or a taco night.

“It's one of the most enjoyable things I've ever encountered,” said Logan. “To come home and have two other men that are completely dedicated to a mission for Christ is a beautiful thing. We end our nights with night prayer and have community meals together. You feel like you have your own little religious community, but you're with two other laymen that are also just dedicated to being the hands of Christ, which is a very neat experience.”

“It's been so special to experience my first few years of teaching, but then also to be able to go home with my roommates and my neighbors and just to know we're in this together, and there’s a shared mission within that,” said Natalie Timpe, a teacher at Sts. Peter and Paul.

“In post-grad life, you have to be more intentional with your friendships,” she continued, “so to be able to go home and just have amazing women that can check on me and say, ‘Have you been praying recently? Have you been making it to Mass?’ People will hold me accountable. It definitely makes that transition from college to the workforce so much more enjoyable, so much more fulfilling spiritually.”

Sister Sandoval said that the combination of intentionality in faith, immersion in community and magnification of mission is growing results within and through teachers like Timpe, who works for what Sister Sandoval calls the biggest ministry of her parish.

“There are a lot of really beautiful moments that come from these kids, constantly being enveloped in the faith,” said Timpe. “When St. Carlo Acutis and St. Pier Giorgio Frassati got canonized, just to see the kids get so excited as I was describing to them how he was young and he played video games, and he loved the Eucharist and his quotes. That was a highlight to see them become so energized, just really feeling like they can be saints.”

“I cannot lead them to becoming saints on my own,” adds Noble. “I need God to work through me and just trust that he's doing the work that he put me here to do.”

Cabrini Fellows is helping Noble, Logan and Timpe do just that.