Saint Anthony CFF Blog

Thanks to those of you who attended our Evening of Reflection.  We were so blessed!  Our ‘facilitator’ for the  evening, Sr. Lisa Valentini, was totally engaging-making us chuckle while touching our heart and bringing a few tears to our eyes as she reminded us of how much Jesus loves us.  Her stories reflected how each one of us is gifted for ministry-that we are called to mission-whether it be in our homes, on the job or in our church community.  She challenged us to share what we have received from God with others so that they too might experience his deep love.  She spoke about our wonderful facilities and how we as parish now have the space to do something wonderful not only for our fellow parishioners but the larger community.  After quiet time before the Blessed Sacrament reflecting on moments when God touched us as we ministered to others we gathered to share our stories.  Our sending forth challenge was to invite one or two others to share their giftedness with the parish for nothing is too small or too large.  We are all a part of the Divine Plan.  Sr. Lisa’s obvious joy and passion for our Lord rubbed off on all of us.  We left for home renewed, affirmed in our call to serve others for Jesus, and excited to see what stories God would create for each of us in the year to come.  God’s blessings on all of us as we start our new year of ministry!

Ausgust is just a few days aways and already my focus is shifting from summer activities to fall plans.   It is always a challenge for me to discern which direction God would have us go in the new year and then again always a delight when things fall into place with a rightness that reveals God’s interest in even the smallest details of our lives.  This year I am drawn to the call we have to be missionaries-to be ‘do-ers’ of the Word as well as ’sharers’ of the wonder of our faith with all we meet.  I’d like to introduce our children to contemporary saints who lived as people of God should and then challenge them to learn and live out the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy.  Of course this is on top of all the other wonderful faith concepts we share and model-then again hasn’t God always promised that through HIm all things are possible!  Take a look at the Works of Mercy and saints…Edith Stein, Katharine Drexel, Mother Teresa, Frances Xavier Cabrini, Maximilian Kolbe, Padre Pio and Pier Giorgio Frassati and let me know what speaks to you.

Welcome to my summer vacation-a time for learning the answer to ‘How do you do that?’  Over the past year a few folks have asked if we could set up a blog or forum to share ideas or comments about our ministry.  I agreed.  After all wouldn’t it be great to be able to hop online and ‘borrow’ an idea that a fellow catechist is using to teach that week’s lesson…or learn a new review game…or note a class management tip that might be helpful in your classroom?  Well, here we are about to embark on a whole new adventure.  Do you have some creative sugestions on how we can best use this blog site or ideas about other features I should add?  Please comment to let me know you’ve checked it out.  Just follow the simple commands.   Note:  all comments will be monitored prior to posting.