Campus-Wide Adopted Priests Program

The Dominican Community of St. Agnes Academy - St. Dominic School has a very special prayer focus each year. Every class, from our Littlest Stars and Suns in PK2 to our senior class is assigned one or more “adopted” priests from the Diocese of Memphis to pray for during the school year.

The students make a commitment to lift their priest(s) up in prayer as a part of class every day. This commitment to prayer begins each September as we celebrate a Mass for all priests in our Diocese.

In addition to daily prayers, classes correspond with their assigned priest(s) throughout the year with letters and cards - Thanksgiving, throughout Advent and Lent, Christmas, Easter, and the start of summer break.Most recently, the classes sent Valentines and Catholic Schools Week messages in appreciation of their priestly vocations.

Mrs. Marking’s fourth grade class has three adopted priests this year. One of her students, Eleanor Weems, shared, “It’s really fun that we have three priests. We can write to a different one each time!” Her classmate, Sloane Middleton said, “It makes us really happy when we’re writing the notes. We wonder how happy they will be to get them and what their faces will look like when they open them. I’m sure they love them!”

The Adopted Priests program gives students an opportunity to work on their writing skills, helps them develop a sense of awareness and responsibility to the greater Catholic community in Memphis, and provides them a chance to learn about the power of prayer.

SAA first grade Religion teacher Liz Barksdale shared “The Adopted Priest program is such a special program.  It allows the students to learn more about writing friendly letters, about communicating with people, and it enables us as a school to all show well-deserved gratitude to the priests that serve our community every single day.”

The priests are asked to please pray for their classes in return and are encouraged to correspond with them via email or mail, or to visit at any time. All the adopted priests are invited to join us for our special liturgy on April 29th, celebrating St. Catherine of Siena. “We love to watch the friendships develop throughout the year,” said Beth Odom, Director of Dominican Catholic Identity.