October 3, 2023, Class Update: Upholding the Faith

Greetings everyone!

To start class, in the spirit of St. Francis, whose feast day is October 4, we listened to the song "All Creatures of Our God and King", with words inspired by the writings of St. Francis of Assisi.

We welcomed Marissa Munoz as our class aide.  She has two sons in the RE program.  Thank you, Marrisa, for joining us.

Then, we briefly reviewed Ordinary Time, the current liturgical season.  "Ordinary" comes from the word "Ordinal", referring to how the Sundays are counted in the time between the seasons for the major feasts of Christmas and Easter.

During Ordinary Time, we reflect on how to live out our faith and proclaim the Gospel message.

In our class book, we looked at examples of martyrs who gave their lives for their faith.

The first disciple, Mary, also gives us a great example of how to live our faith and proclaim God.  We look at the words of the Magnificat.  Then, each person wrote a phrase from the Magnificat that stands out. The activity for this week is to display the paper on which you wrote that phrase.  There's nothing to submit.

We don't have to be a martyr to uphold the faith.  It's something we can do in our lives.  A great example is Tom Monaghan, who founded Domino's Pizza.  In 1998, he sold it for $1 billion and used it to establish a Roman Catholic town and Ave Maria University in Florida.  Here's the video we watched about his story.

At the end of class, our closing prayer was from John 7:37-39.  It's a scene from the Jewish feast of Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles/Booths, when the Jewish people remember how God provided for their ancestors in the wilderness.  Toward the end of this weeklong feast was a ceremony in which water was poured into a basin.  Jesus used the imagery of the flowing water and connected it with the Holy Spirit.

We are off from class on October 10.  We are scheduled to be back in class on October 17, and the plan is to look more closely at the initiation sacraments.

As usual, please feel free to contact me with questions, etc.

We remain connected as One Church, called to uphold one faith in God, given to us through Christ and strengthened by the Holy Spirit:

All my relations.

God's blessings,
Paul

Above shows St. Paul on the left and St. Bartholomew, one of the 12, on the right.  Below is a scene of the Annunciation to Mary.  These stained glass windows are in the Cathedral of the Epiphany in Sioux City, IA.


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