JPG Isn't Just a School; It's a Family

“AD MAJORIAM DEI GLORIAM” I read on a sign as I walked into John Paul the Great Academy, a school my parents were forcing me to go to. I was incredibly upset with them for forcing me to go. “After all school was just school. My life wouldn’t be completely altered by what school I attended—so why couldn’t I stay at my beloved public school?” I thought to myself.

Looking back on my seventh grade years as a junior (soon to be senior) I laugh at my sheer ignorance about education and the importance of good education. John Paul the Great Academy was not then, nor is it now “just some school”—it is so much more than that. JPG aims at making people truly human by the perfection of those aspects which define our humanity (the intellect, the will, and the sense appetites) in a refreshingly countercultural way.

Because John Paul the Great Academy is first and foremost a school, there is a heavy focus on teaching students how to think, not just memorization or regurgitation of answers. I think our founder, Dr. Kevin Roberts, founded JPG under a classical curriculum to serve modern society in the same way that Benedictine monasteries served society in the Dark Ages: to preserve culture and protect authentic truth, goodness, and beauty.

John Paul the Great Academy as an authentically Catholic school also seeks to perfect the wills of our students under the guide of God Himself through the teachings and sacraments of the Church. The task seems grand, but JPG achieves it in a very simple way: seeking the perfection and consecration of the ordinary works of life. As a student, I’m encouraged to not only participate in prayer and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass but also to make the little tasks of homework or sweeping a classroom an offering to God. Along with sanctifying the ordinary, John Paul the Great Academy offers communication with priest, seminarians, and religious sisters, various retreats, and weekly confession. I’m in eternal debt to the school because without their openness to letting religious orders visit as well as reside on campus, I would not be discerning a religious vocation today.

John Paul the Great Academy in order to produce well rounded persons does not neglect perfecting the sense appetites through physical formation. Just as our patron, Pope John Paul the Great, identifies the connection between body and soul, so too does our school through our football, soccer, basketball, swimming, cross country, volleyball, and cheerleading programs.

The reason why John Paul the Great Academy specifically stands out is because of the commitment to do in excellence everything, whether it be school work, spiritual formation, or sports, for the greater glory of God—AD MAJORIAM DEI GLORIAM—and we do this as a family. It would be a gross understatement to call John Paul the Great Academy just a school; it is a community, a family filled with the intoxicating joy of doing little things with great love in the name of Christ. So as you ask yourself “Why John Paul the Great Academy?” the real question is “Why not?”
Yours in Christ Through Mary,
Chassidy Menard, Junior