Felicia Jaure hopes to inspire future students through her ‘Communion of Saints’ mural
By Rachel Kettner | For On Mission
KAUKAUNA, WI — “I think beauty is really important,” said Felicia Jaure, a 2025 graduate of St. Ignatius Chesterton Academy in Kaukauna. Jaure, who took a gap year this year to work on her art portfolio before applying to an art atelier in Florence, Italy, has spent the past eight months working on a seven-by-38-foot mural in the hallway of her alma mater. Titled “Communion of Saints,” her painting depicts Mary and 10 other saints from all ages and walks of life.
“I put a quote from Pope Francis in the middle with Mary,” Jaure said. “‘To be a saint is not a privilege of the few, but a vocation for everyone.’ I wanted to depict saints from each different vocation, and also young saints, because those are who the students are going to be looking at, and they can see that their age doesn’t prevent them from becoming and living the life of (a) saint.”
Prior to being enrolled at St. Ignatius Chesterton Academy as a freshman, Jaure was homeschooled.
“Before I went (to St. Ignatius), I wasn’t really very God-focused,” she said. “Coming here really brought me back to the faith and God and taught me a lot of things like how to properly pray and lots of big personal development. I’ve done things that I never would have thought I would have done, a whole lot of things that they gave me the ability to accomplish.”
“When she was kind of growing away from her faith, I could see that, and so there was a lot of prayer, a lot of discernment, about whether to continue homeschooling or to send her to school,” said April Jaure, her mother. “As I prayed, I felt a lot of confidence that sending her here would be a good thing for her. So that’s what I did. And it has been good.”
Felicia Jaure wanted to give back to the school that had done so much for her, and after visiting Rome with the rest of her senior class, she was inspired by the grand churches and magnificent murals she saw there.
“I wanted to bring something kind of like that back here to the school,” she said. “Allow others to just be uplifted by beauty. Maybe restore a little bit of hope, because I don’t think America is particularly known for having beautiful architecture or anything. I want to be able to restore beauty to the area.”
After getting permission from Alex Wolf, the head of upper school at St. Ignatius Chesterton Academy, Jaure started sketching in July 2025. She first designed, sketched, and painted columns and panels in the background, going to the school in the evenings so she could lay down a tarp without disturbing classes or students. Once that was completed, she moved on to sketching and painting each saint or group of saints, then finalized the mural by adding the names of each saint and the quote from Pope Francis.
“I designed the entire thing, but then, in painting, I had a few students volunteer their help to fill in colors and help paint big areas that would be a little tedious on my own,” she said. “For painting the figures, that was more detail-oriented, and it didn’t create much of a mess, so I could do it while school was going (without laying down a tarp). With the high school teachers walking back and forth, sometimes we would talk to each other, and it was just an uplifting atmosphere.”
Jaure completed the mural at the end of February 2026 and hosted its grand unveiling on Friday, March 27, at St. Ignatius Chesterton Academy.
“We are so proud of Felicia and her passionate desire to promote beauty,” Wolf said. “Her understanding of beauty will undoubtedly bring others closer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.”
“(I feel) proud, very grateful,” April Jaure said. “Just seeing her skill as an artist, and the interior life that is often hidden from me, but to see that expressed through her art. It makes me feel very grateful.”
“I see it as a way to thank the school for all that they’ve done for me,” Felicia Jaure said. “That’s mostly why I wanted to paint the mural for them. I hope that by witnessing beauty, they can go out and give it to other people as well.”
Jaure plans to apply to several art ateliers, with her top choices in Florence, Italy. After completing their three-year program, she hopes to return to the United States and start restoring beauty at home.