Faith Formation Family News March 18, 2014 CONTENTS:
* “The Little Ones” Cartoon *
1. Faith Formation Sessions This Coming Sunday, March 23 2. Events at St. Gabriel’s Perpetual Adoration at St. Gabriel’s (Starts this Wednesday, March 19) Archdiocesan Men’s Conference (This Saturday, March 22) Adoration Chapel FAMILY Time (Next Wednesday, March 26) 3. Pope Francis’ 10 Most Quotable Quotes 4. Two Prayers this Week – St. Patrick’s Breastplate Prayer to St. Joseph for Assistance 5. Articles for Parents from At Home with Our Faith Who is Responsible for This? 6. Cyber Safety for Our Children (Another Resource for Parents) 7. Rediscover:Faith Why is character important? How does what I do impact my character? 8. News from The Catholic Spirit 9. The Serenity Prayer Explained: A One-Minute Meditation 10. Videos With a Message Victims of Bullying Speak Out What War Can Do to a Child in One Year Rachel Serenades the Pope with High School Musical Songs The Stations of the Cross – All Things New The Woman at the Well
And at the end of this email . . . .
Morning Glory Clouds (Only in Australia)
1. FAITH FORMATION THIS SUNDAY, MARCH 23
SUNDAY MORNING PRESCHOOL During the 10:30am Mass at the St. John’s Campus, for 3 & 4 year-olds and kindergartners.
SUNDAY EVENING FAITH FORMATION Sessions are from 6:00 to 7:30pm in the School at the St. John’s campus.
No Session for 1st Year Confirmation this Sunday evening. Because last week we had a longer session to watch the movie THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, 1YC will have this week off.
2nd Year Confirmation has their CONFIRMATION SENDING CEREMONY this Sunday morning, during the 10:30am Mass. Please come to offer your prayerful support to our 2YC candidates in preparation for their April 5 Confirmation at the Basilica. And come congratulate them after Mass at the Donut Sunday reception in the Community Room. [No evening session for 2YC this week.]
Faith Formation Calendar for the upcoming weeks:
March 23 Sessions continue 30 NO SESSION – Spring Break
April 6 Sessions resume
2. EVENTS AT ST. GABRIEL’S
PERPETUAL EUCHARISTIC ADORATION BEGIN S
THIS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19 (The Feast of St. Joseph)
12:00 Noon – Mass in Church (St. Joseph campus) Followed by a Procession of the Holy Eucharist to the Adoration Chapel, & Refreshments for all in the Rectory Living Room.
St. Gabriel’s Adoration Chapel is located at the St. Joseph campus, in the Rectory building (between the Church and School buildings) where the Parish Office used to be. It is open from 6am to 9pm every day. You can come anytime within those hours, or you can sign up to come for a specific hour once a week. [Those who sign up for night time hours will be given key cards to enter securely.]
Come encounter the peace and power of Christ. Jesus is waiting for you! For more information or to register to adore our Lord, call Barb at (952) 933-8423 or Roberta at (952) 9351774 or email Roberta at [email protected].
2014 ARCHDIOCESAN MEN'S CONFERENCE This Saturday, March 22, from 8:00am - 12:00 Noon. University of St. Thomas- Anderson Fieldhouse
Featuring: •Dr. Douglas Bushman, Augustine Institute - Keynote: Set a Steady Course •Brian Bonin - Testimonial: How the Holy Spirit Changed a Guy Who Lived for Hockey to a Man Who Lives for the Lord •Plus: Mass with Bishop Lee Piche, fellowship and food
Cost: $20 To register: https://events.archspm.org/MFL-Mens-Conference-2014
Adoration Chapel FAMILY TIME. Next Wednesday evening, March 26.
Children are encouraged to bring their parents and/or grandparents to FAMILY TIME in the St. Joseph's Campus Adoration Chapel, next Wednesday, March 26 from 7:15 - 7:45 pm for verbal Prayers and Stories. (This is NOT Silent Adoration). Two adults will lead the time with the children but parents/grandparents are asked to stay. Future dates are: Thursday, April 3 and Monday, April 7th. RSVP will help in planning seating, but otherwise, just come! Contact Kathleen Esh-952-933-7610 or [email protected]
3. Pope Francis' 10 Most Quotable Quotes Of The Year
In his formal documents, many speeches and unscripted morning homilies the past year, Pope Francis has given the church a bounty of memorable sound bites. Here, according to Carol Glatz at Catholic News Service, is a look at what could be the top 10 most quotable quotes.
