Girls’ and boys’ groups offer faith formation, exposure to religious vocations
It was girls’ night in the church basement at St. John Bosco in Maryland Heights.
Eighteen teenagers crowded around tables, chatting as they cut out and decorated “palentines” — valentines for their pals — and sipped sparkling water.
Then, they eagerly gathered to listen to a talk from Sister Anunciata Grace of the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus, broke out into small groups, went to confession, and spent time with Jesus in silent adoration.
That’s a typical Friday night at Siena, a monthly discernment group for teenage girls launched in the Archdiocese of St. Louis in August by Lara Piszar, youth minister at Ascension Parish in Chesterfield. Savio, a similar group for teenage boys, had its first gathering in January.
Siena and Savio got their start in the Diocese of Evansville, Indiana. Piszar, Father Stephen Schumacher, and a group of high schoolers visited the groups in Evansville in the summer of 2025 to learn how to bring the model back to St. Louis.
As someone who works closely with youth, Piszar has a passion for helping teens discover and discern vocations. While boys get to know priests in their parishes and have the chance to participate in events at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, many girls don’t have much exposure to religious sisters on a regular basis, she said.
“In my opinion, every boy should discern the priesthood, and every girl should discern religious life, because you’ll learn something about yourself and about your relationship with the Lord while doing so,” Piszar said. “…I do tell them, though, this isn’t ‘sign up to join a convent’ by any means. If you walk away from this and you know, more than ever, ‘I want to get married,’ OK, praise God, that is a gift. And what a blessing that you’ve learned that here.”
Siena is designed for teens who are already regularly practicing their faith and are ready to go a step deeper, Piszar said. The ultimate goal is to increase religious vocations in our archdiocese. “But more than that, it’s for these young men and women to have a place where they can openly and freely hear the Lord’s voice and discern His call for their lives,” she said.
The group’s patron is St. Catherine of Siena, a 14th-century third-order Dominican and Doctor of the Church who famously said, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”
“You’ll set the world on fire, and you’ll also find true, deep, lasting happiness,” Piszar said. “And as a youth minister, that’s the goal for any of our teens, to find peace and joy and happiness in the Lord. And doing what He made you to do is the ultimate way to find that.”
Sofia Lancia, 17, a senior at Cor Jesu Academy, was part of the group that traveled to Evansville and has been attending Siena in St. Louis since its beginning.
“It’s given me a lot of insight of the struggles of discernment. The sisters do a great job of articulating that it’s a hard thing to do, and it’s hard to figure out what God’s calling you to, but it’s good to do it with other people and to really be open, because it will bring you the most joy,” Sofia said.
It’s been helpful not just in learning how to discern her ultimate vocation but also how God is calling her in the everyday right now, she said. She and a few friends make Siena nights a special event, dressing up and going to dinner beforehand.
“Girls in particular, it’s part of our human design that we’re really communal. We like to be with each other, we like to feel things with each other,” Sofia said. “I’m so grateful that we have this opportunity, and I hope more people come and hang out with us and see what God’s calling them to.”
For Madeline Grzyvinski, 17, it’s been a chance to consider a religious vocation in addition to typical conversations geared toward college and career.
“You’re graduating, and you’re supposed to go to college and you’re supposed to be successful,” said Madeline, a junior at Visitation Academy. “Religious life is such a beautiful vocation, and I think it’s important just to be able to recognize that, like with the sisters here, and to be able to discern that, even if not all of us here will become sisters.”
Getting to know the Carmelite Sisters over the past several months has made an impact on Charlotte Schug, 17, a junior at Parkway Central. Simply watching their reverence as they kneel in prayer before the Lord has helped her see the beauty of the religious vocation, she said.
“You spend a day with a sister, and your life will be changed forever,” Charlotte said.
Across the St. John Bosco campus, the boys played some lively outdoor games before heading inside to hear a personal vocation story from Quinton Durer, a seminarian at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary. The Savio group is named for St. Dominic Savio, a student of St. John Bosco in mid-1800s Italy who died at age 15 and is one of the youngest non-martyr saints canonized by the Church.
Noah Kellhofer, 17, a junior at Lafayette High School, was invited to the group by Father Schumacher. Savio has only been meeting for two months now, but Noah has already been inspired by the personal testimonies and has been working to increase the amount of time he spends in silent prayer, he said.
“That’s where you hear God’s voice the most, so recently I’ve been trying like 10, 20 minutes a day, just in silence as best I can,” he said.
Father Schumacher approaches the group as a place for “young Catholics to be Catholic,” he said, which naturally involves considering what God is asking them to do. For some, that could mean a religious vocation. As the group grows, Father Schumacher hopes to involve men from religious orders, in addition to diocesan priests and seminarians.
“Having the Carmelite sisters, having the seminarians and priests around, allows them to start imagining what that vocation would actually look like, so they can make a legitimate discernment of that thing as they progress: Is God calling me to this?” he said.
Father Schumacher first heard the call to the priesthood while he was in grade school, encouraged by people around him asking him if he had considered that vocation. Now on the other side, he hopes to give boys an example of the joy found in answering the call.
“I want to impart the idea that this life is good, even on a natural level, like I had fun playing spike ball with the kids tonight. I have good friends in the priesthood. I live a good life,” he said. “It’s a life of sacrifice. But that’s attractive to boys, especially, so to give them an idea that they can already start living a life of sacrifice according to their ability now, and that will blossom into what God is calling them to, whatever it is — a life of generosity is the Christian life.”
Siena and Savio
Siena and Savio groups for teenage girls and boys meet one Friday a month at St. John Bosco Church in Maryland Heights. For more information, contact sienastlouis@gmail.com, saviostlouis@gmail.com or call (314) 960-4125.
For more vocations information and events, visit stlvocations.org.
