On Tuesday of Holy Week, our 8th Grade Class had the great priviledge of attending the Chrism Mass.  We joined with representatives from each parish within the Diocese, as well as over 100 of our priests (including Msgr Ivan!), our transitional deacons, seminarians, and many others.  It was truly an amazing Mass, full of solemnity and grace.  Afterwards, we were able to eat lunch with some of St. Joe alumni-Deacon Peter Bergkamp, Deacon Isaac Hilger, and Seminarian Isaac Peloquin- so I asked them to join us for our group pictures.  At one time, these young men were 8th graders preparing for a Passion Play, working on their culminating projects, and anticipating the day of their promotion.  They sat in the same desks, ate stromboli, played football at recess, and served at Mass.  I hope some of our 8th graders might stop and consider the possibility of God's call in their own lives.

The season of Lent is a great time to re-set.  Maybe we picked up some less desireable habits over the long Christmas season, or maybe we just need to get some clarity.  Lent encourages self-reflection and then self-mastery.  Lent is one of those "both/and" times in our lives where we examine where I'm at and where I'm going.  Then I develop some kind of plan to get me there. If I want to be more prayerful, what steps do I need to take to become that person at the end of these forty days?  If I want to be less occupied with x, y, or z, what steps do I need to put into place to cut out some noise and redirect my gaze onto Jesus?  There's a lot going on during Lent, and the distractions never cease, but those ashes somehow give us the courage to try to do better, to be better.  Here are some ideas from Hallow and from Mrs. Peloquin:

Fasting: 

• Give up a favorite game 
• Set time limits on your phone
• Fast from social media for a day
• Give up a favorite snack
• Drink only water 
• Give up a favorite chair at home or seat at school
• Go without headphones/air pods for a day
• Play your favorite game, focusing on helping others instead of winning
• Allow others to pass in front of you in the lunch line 
• Give other people time to answer if I'm always the first to raise my hand.  If I never raise my hand, push myself to participate more
• What could I do instead?  Read, work on homework/Moby Max, get organized, clean up around the house, help my siblings, write a letter to someone I care about, make time to pray, etc.

Prayer:

• Pray on the way to school
• Make up your own litanty of saints to ask them to help you
• Pick a relative each day and pray for that person 
• Call a grandparent once a week and discuss the Gospel/homily or what you're learning in religion
• Go to bed five minutes early and spend extra time talking with God 
• Research the name of your church and learn about its origins or learn what's going on at your parish and encourage your parents or go with them to a lenten event
• Pay special attention to the intercessions at Mass and choose one to pray for during the week
• Go to Stations of the Cross with your family
• Install ibreviary on your phone (it's free) and pray Morning Prayer before school and Evening or Night Prayer before bed
• Watch YouTube videos from Ascension, Word on Fire, or even the Diocese of Wichita.  Pray on the Hallow app with Fr. Mike and others in their Pray 40 challenge. If you have an account with Formed, there are lots and lots of options. Watch The Chosen or The Passion of the Christ or other religious movies

Almsgiving:

• Spend time volunteering as a family at Meatless Friday Dinners, German Dinner, or events at your parish
• Put your own money in the basket during the offertory at Mass
• As a family, decide which charity you might want to support (https://www.catholiccharitieswichita.org/)
  •  Diocesan Needs: https://catholicdioceseofwichita.org/donate/
  •  Food for the Hungry 
• Identify something you are willing to donate to Goodwill 
• Create a jar to collect change to donate
• Donate food to the Food Pantry at Our Daily Bread (downtown) or St. Jude's and St. Patrick's (Wichita) 
• Donate a service (free homework tutoring, free babysitting, yard work, cook a meal, etc)
• Give a smile to someone you pass 
• Join the choir, volunteer to serve for Mass, help with a spring parish clean-up day
• Support a business that advertises in your parish bulletin 

Parents,

There's lots going on in Middle School during the month of March.  Eighth graders are in the thick of culminating projects.  Thank you for taking the time to conference with me and for keeping tabs on how their research is going.  Seventh graders have just finished their research on their individual parishes and will be preparing to constuct a model of either their parish or the previous church that they researched.  Sixth graders finished up reading The Great Fire about the great Chicago fire that wiped out nearly half of the city in the late 1800's.  They will take the cause and effect skills with them as they research other disasters in order to write a short research paper about one of them.  In between all of this research and writing, we'll read a little Lenten poetry, practice for the Seven Sorrows of Mary, and work on some Grammar skills on Moby Max to get ready for state assessments.  

