With her father being pastor of the Pathfinder Church, Fable Mauss, freshman, finds herself spending a lot of time after school singing and volunteering with the kids at her church.

“I’ve grown up in church and I have partaken in most, if not all, of the traditions,” Mauss said.

Mauss said that after she sings for her church or finishes a shift of volunteering with kids, she feels more uplifted and connected to her community.

“I do love my church and the people who go there,” Mauss said. “It’s so nice to be around people who share my faith and passion for service.”

According to the National Institutes of Health, people who are involved in religious services tend to be happier and more satisfied with their lives. They have better physical and mental health and even closer social relationships. The importance of religious communities is shown in how they help all people, practicing any religion, get more involved socially and spiritually.

Over the years, Mauss said her commitment to her church and youth group has deepened and she feels she has developed a strong relationship with God.

“There isn’t a specific place that God tells us that we need to pray so I talk to him all day long,” Mauss said.

She said she talks to God whenever she can, even during her classes or while she’s outside on a walk. Mauss said she also believes that future generations should build strong relationships with God.

“As a Christian, I believe that being Christian is less about religion and more about a relationship,” Mauss said. “If you don’t practice it, it’s extremely hard to maintain that relationship.”

Zoya Shah, senior, also sees the importance in practicing religion with dedication.

“I do think it’s important to practice our religion, especially here in America, because I feel like we aren’t surrounded by just one religion anymore, unlike being in your home country,” Shah said.

Shah takes part in the weekly and monthly community service and outreach events hosted by the Muslim Girls Youth Group of St. Louis (MYSTL). She is co-president for the MYSTL Board, which gives her the responsibilities of helping out all the other departments in MYSTL. Shah also visits her mosque once or twice a week to pray and enjoys celebrating religious holidays such as Eid and Ramadan.

Practicing her religion will help give her a sense of direction throughout life, Shah said. She hopes she can continue practicing her religion as she started at a young age and has already seen so many benefits.

“I think having something to lean on and remember throughout life is very important,” Shah said.

For the last 32 years, Sudhir Brahmbhatt has been proudly serving as the president of Bal Vihar of St. Louis, a center for Indian culture education. Over the years, Brahmbhatt said he has seen the success of Bal Vihar from the support of kids, parents, and grandparents.

“Many kids come up to me and say ‘uncle, I will never forget Bal Vihar,’ and the parents who are even now grandparents, they come and tell me ‘Sudhir ji, Bal Vihar has done an amazing impact on our children’s lives’,” Brahmbhatt said.

Brahmbhatt said he encourages parents to introduce their children to their religions and help them in following it. However, he emphasizes the importance in making sure their kids remain respectful and accepting to other religions around them.

“Don’t teach them and brainwash them that we are the best ones. Respect everybody and respect all religions,” Brahmbhatt said.

While many students are involved in religious communities outside of school, students are also exploring religious communities within MHS.

Russell Gottlieb, math teacher, hosts the Jewish Student Union (JSU).

JSU meets to socialize and discuss a preassigned topic, such as an upcoming holiday or viewing a current issue through a Jewish lens, Gottlieb said.

Gottlieb believes school communities like JSU can help all students in exploring their religious identity, even those who aren’t extremely religious.

“They can learn what suits them, and even if they’re not looking to be religious in one way or another, they can learn so many great life skills and ways to live life from different cultures that are positive and helpful,” Gottleib said.

The book that is being spotted in many teachers’ classrooms recently, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness” by Jonathan Haidt, also agrees with the idea of the importance of religious communities. Brittany Sharitz, librarian, said this book is so popular because of the heavy information it provides.

“It is a very popular book right now because of the topic being focused on teen mental health, and obviously that’s very important to educators,” Sharitz said.

Sharitz said one chapter of the book titled “Spiritual Elevation and Degradation” focuses on how spending too much time on technology makes it harder for people to feel fulfilled. In this chapter, Haidt references another book called “How God Works: The Science Behind The Benefits of Religion” by David DeSteno and dissects the six different religious practices mentioned in that book.

He talks about how technology goes against all six of these practices. One of the spiritual practices is what he calls “shared sacredness.”

“It’s essentially spending quite a bit of time in your religious community practicing religion in some way,” Sharitz said.

An example he mentions of “shared sacredness” is singing or prayer, and how it is much more meaningful when people are practicing it together because it fills a desire. Haidt goes on to describe how if this desire isn’t filled by religion, people will turn to technology or social media, and this gap will be filled with bad things, Sharitz said.

“He is arguing that we all have a desire for some sort of spirituality, and that the community aspect of religion is what is so beneficial, so being too in touch with our technology separates us from all of those benefits,” Sharitz said.

This story was originally published on Marquette Messenger on March 5, 2025.