APEX, N.C. — Claire Curliss was just a toddler in 2008 when she met Msgr. Donald Staib, founding pastor of St. Mary Magdalene Church, whose engaging homilies and humble service to the people of God — by helping to guide the growing diocese and relocating refugees from Vietnam — edified the Diocese of Raleigh.
Fast-forward 16 years, and Curliss, now a senior at Cardinal Gibbons High School in Raleigh, has put her faith into action by taking efforts to painstakingly preserve 1,200 homilies Msgr. Staib delivered over three decades — an effort that has earned her the prestigious Girl Scout Gold Award.
Curliss’ two-part project included the organization and preservation of Msgr. Staib’s full collection of homilies now donated to the parish for its archives, as well as a published volume of 70 of his homilies organized by liturgical season entitled Our Faith: A Collection of Sermons by Monsignor Donald F. Staib.
How It All Began
Curliss grew up listening to Msgr. Staib’s down-to-earth, practical homilies, which draw from Scripture as well as his experiences as a university professor, his travels to Vietnam, and his service to the Diocese of Raleigh as its former director of planning and as chancellor.
Msgr. Staib told the Register that his approach to homilies is storytelling. “Stories make a good homily. You have to tell a story somehow, an experience in your life, a movie or a song. Stories also need to relate or connect to Scripture,” he said. “Seeing these homilies again brings back memories. Some of these came from real-life experiences that were memorable and made me change in many ways.”
Curliss says that when she was younger, she loved reading fact books, and growing up, attending Catholic schools, she has enjoyed research papers and compiling information. “This project fit into those aspects of what I enjoy. It was highly inspired by the Holy Spirit. I could have completed a Gold Award project about any community, but I realized that the St. Mary Magdalene Church community is very important to me.”
Her efforts began in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was during that time that Msgr. Staib retired. “It was during that transition when we stopped hearing his homilies and sermons, which were engaging, that it got me thinking. I was going through the confirmation process at that time, and we had programs we were doing which covered a variety of projects.”
Curliss said she was inspired to develop a project with the homilies to assist the faith-formation program at her parish and preserve the homilies for the archives.
“I decided then to continue with pursuing the Girl Scout Gold Award addressing an issue in a community that makes an impact and focused on St. Mary Magdalene Church community for my project,” she recalled.
Nikki Curliss, Claire’s mother and Girl Scout leader, and Claire’s father, Andy, enthusiastically supported their daughter in her decision to give back to their parish community.
“It’s been pretty amazing to see her take on this project,” Nikki Curliss said. “Claire was only 1 when we moved here, when we had Mass in the gymnasium before the new church was built in 2017. Our house has been very faith-filled talking about this project and the homilies.”
Church History Preserved
With the permission and cooperation of Msgr. Staib, Father Chris Koehn, St. Mary Magdalene’s then pastor, and parish leaders, Curliss spent her summer vacation in 2022 combing through more than 1,000 original copies of the homilies.
“Each sermon was printed on a paper, front and back, and it took about the whole summer to get through all of them. It was really neat because these were his actual sermons he held and delivered. They were printed on paper and had handwritten notes on margins,” Curliss said.
“It made me realize how connected the Church is, because in his homilies he would talk humbly about how he helped refugees from Vietnam. He loved to travel when he could and would talk about his adventures to Asia and other places, connecting readings of that day to something he read or heard, like a news clipping or a comic,” she recalled. “It was impactful in my faith in having that solidify how connected the Church is to so many aspects of our lives.”
Curliss not only organized the full collection of homilies for the parish archives, but she compiled a printed volume too over the last two years. The initial book was printed for the faith-formation program and included discussion questions for faith-formation groups. The second edition was released this fall without the discussion questions for a broader appeal and to meet a growing number of requests from parishioners for the volume.
Faith Comes to Life
Msgr. Staib, who served the Church for 63 years in the burgeoning Diocese of Raleigh, received the news of Curliss’ preservation project and a copy of the book of his homilies with great humility.
“Monsignor was stunned in a very good way; he was very humble,” Curliss said. “You could tell when I gave him the first edition, he had a genuine smile. He’s always been so appreciative that this is happening and is in awe that I think his homilies are worthy of being put in a book.”
Msgr. Staib said, “I’m grateful and surprised that someone did this! I hope when someone wonders why St. Mary Magdalene Church got her name, and why there are certain stained-glass windows and statues in the church, people will learn why from these homilies. We have Vietnamese saint statues and pictures in the church, as I spent a lot of time in Vietnam, and we helped resettle more than 100 refugees in Durham during that time.”
Our Faith is now available on Amazon and has been among the top sellers in its “Christian Sermons” category since its September release.
Curliss shared the news about the release of the book the weekend of Oct. 5 at Mass at St. Mary Magdalene Church. “My hope,” Curliss said in remarks to parishioners, “with this project has been that current members of our parish — and future members — will see that it is here, in the church, where our faith comes to life.”