But it's not all work!  We took a break for some friendly competition in the annual pancake races.  Way to go, Elizabeth!  And 8th grade completed their study of the Middle Ages by creating an illuminated letter, as modeled by Xavier.  

It's activities and projects like these, infused with our Catholic culture, that make St. Joe such a great place.

Third Places finishes out of ten teams!

Join us as we travel to Topeka during Catholic Schools Week, to join thousands of others across our country in standing up for the dignity of human life!  The 8th grade class would welcome any parents and grandparents who want to come with us!

This week, the 8th graders finished Stave One of A Christmas Carol. One of the passages that we spent some time with is good to focus on during this first week of Advent. We read the scene where Scrooge is in his counting house and is visited by two solicitors collecting money for the poor so they can have a bit of a reprieve at Christmastime.  In typical Scrooge fashion, he spouts that the poor have gotten themselves into their own situations and that it's none of his business. He goes on to say that it's enough to keep track of your own business and that it's foolish to meddle in the affairs of others.  In fact, Scrooge states, "My business occupies me constantly."  How true that is today! Are we so caught up in our own wants and needs that we don't take the time to recognize the needs of others? As the story progresses, Scrooge is visited by his old business partner, Jacob Marley.  Marley is bound by chains of lock boxes and safes that reveal his sin of greed. It is only in the clarity Marley has received in his Particular Judgment that he sees that Want was quite literally at his door, and he preferred to live in Ignorance. He laments, "Mankind was my business!" yet he can no longer participate in kindness and generosity and will spend an eternity seeing the fault of his ways.  And he reveals the souls who, like himself, were consumed by their own business and suffer greatly because they cannot do anything to help the living. And so, in a way, Jacob Marley's message is an echo of John the Baptist.  "Make straight your paths!" Whatever we are chained to... let it go. Does your own business occupy you constantly?  How can we put more balance into our lives to see the needs of others, not just our own?  As we mark this this season of Advent, it is good to think about old Ebeneezer and spend some time thinking about how "Scroogy" we can be in our own lives.

As Advent begins, we also begin a new liturgical year. To mark the new year, I am sending home a new liturgical calendar with each middle school family.  Please use it as a reminder of the beauty of each season, our solemnities and feasts, and all the ways God comes to meet us through the celebration of the Mass.  These liturgical calendars are something of a collector item for me.  I hope the students will stop and look at the different calendars from all the years I've been teaching and notice how different each one is, yet always the same.  May Christ the King rule over our hearts!

Life Chain 2025 is on Sunday, Oct. 5 from 2-3:30.  Please see parish bulletins for locations.

With great joy we celebrate October as Respect Life Month amid the Church’s Jubilee Year of Hope. This Jubilee Year “offers us the opportunity to appreciate anew, and with immense gratitude, the gift of the new life that we have received in Baptism, a life capable of transfiguring death’s drama.”[i] The life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is the foundation of our hope. Through Christ, our sins are forgiven, death is overcome, and life is victorious.

 Yet, the daily headlines remind us of how desperately our world is thirsting for the hope that only God can provide. Every day we witness the overwhelming disregard for human life: through rising rates of abortion and assisted suicide; the killing of innocent school children, even at prayer; the mistreatment of our immigrant sisters and brothers as they endure an environment of aggression; and political and ideological violence inflicted against unsuspecting victims. These attacks threaten life precisely when it is most vulnerable and in need of protection.

 Despite these realities, the gift of human life exists as a sign of hope to our world today, defying the powers of darkness and the culture of death. It is of the utmost importance that we work to ensure that every life, in every stage and circumstance, is protected in law.

 Earlier this year, history was made when Planned Parenthood and other big abortion businesses were banned from receiving federal Medicaid dollars for one year. I thank Catholics across the country who have embraced a nationwide call to prayer for the end of all taxpayer funding of abortion centers, and I ask that we continue those prayers throughout the month of October.

 This Jubilee Year we are challenged to be agents of hope to those whose hearts are burdened by trial, difficulty, or suffering, offering them the hope that comes from Christ Jesus alone. Walking with Moms in Need and Project Rachel Ministry are just two examples of how the Church continuously reaches out with love, compassion, and mercy to those most in need of a message of hope.

 As we begin Respect Life Month, together we embrace the words of Pope Leo XIV, “How important it is that each and every baptized person feel himself or herself called by God to be a sign of hope in the world today.”^[ii] Each of us is called to be a witness to the Gospel of Life, proclaiming in word and deed the innate goodness and dignity of every human person.

-Most Reverend Daniel E. Thomas, Bishop of Toledo,  Chairman, USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities