And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. John 1:14
It has been a fabulous start to the school year! In preparation, the staff had some fun, bonded with colleagues from other schools, revisited important things like our safety protocols (using our Go Buckets and Crisis Manual), looked at data from state testing, and prayed! Finally, we got to welcome the 393 students to school this week. The first day ended with a Eucharistic procession.
Our theme, Growing in Virtue, Through Infinite Grace has been the focus of a lot of our preparation. We have a new program Education in Virtue that was approved by the state to replace a secular social emotional learning program, which included our anti-bullying program.
For this first year of implementation, we are going to be talking about a virtue each week. This week we focused on what a virtue is: the habit of doing good. We talked about how parents help them have positive habits for health, safety and to get to heaven. We know many habits, such as morning routines and doing homework take some practice to develop. Throughout the year each week will have a virtue that will help us be the people that God created us to be. We will learn and practice the virtue by lessons in the classroom, morning prayers on the announcements, role playing what it sounds and looks like, studying the saints and more! I will put a blurb on the voice message each week when I record the message. There are a lot of virtues and some big words, but we look forward to this challenge. Especially, knowing in the end, we will all be better people for it.
Archbishop Naumann has asked all parishes and schools to focus on Eucharistic Amazement for this year. Fr. Zarse likes to describe this as knowing for certain that God is my father, Jesus loves each of us as if I were the only one, the Holy Spirit has great plans for my life starting at the seal of Baptism and my Mother Mary is my refuge. Grace is infinite from God.
Virtues, grace and the Eucharist – it is going to be a great school year.
Blessings,
Kathy Rhodes