A Mother, Teacher &
Servant of the Church

How It All Began

In 2011, Deirdre attended a national convention on religious education. Directors of faith formation from every corner of the United States shared the same exasperation: parents make a commitment to bring their children to religious education classes, but do not make the same commitment to come to Mass every Sunday.

The statistics were staggering — approximately 80% of Catholic religious education students abandon their Sacrament of Confirmation and their Catholic faith by their early twenties. Traditional classroom-only models were failing to inspire families toward a living, sacramental faith.

What if, instead of treating Mass as separate from religious education, we made the Eucharist the very center of it?

That question became the seed of everything that followed. Father Richard and Deirdre began developing a radically different approach at St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Stirling, New Jersey — one that would bring entire families together around the altar, not just into a classroom.