-- "Brothers and sisters, good evening. You all know that the duty of the conclave was to give a bishop to Rome. It seems that my brother cardinals have gone almost to the ends of the earth to get him... but here we are." (First words as pope: March 13, 2013)
-- "The Lord never tires of forgiving. It is we who tire of asking for forgiveness." (First Angelus as pope, March 17, 2013)
-- "This is precisely the reason for the dissatisfaction of some, who end up sad -- sad priests -- in some sense becoming collectors of antiques or novelties, instead of being shepherds living with 'the odor of the sheep.' This I ask you: Be shepherds, with the 'odor of the sheep,' make it real, as shepherds among your flock, fishers of men." (Chrism Mass, March 28, 2013).
-- "Ask yourselves this question: How often is Jesus inside and knocking at the door to be let out, to come out? And we do not let him out because of our own need for security, because so often we are locked into ephemeral structures that serve solely to make us slaves and not free children of God." (Pentecost vigil, May 18, 2013).
-- "Men and women are sacrificed to the idols of profit and consumption: it is the 'culture of waste.' If a computer breaks it is a tragedy, but poverty, the needs and dramas of so many people end up being considered normal. ... When the stock market drops 10 points in some cities, it constitutes a tragedy. Someone who dies is not news, but lowering income by 10 points is a tragedy! In this way people are thrown aside as if they were trash." (General audience, June 5, 2013).
-- "Faith is not a light which scatters all our darkness, but a lamp which guides our steps in the night and suffices for the journey. To those who suffer, God does not provide arguments which explain everything; rather, his response is that of an accompanying presence, a history of goodness which touches every story of suffering and opens up a ray of light." ("Lumen Fidei," June 29, 2013).
-- "If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him? ... The problem is not having this tendency, no, we must be brothers and sisters to one another. The problem is in making a lobby of this tendency: a lobby of misers, a lobby of politicians, a lobby of masons, so many lobbies." (News conference during flight from Brazil to Rome, July 28, 2013).
-- "An evangelizer must never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral." ("Evangelii Gaudium," Nov. 24, 2013).
-- "Gossip can also kill, because it kills the reputation of the person! It is so terrible to gossip! At first it may seem like a nice thing, even amusing, like enjoying a candy. But in the end, it fills the heart with bitterness, and even poisons us." (Angelus, Feb. 16, 2014).
-- "The perfect family doesn't exist, nor is there a perfect husband or a perfect wife, and let's not talk about the perfect mother-in-law! It's just us sinners." A healthy family life requires frequent use of three phrases: "May I? Thank you, and I'm sorry" and "never, never, never end the day without making peace." (Meeting with engaged couples, Feb. 14, 2014).
4. PRAYERS OF THE WEEK
St. Patrick’s Breastplate
Christ be with me, Christ within me. Christ behind me, Christ before me. Christ beside me, Christ to win me. Christ to comfort me and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me. Christ in quiet, Christ in danger. Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend or stranger.
Amen.
St. Patrick (390 – 461 A.D.). Feast day is March 17.
Prayer to St. Joseph for Assistance
O glorious St. Joseph, you were chosen by God to be the foster father of Jesus, the most pure spouse of Mary ever Virgin, and the head of the holy family. You have been chosen by Christ's Vicar as the heavenly patron and protector of the Church founded by Christ. Therefore it is with great confidence that I implore your powerful assistance for the whole Church on earth. Protect in a special manner, with true fatherly love, the Pope and all bishops and priests in communion with the See of Peter. Be the protector of all who labor for souls amid the trials and tribulations of this life, and grant that all peoples of the world may follow Christ and the Church He founded.
Dear St. Joseph, accept the offering of myself which I now make to you. I dedicate myself to your service, that you may ever be my father, my protector, and my guide in the way of salvation. Obtain for me great purity of heart and a fervent love for the spiritual life. May all my actions, after your example, be directed to the greater glory of God, in union with the divine Heart of Jesus, the immaculate heart of Mary, and your own paternal heart.
Finally, pray for me that I may share in the peace and joy of your holy death.
Amen.
The Feast of St. Joseph is March 19.
5. ARTICLES FOR PARENTS from
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?
Dealing with: Coping with upsetting experiences in the family.
In the regrettably long catalog of sad human events, closing a Catholic school ranks right up there. You have sobbing children, sad and often furious parents, defensive administrators or religious-order sponsors, outraged alumni. People feel betrayed, often for good reason. I know this because our family has been through this miserable situation not once but multiple times with our kids. For parents it’s sad, but for kids it’s the equivalent of an adult being informed that you have lost both your job and all of your friends in one fell swoop.
Last March, soon after the stunning announcement that our daughter’s 150-year-old girls’ Catholic high school would close down in June despite previous assurances to the contrary, I overheard a mother’s comment in a hallway at school. She had tried to get her daughter to go to Mass on the Sunday following the announcement. “She says to me,” said the mom, “ ’Why would I want to go to Mass, Mom, when God let this happen?’ ”
So in the girl’s eyes, God takes the hit. The mom now has to put on her theologian hat. She never knew about this hat in the early years of parenting, as she was getting along OK with the chef hat and the disciplinarian hat and the hygiene enforcer hat. But that day when her little girl came home from school and asked, “Why does God make clouds?” or “Why did Emily’s daddy have to die?” the mom realized she needed a theologian hat, too.
