A Few Words

by admin on July 7, 2007

Family Foundation School Catholic Bulletin

Pauca Verba (Latin for, “A Few Words”)

This weekend, we start distributing our own “little parish” bulletin to help us stay informed but also to help us to grow in our Catholic faith. So here, on the cover, is an icon of a lovely saint with the curious name, Euphemia. Her story is found on the back of the bulletin. If I want to be a saint, I have to know the saints. Their stories contain the ingredients for holiness. A saint is a Baptized person who is “full of light.” Catholics don’t admire the saints, but we should copy them. “Copy” means I find my own way, in my own place and time, to do the kinds of things they did: living in joy, praying, trusting God, caring for others, knowing my religion, changing the way I live. You get the picture. Don’t just glance at the Euphemia icon, but “study” it – become familiar with her peaceful face. Let her peace rub off on you!

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Our friend, Adrian, will be baptized next Saturday at the 5 P.M. Mass at Saint Paul’s Catholic Church in Hancock. Some of his friends here at school will join him there and Greg and Oscar are planning on returning for support in prayer and friendship.

After making the Profession of Faith and rejecting Satan (“Old Jack” St. John Vianney used to call him,) Adrian will be symbolically drown in the font full of water. But while the font is a place of dying, it’s also a place of re-birth. It’s said that the baptism font is the “womb” of the Church. As we are held in our Mother’s watery womb out of which we are born – so we enter and come out of the font to be born a second time –this time – born spiritually in the likeness of Jesus Christ. This lifestyle of “dying and rising” is called the Paschal Mystery. The death of bitterness, suspicion, fear, superstition, violence, selfish preoccupation – and the birth of goodness, generosity, trust in God, friendship, peace-making, purity.

Adrian is a weekend symbol then for all of us who are baptized. When he returns to school, he’ll have a large and beautiful candle with him. Let his candle remind you that you’ve received a baptism candle too, symbolizing a life lived in Christ-light.

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Looking ahead, Wednesday, August 15 is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We can say the feast is “Mary’s Easter.” She goes ahead of us, up and out of death – through death – following Jesus, her Son, to eternal life. Isn’t this a marvelous feast then! – surrounded by death as we are – the death of so much war, the death of the drug world, the death from man-made famine – disease – draught. And in the Assumption, at the height of the summer’s flowers and fruit, the Church gives us a message of life and hope. Mary’s Easter-Feast is an invitation for us to COME ALIVE in Christ! Let’s hold these thoughts as the feast approaches.

The young men of Family 8 made their Day of Recollection at Christ of the Hills Retreat House this Friday. We completed the cycle of reflecting on the icon of the Nativity and the Holy Trinity. We also saw the film Sister Blandina gave us about the Volto Santo (The Holy Face) of Manoppello. Maybe you still have your copy of the Volto Santo. Keep it nearby and look at this face of the Risen Jesus often. Let it soften and warm your heart! BE the face of Christ for others – a source of joy, kindness, and hospitality for others.

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