March 5, 2024, Class Update: Growing Deeper in Relationship with God

Lenten Greetings everyone!

During our most recent class, we started with the song "Purified" by Michael W. Smith.

I connected it with my experience in a Native American Sweat Lodge ceremony during a service trip to northeastern Nebraska 11 years ago this month.

St. Augustine Mission in Winnebago, NE

Lent is a time when God seeks to purify us so that we can turn away from sin and enter more deeply into relationship with God.

The sacraments are also an important part of our relationship with God, bringing us in contact with the life of God.  We nourish that life through the Eucharist.

Adoration chapel in the Immaculata Monastery in Norfolk, NE

I shared three Relevant Radio Eucharistic Encounter videos.

This video focuses on how highways are built around churches in major cities.

This video tells a story of a priest who was so intent on making the sacraments available to the people, even when he was aging and his health was declining.

This video tells about how poor people have rich faith, and it shows in the church built in a city in Mexico.

When we partake of the EUcharist at Mass, we are sent on a mission to live out our faith.  TO this end, toward the conclusion of class, everyone had the chance to write a thank-you note recognizing someone's service.

The activity this week has no required submission, and instead, the activity is to give that note to the person you wrote it for.

Our closing prayer was from the story of the burning bush in Exodus 3. God tells Moses to remove the sandals from his feet, because he is standing on holy ground.  I heard this reading proclaimed at Mass when I was at St. Augustine Mission in Nebraska 11 years ago this month on the Feast of St. Mother Katharine Drexel, the foundress.  It is essentially the one place founded by a saint in Nebraska.  And where we go to serve others in God's name is also holy ground.

During class, everyone got a guide to prepare for reconciliation.  Father Rex is scheduled to hear confessions during class time on March 12.  

Reconciliation is part of preparing for Confirmation.  So if anyone is absent from class, we'll be reaching out to make alternate arrangements.

The sacrament of reconciliation will be part of class time.  The tentative plan is to look more about what our faith is about during the other part of class.

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

We remain connected as One Church as we journey through these Lenten days deeper into the Paschal Mystery of Christ's Death and Resurrection:
All my relations.

God's blessings,
Paul

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