New graduation rite sends off JDCHS seniors

Friday, Jun. 06, 2014

DRAPER — In the 15 years since Juan Diego Catholic High School opened its doors, several rites have contributed to building the community spirit: among them, the writing of senior letters and, prior to the start of the commencement exercises, placing a rose at the foot of the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe as  a symbol of the life and hope associated with gradation.

This year, a new rite was created. Called Sancta Terra, it was developed specifically for the Class of 2014.

“We were worried about this class,” said David Brunetti, an unpaid volunteer who brought about the rite. “Things have been thrown in their path that most teenagers are not asked to deal with,” such as the deaths of three people close to them, and “it just really challenged every fiber of what they knew to be life and joy.”

Brunetti was the director of special projects when the school opened in 1999; he helped originate most of Juan Diego’s rites. He left in 2005 but returned this January and now is an unpaid volunteer.

School administrators wanted to do something so that the seniors could “honor what was good about this experience at Juan Diego, look at all the many wonderful things that had happened that maybe they had not taken time to look at, and be grateful for all of it,” Brunetti said; adding that they wanted the students to be grateful for the lessons they had learned, acknowledge the pain, and “let it go and be ready to turn to the new chapter with some joy and some fun and some exuberance, without thinking that a part of them had to stay here and be dead with those kids who died.”

To create Sancta Terra as well as the previous rites, Brunetti considered the school’s history. When it was built, “we knew we had this amazing pile of brick and mortar; it was architecturally award-winning and paid for and all these wonderful things, but it had no soul, it had no backbone, it had no spirit. It had nothing, and we had to figure out how to create that,” he said.

He also looked back on the “amazing” experience he and Dr. Galey Colosimo, JDCHS principal, had at Judge Memorial Catholic High School, he said, which not only gave them a solid education but also offered a rich spiritual community and many other experiences “that really prepared us to launch ourselves into the next chapter of life,” he said.

With those factors in mind, he also wanted to base the rites on Catholic values, he said.

Sancta Terra incorporates some new aspects of the school, too: the labyrinth that was installed this year and a tradition of the community gathering for prayer in the grotto after traumatic events.

The rite offered a variety of experiences, including a release of balloons containing a written message of something the students wanted to let go of, telling of stories about their years at the school, playing kazoos and a barbecue.

One of the most powerfully emotional moments was when the seniors entered the chapel for prayer at the end of the day, said April van der Sluys, a parent who helped facilitate Sancta Terra. With the candles lit and voices raised in song, there was “a feeling of peace and happiness and love – everything that you wish for your children, all in that moment,” she said.

For Brunetti, one of the most affirming moments came after the seniors laid holy medals in the ground around the labyrinth, symbolizing that the space would always be sacred to them. The students then went to a dance. Their parents had been invited to come to the labyrinth while they were gone, and as Brunetti was lighting candles, “it was like that movie Field of Dreams – I could feel people coming. I looked up and there were people wandering from everywhere. We had almost 300 people show up that night.” 

The parents filled in the trench where the medals had been placed, then covered the labyrinth with rose pedals, so that when students returned “what they had left unfinished … had been transformed into something that really was magical,” Brunetti said.

The medals symbolize that a small piece of the seniors will always remain on campus, said Van der Sluys, who has three children at the Skaggs Center, a rising senior, a junior and an eighth-grader. She added that she hopes the planted medals will encourage the students to return and advance the school’s mission. “That’s what I want for my kids, too.”