The Family Foundation School Catholic Community Bulletin
Pauca Verba (a few words)
A New York City story: In Dunkin Donuts this morning, an old lady wearing a tattered watch cap started speaking to no one in particular. “I can’t sleep at night. I have pains in my chest all the time. My leg hurts and my children don’t love me.” People waiting in line hid in their cell phones, looked away or stared straight ahead. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to turn. My husband died two years ago on the 27th.” Everyone pretended she wasn’t there. The girls behind the counter took the next customers. The line inched forward. At a side table, a beautiful young lady with matching purple scarf and hat looked at the old woman and said, simply, “Honey, please sit down with me, and tell me your story.” It’s possible, you see, for one person to save the world.
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In the rosary, heaven is throwing us a lifeline! A life-preserver! You can’t pray the rosary and stay the same. Do you know the story of Lepanto? October 7, 1571. On that date the forces of Islam (whose strategy was to control the sea) battled the Holy League (an allied fleet of the Knights of Malta, Spanish, Venetian and Papal ships assembled by Pope Pius V) in a crucial engagement at Lepanto, the modern day Gulf of Corinth. The Christians gathered at Rome and elsewhere in Europe to pray the rosary. And so this feast day was instituted to commemorate the victory that seemed achieved by prayer, for the Christian force was outnumbered and weaker. If the rosary can be effective in winning a naval battle think of what it can do for us as we are so threatened and going under spiritually, morally – even physically! Don’t doubt!
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Baby Luke Jacob Kavarnos is baptized this weekend in our chapel at The Family School at the 9:00 A.M. Mass. In our culture labels and names abound – most indicate some kind of liability, weakness or drawback. Not so today. Baby Jacob takes the new label or designation of Christian! He belongs to Jesus! They meet in the water of the font! As he passed through his mother’s water to be born – now he passes through the water of the font – the womb of the Church – to be born from above, to be born anew, with the new mind of Jesus. Trained in the practice of a living faith, he will gradually become a new creation, a new kind of human person. We see this new person lived out practically in the lives of the saints. That I would live my own unique life as truthfully and as beautifully as Jesus lived his own!
But this is no easy task. We remember the story of the little Greek boy who went to the great vigil of Easter Night in church. Seizing the lighted candle, representing the risen life of Christ-goodness and faith, he sets out to escort the little flame safely home. The wind whips around every corner threatening to extinguish the flame. Bullies chase him. An angry dog snaps at him. Stumbling in the dark, he even drops the lighted candle, quickly retrieving it. At the end of the wearying and dark journey, he’s a young victor, bringing the Easter flame into his family home. Celebration and joy for all! It’s a story about preserving faith against even scary odds. Get it?
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Rosary book. Students and staff! Got a neat rosary story to share with others? We’re collecting paragraphs and stories of this kind:
- Why I pray the rosary
- What the rosary means to me
- A story of rosary-wonder
- How the rosary has impacted upon my life
- Monday night
Give the story your own creative title! “You’ve got to give it away to keep it!” We’ll publish the stories with a photo of each student’s rosary. There are plenty of protestant students here who pray the rosary faithfully – join in!
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Want to get rid of lousy thoughts? At the first inkling of inner nastiness start rehearsing the Mysteries of the rosary. Say, The First Joyful Mystery: the Annunciation. The Second Joyful Mystery: the Visitation. The Third Joyful Mystery: The Birth of Jesus, etc. You’ll really have to concentrate. You’ll know them by heart shortly, as we are so afflicted by our thoughts. This is much more effective than fighting thoughts, No, no, no, I can’t think that. Instead, re-direct your thoughts – bringing them around to a better, brighter place.