Does God “let” suffering happen? Not, I firmly believe, in the sense that God sits in the clouds dreaming up sad things to inflict on us, things like school closings or childhood leukemia or motorcycle crashes. Yes, God created the world in which these things are possible. God also gives human beings complete freedom in how we respond—-or don’t respond—-to God’s love. This freedom means that sometimes we will suffer horribly at one another’s hands.
The challenge for parents is that somehow we have to try to make sense of this age- old tough question for our kids, to explain the paradox that God is good while at the same time bad things can happen.
But we do know where God stands. In Mark’s gospel, a leper comes to see Jesus. “If you want to, you can cure me,” says the leper. Jesus answers, “Of course I want to. Be cured” (Mark 1:40-41). As John Shea writes in U.S. Catholic, the key words here are of course. “The reality of God,” writes Shea, ”is an absolute, unqualified no to human misery.”
One day in the last weeks of my daughter’s high school, a few of the girls went swimming in a nearby lake. A strong current pulled them out, and one of them drowned. The school plunged into deeper heartbreak. Teachers had been asked to start dismantling their rooms for the new tenants; even the crucifixes were being taken down. One teacher had brought her own artwork of the stations of the cross to temporarily cover the now bare walls. She decided, on one of these grief-stricken days, to have the girls pray the stations aloud together. When they got to Station 12, Jesus Dies on the Cross, the student who lifted her hand to read was one of the friends who had been swimming with the girl who had drowned.
We all live the stations of the cross at some point in our lives. “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” asks St. Paul (Rom. 8:35). “Will hardship or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?” None of the above, says Paul. He didn’t know about school closings yet, but I’m sure if he did, they would be on his list.
By Catherine O'Connell-Cahill, from the pages of At Home with Our Faith, Claretian Publications’ print newsletter for parents on nurturing spirituality in the home. Winner of the Best in Class award in 2013 from the Associated Church Press, as well as a First Place General Excellence award from the Catholic Press Association for the past four years running.
6. CYBERSAFETY FOR OUR CHILDREN
CYBERSAFETY
Our Archdiocese requires that each parish train their children to protect themselves from all varieties of potential harm (in addition to teaching our staffs, employees, volunteers and parents the same concepts).
With the rapid development of technology, new strategies for safety need to developed just as quickly. In this Newsletter, I will be giving parents some of the latest information available on Cyber Safety, to help us all keep up with what is current.
I have put on our Parish Website a short introduction about Cyber Safety. It deals with WHAT ARE THE SIGNS THAT YOUR CHILD MAY BE AT RISK ONLINE?
Here is the link to this very helpful 2-page handout http://storage.cloversites.com/stgabrielthearchangelcatholicchurch/documents/Cyber%20Safety. pdf
7. REDISCOVER: FAITH
Want to learn more about your faith?
Check out http://rediscover-faith.org/ for their large collection of answers to questions of importance to all of us.
For example, here’s a 8:14-minute video explanation by Fr. Robert Barron that answers the question: Why is character important? How does what I do impact my character? http://rediscover.archspm.org/strength-freedom- peace/topic.php?id=6867
8. NEWS FROM
The March 14 edition: http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=238b92f7-13fa- 43a8-9a48-de4a9c7b9b48&c=80b5cc70-35a9-11e3-bb5c- d4ae52843aae&ch=8254af60-35a9-11e3-bb78-d4ae52843aae
9. THE SERENITY PRAYER
EXPLAINED: A One-Minute Meditation
Self-Acceptance and Self-Knowledge
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
Courage to change the things I can
And wisdom to know the difference.
This well-known prayer expresses some key guidelines to our philosophy of living. One group member explained it this way:
“For me, the things I cannot change are other people, places, and circumstances. The only things I can change are my attitudes, reactions and action toward the people, places and circumstances in my life.
“The wisdom to know the difference, well, that’s a hard one. I don’t always know what I can and cannot change until I try changing it. Wisdom comes by trial and error. The more experience I have, the more understanding, knowledge, and wisdom I have.”
Today I will accept that much of my wisdom can only come through my daily experiences. I need to expect to make some mistakes in my attitudes, actions, and judgment of what I can and cannot change. I will learn to be patient with myself and others as I gain more understanding from my mistakes.
You are reading an adaptation from the Hazelden book: The Reflecting Pond By Liane Cordes
10. VIDEOS WITH A MESSAGE
The Victims of Bullying Speak Out
A young girl was bullied to death. Now, the victims speak up in this powerful address to their tormentors. I found this to be hauntingly uncomfortable but important to watch and listen. Not sure how adolescents who haven’t been bullied will take to the poetry but I know those who have/are being bullied will identify quickly. Watch this riveting 10:28-minute video here: Ricochet of Regrets.
