March 21, 2023, Class Update: Belonging to a Mission

Greetings everyone!

In our most recent class, we looked more at the mission we have as God's people.

Toward the beginning of class, we started with an activity that you will do over the course of the next couple of days leading up to the start of Spring Break.

Everyone wrote out their school class schedule on an index card and then a prayer intention to offer for each class period.  The activity is to take that card and use it to pray on a regular basis for those intentions throughout the school day.  Remember, it doesn't have to be a long prayer.  It can be a 2-second prayer as you walk into each class period.

I also extended the celebration of my birthday from last week to you all, and I hope you enjoyed the treats.

I illustrated our sense of mission with this video about Belong Designs, an apparel company that my cousin Mark co-founded 10 years ago.

God desires to fill us with a passion for Him, and we are called to follow that passion to grow in relationship with Him as we experience a sense of belonging as part of One Church, into which we are all baptized as one people of faith.

We also looked at 1 Samuel 16:1-13, in which Samuel anoints David as King of Israel.  God looks into our hearts, where He desires to transform us.  In baptism and confirmation, God anoints us as His presence rushes over us.

We're getting ready through this Lent Season to renew our baptismal promises on Resurrection Sunday morning.  At the close of class, I played the song, "Jerusalem, My Destiny".  The composer, Rory Cooney, wrote it to encourage his children as they were preparing for baptism during Lent a few years ago.  Each of the 5 verses corresponds to the readings for the 5 Sundays of Lent, and speaks to what it means to be in a relationship with God.

We're off from class on March 28 for Spring Break week.

There is no activity with a required submission for the next two weeks.  The only activity is to offer up the prayer intentions on the index card.  Some optional extra credit activities are listed below.

Our next class is April 4, which is Tuesday of Holy Week. We'll start in class exploring themes of Holy Week.  Then, we'll gather in the Pine Room with the other RE classes for a Holy Week prayer liturgy.

Please feel free to contact me with questions, etc.

Enjoy your Spring Break, whether you're headed out of town or staying home.

If you're headed out of town, the website masstimes.org is a great resource to find Churches to attend Mass.  (You can enter in a city or Zip code to find churches where you're going.  Please be sure to adjust the filter for all days to see each church and its Mass times. I also recommend clicking on the link to the parish website to confirm the information.)

We remain connected as One Church, called by God, Who is a Gift and calls us to a mission and to be a Gift to others:

All my relations.

God's blessings,

Paul

Inside this cabinet are the oils, one of which is used for the sacraments of initiation, by which we come to belong to the Church and take up our mission.

P.S. The opening prayer for class was the song "Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone)" performed by Chris Tomlin.  Interspersed in this music video are scenes from the 2007 movie Amazing Grace, which tells the story of William Wilberforce, a member of the British Parliament, who worked to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire.

As a birthday gift to my students, I played the song "Glorious", one of my favorites, originally in the documentary Meet the Mormons. In this video, the song is performed by the One Voice Children's Choir.  Thank you for being part of the symphony of my life and that each of us, in our unique, can form a glorious symphony together.

Last Friday, March 17, I called in to the Live Divine Mercy Chaplet prayer time hosted by Drew Mariani on Relevant Radio to offer a prayer intention for all my current and former RE students.

You can listen to an archived version of it here.

It's been the 12:55 and 13:50 mark.

You can also go to this page, and scroll down to the Divine Mercy Chaplet for March 17, as it might be easier to scroll to the specific moment of my prayer intention.

Here's the website for the apparel company my cousin Mark co-founded, Belong Designs.

Here are some optional extra credit opportunities if you are interested in doing any of them.

If you pick one of these, please go to the form at this link and submit a reflection of at least 1 sentence describing what you did.

Watch this video about St. Patrick featuring Chris Stefanick.

If you're out of town for Spring Break and you attend Mass at a different Church, write about the experience.

If you're in town, there are several Lenten prayer opportunities available:

Evening Prayer is at Ascension Church each Wednesday evening from 6:30-7:00.

Stations of the Cross prayer happens at several churches in the area on Friday evenings.

St. Catherine-St. Lucy is hosting Stations on March 24.

St. Edmund's is having a simple supper of meatless soups at 6:30 on March 31, followed by Stations.

Watch the movie Amazing Grace, rated PG, about 2 hours long.