The Family Foundation School Catholic Community Bulletin
Pauca Verba (a few words)
It is Mother’s Day. At Mass today we remember our own mothers and grandmothers and the women in our lives who have in many ways, mothered us.
Mary!
And in this month of May, we remember that her Son was wanted dead when he was little and that she stood at the cross of his execution. And so Mary is the Mother of all those women whose children have disappeared, been made refugees, been murdered in war or genocide. She is Mother of the unwanted. She is Mother of the falsely arrested and imprisoned. She is Mother of the tortured. Do you make connections with the perennial situation of the world? Do you stand in a heart-solidarity with these people?
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Hey! Many of us perfected pretend risk-taking playing countless hours of video-games. How old is The Family School and there is not one among the hundreds upon hundreds of us who have passed through this place and not one has taken on the real risk of priesthood or religious life?
We’ve done all kinds of risky things: using weapons, crazy driving, health threatening sex, ventures through dangerous night-time neighborhoods, meeting dangerous people, to say nothing of the risks to life in the use of drugs – and there’s not one of us, after all these years, who will step into the challenge of priesthood or religious life?
Hey! All these guys who have gone into different branches of the armed forces after leaving this school – going into places of great threat and conflict – and there’s not even one of us who will join Christ’s ranks – to stand in solidarity with the poor who need Christ’s good news proclaimed to them in the work and ministry of priesthood or religious life? Go figure!
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Aristotle said: “The thing you do repeatedly is who you are!” What do I do repeatedly? Bully people? Gang up on people? Weakly join the crowd in meanness? Manipulate and exploit people? View others as sex opportunities? Use others to hatch plots? Insult people? What do I do repeatedly? Encourage people? Befriend people? Teach? Ask, “What can I do for you?” Comfort, smile genuinely, speak kindly? Speak the truth?
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Many of us have friends who are receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation on Friday, May 15 at 4:00 P.M. If you confirm a restaurant reservation or an airplane departure, you are saying, “Yes, it’s true.” And so with the Sacrament of Confirmation – I present myself to be Spirit-Seized. “Yes it’s true, I belong to Jesus Christ.” And I belong to Jesus not just to be a believer, but to be conformed to his new way, converted to his mind and life-way. I ask to receive Christ’s gifts.
A bishop confirms: I belong to a religious way that goes back 2000 + years – represented by bishops who are guardians of the faith – tracing back to the time of the apostles! I belong to a religious way that’s bigger than my own opinions and imaginings.
Chrism is the oil used in the Sacrament of Confirmation. It’s fragrant and shiny: that I would leave the fragrance of Christ wherever I go – that I would shine brightly with Christ-light!
I take the new name of a saint: I stand in a new relationship with God. I stand in solidarity with the holy ones who have gone before me and promise to set out afresh in the ways of holiness. I’m a new kind of man/woman.
Soldier of Christ? Soldiers put themselves on the line. Soldiers are ready, strong, prepared, awake, alert, agile, obedient. Soldiers are willing to make sacrifices. Soldiers stand with each other as comrades. Soldier of Christ!
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Father Zhinovy (John) Zharsky will return to The Family School on Sunday afternoon, May 31at 4:00 P.M. to pray an Akathist to The Mother of God in our chapel. Father John is a friend of this school-community and enjoys visiting here to pray with us. Save this date! Save this time! Come to pray as May draws to a close that day.
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