Along with presentations in parishes across the Diocese of Ogdensburg, the Mystery Players of Immaculate Heart Central School in Watertown, traveled to other parts of the country with their unique presentation of the Passion Play.

Here, Deanna Hagan, a former IHC teacher who now lives in Huntersville, NC, writes about the group’s 2011 season which provided the opportunity for many former Mystery Players to see the presentation.
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The Immaculate Heart Mystery Players evangelized their Way of the Cross on a Lenten tour April 14 - 19 with performances in New Jersey and North Carolina.  In Charlotte, NC, they revisited two churches, St. Mark and St. Gabriel, from their 2000 tour and also presented the Mystery Play at Holy Trinity Middle School in Charlotte.
One of St. Mark's parishioner, Mary Lou Mc Donald, coordinated many of the details for their stay at St. Mark's School in Huntersville, NC. 

She is the mother of two former Mystery Players, John, now an attorney for the McGuire Woods Law Firm, and Cris, systems analytics manager for Electrolux.  Cris and his wife, Carmen, director of finance for Electrolux recently moved to Huntersville.   John's wife, Amy Nolan McDonald, was also a Mystery Player.

Jen Vespa McGrann was another former member of the IHC group.  She and her husband, Adam McGrann, were both recently married at St. Peter's in Charlotte. 

Michelle Hagan Shields, daughter of David and Deanna Hagan, was a Mystery Player in 1993.  She and her husband Mark Shields, and their two daughters are members of St. Mark Church. 

Colleen Borello, once IHC school secretary, and her husband Pat attended the play as well as Matt Puccia, former IHC grad, who now works for NASCAR. 

All the former north country residents  remembered the priests who had worked with the group for the past 30 years:  Father Michael Gaffney (founder), Father Tim Soucy (deceased), Father Steve Murray, and Father Mark Reilly. This is the first year there has been no priest involved with IHC Mystery Players. 

Terry Burgess, director since 1996 when Father Gaffney left the school, said that working with the students on the Mystery Play has become a vocation.  Despite the countless hours pouring over finances, schedules, and the like, he said that the rewards come in seeing the students drawing close to one another and in deepening their faith. 

Jayne Brady, IHC teacher and female leader, has been with the group over 15 years.  Pat Fontana, Jr., Immaculate Heart's spiritual director, shared the experience of this tour with his son, Joel, an IHC senior and current Mystery Player. Tracy Leonard, Dan Charlebois, and Brandon Cooney, once IHC students and Mystery Players themselves, also chaperoned the thirteen students who made the Carolina trip. The adult leaders agree that it is the students' youthful reverence and enthusiasm for the faith that make the Mystery Play evangelizing so meaningful.

If Catholics in Northern New York are saddened by church closures, perhaps they can take heart in the realization that their special light of faith has expanded to the south where they cannot build churches big enough and fast enough to minister to the ever growing Catholic population of North Carolina.

The Immaculate Heart Central Mystery Players of 2011 are front,  from left, Hailey Parsons, Caitlin Stone, Laura DePorrier, Danielle Zimmer, Hannah Powell and Elena Tontarski; back, Joe Majo, Tom Lazore, Joel Fontana, Robert Weldon, RJ Ingerson, Kevin Baaman; missing from photo, Rob Spicer.  This year, the Mystery Players presented their interpretation of the Passion and  Death of Jesus to congregations in Morrisonville, Black River, Watertown, Gouverneur, Ogdensburg, Brushton, Altona and Potsdam, as well as in New Jersey and North Carolina.

The chaperones who traveled with the Mystery Players to New Jersey and North Carolina  were front, from left, Tracy Leonard, Terry Burgess, Pat Fontana, Jr. and  Jayne Brady;  back, Dan Charlebois and Brandon Cooney.