What War Can Do to a Child in One Year – From Birthday to Birthday
Through short clips recorded each day, you'll see how war turned a little girl's world upside down. Watch this 1:34-minute video, Happy Birthday, and pray for the victims of war around the world. And even though we don’t have war on our soil, we can’t be sure our own children aren’t similarly affected by living in a war-torn world.
RACHEL SERENADES THE POPE WITH HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL SONGS
Rachel and Kateri Hitchcock, two high school girls, get a little giddy trying to honor Pope Francis at his first year as Pope. Though completely unrehearsed, their love and devotion is obvious in this 2:29-minute video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5-1g3ct0ZU
THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS – ALL THINGS NEW
The 14 Stations of the Cross are vividly portrayed in this 7:30-minute video with scenes from the movie THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. (here: http://youtu.be/6bx1ztZrrq8 or here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bx1ztZrrq8&feature=youtu.be
The song is MAKING ALL THINGS NEW, by Christina Brown Yep, and is sung by the Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi.
Everybody hurts. The world is full of pain and suffering - But this? Your son is tortured and lead away for execution. What do you say to him? Your mother has to watch as they tear you apart, piece by piece. What do you say to her? What can give meaning to your suffering and hers? If your mother is Mary, and you're Jesus, it goes like this. Because God hurts with us...He doesn't abandon the suffering. And as He hurts with us, God makes something new out of suffering...
Here are the lyrics, portraying a dialog between Jesus and his mother Mary: Her Why is this night not like any other night? Where is my son? The slave is freed from the shackles of sin. At last it has begun.
Him Adonai, many surround me, Adonai. They seek my life. O Abba, please take this cup. Not my will, but thine be done.
Him See I am making all things new.
Her Heart of my heart, let me die with you.
Him Father, my heart is ready. I am your servant, the son of your handmaid
Her I hear your heart beating ever near, I know you must be here. When where or how will you deliver yourself, my soul trembles with fear.
Him Abba, my heart is ready. The hour has come. I feel the scourges rend my flesh and I cry. I am a worm, not a man. I give my life for them.
Him See I am making all things new.
Her Heart of my heart, let me die with you.
Him Father, my heart is ready.
in unison Him I am your servant, the son of your handmaid Her I am your servant, I am your handmaid
Her Your blood poured out, like water on the ground. My stares can’t soak the blood. I must reach, though my heart won’t go on. My son, I am here.
Him See I am making all things new.
Her Heart of my heart, let me die with you.
Him Father, my heart is ready.
in unison Him I am your servant, the son of your handmaid Her I am your servant, I am your handmaid
Her You fall again, my son. And where are my arms? The end is coming on. They tear your clothes, throw dice for what I weaved. Your strength is all but gone.
Him Abba, this judge my hour, they nail my hands and feet. Please forgive them, they know not what they do. Abba, Abba, they do not know, they know not what they do.
in unison See I am making all things new. Heart of my heart, let me die with you. Father, my heart is ready. Him I am your servant, the son of your handmaid Her I am your servant, I am your handmaid
Him Behold your mother, behold your son.
Her Here I still stand. Flesh of my flesh, and heart of my heart, I say yes again.
Him My God, my God, why have you abandon me? Abba, how I thirst! I finished all you commanded me. I am in your hands.
in unison
See I am making all things new. Heart of my heart, let me die with you. Father, my heart is ready.
Him I am your servant, the son of your handmaid Her I am your servant, I am your handmaid.
THE WOMAN AT THE WELL
(A “between Sundays” reflection from THE FIVE LOAVES.)
3rd Sunday of Lent The Woman at the Well - John 4:5-42
Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well, and reaches out to her in spirit and truth. His revealing knowledge of her life engages the depth of her soul and inspires her belief that he is the Messiah. Her encounter with Jesus at the well becomes a turning point in her life as she admits her sinfulness and, then returns to the community to tell others of her graced experience.
God knows each of us intimately, as no one else in our life can know us - both our good works and our failings. From the depths of that relationship, God gives us the courage to reach out and offer hospitality to others in need, and to proclaim God’s mercy and love.
You can watch the 7:30 minute video here: http://www.thefiveloaves.com/
[The video changes each week, in preparation for the upcoming Sunday’s readings. In order to see this particular video AFTER this Sunday, click the Playlist tab to view videos from previous weeks.]
And at the end of this email . . . .
MORNING GLORY CLOUDS (Only in Australia)
A rare meteorological phenomenon. Can be seen predictably in parts of Australia – only rarely elsewhere on the globe. See the attached slide show.