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Aside from the academics and athletics, the heart of Crespi Carmelite High School is the spiritual support and faith development provided by our Campus Ministry and Religion Departments. These are the two departments that give Crespi Carmelite its distinctive Catholic Christian character.
 By drawing on the Carmelite tradition, our students develop spiritually to bear witness to the presence and love of God. They discover how to live a life of active service to others and boldly proclaim the dignity of all people as created in the image of a loving God.
Campus Ministry involves the entire Crespi Carmelite Community: faculty, staff, students and their families. The basic aim of the program is to provide a Christian Community environment in which all can grow and mature in their faith together. Daily religious studies classes, shared faith experiences, retreats, days of recollections, liturgies (that are held throughout the year) and community service programs serve to enrich the total growth of our students. |
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Our Retreat Programs
Crespi Carmelite provides a comprehensive school-wide retreat program. |
| Our Freshmen begin their Crespi Carmelite experience with a retreat designed to help them realize that now they are a part of the Crespi Carmelite Family. This retreat heightens their awareness that: they are gifted by God, they can develop relationships with those who are both like them and different from them (including God), and they will experience changes in their families as they enter high school. Our Freshmen learn how to work together as a group through various activities designed to challenge, test and join every classmate to one another. Each Crespi Carmelite student will be invested in the scapular, and learn the beginnings of what it means to be a Crespi Man.
The freshman retreat is held at The Holy Spirit Retreat Center in Encino and The Poverello Retreat Center in Mission Hills.
Our Sophomores have their Days of Recollection in the fall. They focus on "Friendship" as they spend the day away from the school to reflect on their relationships with the people in their lives. From small group sharing to witness talks by their elder classmates, the sophomore class begins to understand what it means to have friendships with others, themselves and God. This retreat is held at the The Holy Spirit Retreat Center in Encino.
During the spring our Junior class is challenged through their day of recollection to commit to leadership. The Juniors learn practical ways to become leaders in and around our school community. They are pressed into leadership in their school, with their friends and at home, by believing that they have the potential to be great. As the theme from the retreat states; “To accomplish great things, we must not only act but also dream, not only plan but also believe”. This retreat is also held at the The Holy Spirit Retreat Center in Encino.
The Kairos Retreat Program has been the core of our retreat ministry for many years. Kairos was  introduced to southern California through Crespi Carmelite High School in 1977. This is a time tested retreat for Seniors that is used by many high schools in the area and around the country including our sister school, Louisville High School in Woodland Hills. It has been adopted by all of the Carmelite high schools in the United States. As is true of all the retreat programs at Crespi Carmelite, Kairos is built upon a peer-to-peer ministry model which helps the retreatants deepen their relationships with God, themselves and others. Kairos is a deepening experience in one’s Christian life. Prayer and Sacraments are an essential part of the retreat, as well as the retreatants involvement in discussions and group exercises. The retreatants may not leave the retreat with all of life’s answers, but hopefully he will have a greater awareness of who he is and where he is going. This retreat is 4 days long and is held at St. Mary’s Seminary in Santa Barbara, California.
Our faculty and staff gather for a Day of Recollection before the school year begins. This helps prepare them for their ministry to our students.
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Our Liturgical Celebrations
Crespi Carmelite supports our local parishes as centers of worship by providing liturgical celebrations that reflect the Church's changing seasons. |
| As a community of prayer and worship the whole school comes together to celebrate many times throughout the school year. Our own students, faculty and staff serve the community as Lectors and Eucharistic Ministers with training provided either by their own parishes or by our Campus Ministry staff.
We open our school year in September with the traditional Mass of the Holy Spirit. To remind our students that the real meaning of Thanksgiving Day is not just found in parades and football, we have an annual Thanksgiving Mass in November, which also marks the beginning of our Advent Adopt-A-Family project. During the season of Advent we provide a Prayer Service to help our Crespi Family prepare for Christmas. We also provide an opportunity for our students, faculty and staff to go to Mass on Holy Days of Opportunity such as the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8th).
In the Spring Semester we start the season of Lent with an Ash Wednesday Service. To reinforce the relationships our students have with their parents we have a Father-Son Communion Breakfast in March and a Mother-Son Communion Breakfast in May. The academic year ends with the traditional Baccalaureate Mass in May.
There are also smaller gatherings for prayer and worship on our retreats and days of recollection, for our athletic teams, and for individual classes. Morning Prayer and Mass take place in the Carmelite Priory Chapel every school day at 7:00 A.M. (5:00 P.M. on Mondays) and are open to all members of the Crespi Family.
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Our Campus Ministry Center
Crespi Carmelite provides the space to help nourish our faith community. |
With the completion of Our New Fine Arts Building, The Campus Ministry Center will not simply be a place to run programs. While we will have space for program administration, meetings, and storage for our supplies, the tables and chairs in our living room area will provide a relaxed environment where students can interact, read or study. There will also have several private offices for pastoral care and confidential discussions. Campus Ministry will continue to have its open door policy where students of all grade levels may come in to share concerns, to build community or just talk.
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Our Christian Service Program
Crespi Carmelite empowers our students to share their gifts with the larger community and to recognize their own ministerial abilities and vocation. |
The Christian Service Program begins in the Spring Semester of the Freshman year and continues throughout the Senior year. Following the command of Jesus to " love one another as I have loved you," the students perform practical service to the people in and around our school community. The program is designed to awaken in each student his baptismal call, as disciples of Jesus, to openly serve others, and gain an appreciation of his God given talents which are to be used for the building of God's Kingdom on earth.
Drawing on the Carmelite tradition, through service, our students bear witness to the presence and love of God, live a life of active service to others, and boldly proclaim the dignity of all people as created in the image of a loving God. The students develop their self-confidence as agents of change in the local community, the Church, and through their relationships with the people they work with. Freshmen are required to perform a minimum of 10 hours of service, sophomores a minimum of 20 of service, juniors and seniors a minimum of 30 and 40 hours respectively.
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Crossing Borders Program
Crespi Carmelite strives to show its young people that a commitment to service and a concern for economic and social justice does not restrict life choices, but rather are an integrated part of a balanced lifestyle of service and awareness. |
The Crossing Borders Program seeks to increase global awareness, cultural knowledge, and community participation in our youth through direct interaction with the people directly affected by the negative consequences of globalization. During a typical trip participants will: stay at the migrant shelter in Tijuana, converse with the migrants about their personal journeys, visit community centers, serve at a homeless shelter, play with the children at an orphanage, build community between each other, and reflect on pertinent issues that influence the poverty in and around the border. Crossing Borders is available four times a year to juniors and seniors. Two times in the fall, and two times in the spring respectively. Beginning January 2008, a birth certificate and photo id will be required to attend Crossing Borders.
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Adopt-a-Family Program
Crespi Carmelite seeks to engage its students in social awareness and strives to improve the community. |
Each year Crespi Carmelite reaches out to the local community. Working with local parishes and support groups, Crespi “adopts” several families from the surrounding areas. Our Freshman class provides a complete Christmas for over 20 families provided from Our Lady of Grace Parish in Encino. Our remaining classes provide Christmas for families from Guardian Angel Parish in Pacoima. In both cases our students coordinate these programs. Some of them may visit the Parishes, organize the collection, involve the community and distribute the gifts. It is a true example of how using our talents begin to bring about the building of God’s Kingdom on earth.
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