“Encountering Christ in faith is always a surprise,” Pope Francis said in a homily during Easter week last month, “it is a grace given to those who hearts are open. It overturns our comfortable existence and opens us to an unexpected future, sowing life and light in place of death and sorrow.” Prayer is that path that helps us to encounter Jesus, deepen our faith and deal with those surprises as they come along.
During Lent prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are three pillars that we focus on more to help us deepen our faith during that time. The Jesus, Go! question during Lent had focused on prayer, asking our students what their favorite prayer was and why it had been chosen. As I said at assembly last week not only was I delighted that there was such a variety of prayers picked, but their responses were insightful and so deep in faith, especially considering the age of our respondents, that I wanted to share their comments this week instead of our 7th grade essays.
The Our Father was the most popular prayer with both Dariel (3rd) and Reese (K) saying it’s their favorite because you are talking to the Father, and Milena (3rd) liking it because it was given to us by Jesus.
The Angel of God prayer was the one both Analiese (K) and Liam K. (3rd) liked because it gives them comfort when they say it—“It’s a nice prayer,” as Liam said.
Sally (4th) chose the Hail Mary because she loves our Mother Mary, while Mckenzie (3rd) selected the Glory Be “because it has the sign of cross in it,” and Nick (4th) weighed in with the prayer to Saint Anthony “because it helps find your stuff.” How wonderful to see how well engaged our children are in a life of prayer.
Cinema for the Soul will be next week, Thursday, May 11th, as our Symposium is on the 4th Thursday of this month. “Captive” shows how God reaches out to us always, but it is up to us to take hold of his hand to allow his grace to transform our lives. Based on a true story of a drug addict being held captive by a man who killed several people as he escaped from the courthouse where he was on trial. Come, join us upstairs in the Olive hall at 7pm.
Thank you for all the canned food donated last month. Even with the Easter holiday we collected 6 bins of food for Family Services here in Redlands.
Our parish’s Flores de Mayo rosary novena in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary begins this Friday, May 5th at 7:00pm at Olive. Please see the parish bulletin for the full schedule.
The last theology class offered through Loyola Marymount University for this season will be Wednesday May 24th at 7pm at Aquinas High School. This month’s topic is on science and the existence of God. There is no charge for these classes. As the classes have been well received they talked last month about continuing them through the summer, more on that as we learn any details at this month's class. Please click on the LMU link https://lmu.wufoo.com/forms/q1wk8gvh0t8zg0e/ to sign up for the May class. For more information you can also email Loyola's Center for Religion and Spirituality at [email protected].
Thank you. Mrs. Alhadef