School Of Faith

One of the areas we are focusing on for staff development at St. Columbkille Catholic School is called School of Faith. This is composed of 10 half-day sessions, the most recent was Monday. This is the first year of a three year commitment to the program. Our instructor this year (and hopefully the next two years) is Omar Gutierrez whose day job is Manager of the Office of Missions and Justice for the Omaha Archdiocese.

The intent is deeper religious formation of our staff. The idea behind the program is that the deeper and stronger our teacher's faith is, the easier it will be to pass on. All the instruction is based on the Bible or the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Sessions include large group discussions, small group discussions, meditation, prayer and some journaling.

Principal Makey said, "Most of our topics have been very basic, but they are very fundamental and important for us as Christians to understand and to be able to explain. For example, in the first lesson we learned about Jesus as God and Lord. This is a very simple, yet powerful concept. We reviewed how Jesus was prefigured and foreshadowed in the Old Testament. We studied His miracles and how they manifest His divine identity and give us confidence in His power to save us from sin. We also learned how Jesus’ claim to divinity is very different from what founders of other world religions claimed. And, of course, His life and death make no sense apart from His claim to divinity.

"In another lesson we studied how to pray and how to meditate. Most of us like to speak a lot when we pray, but we don’t like to listen. We learned how to speak with God instead of just speaking to God. So, we learned some different methods of praying and meditating, or reflecting on God’s word, with the help of the Holy Spirit. Too often we teach our children their prayers, i.e., what to say to God, but we neglect to teach them how to talk with God. This is something we want to teach and model to our students.

"In the most recent lesson we studied the Trinity. It is obviously impossible to completely understand the Trinity. It seems to me that every different explanation and analogy about the Trinity is lacking in something. I personally don’t understand the Trinity. I believe in three Persons in one God and I can read the catechism and get some kind of idea about the Trinity, but it really doesn’t fit perfectly into any kind of analogy that I’ve been told about. The same is true of the Incarnation. There are things in our religion that are beyond human understanding. I once heard someone say that there is no way that everything taught by the Catholic Church can be proven true, but that there are good logical reasons for everything taught by the Church. We are not blind fools following a charlatan. Therefore, as St. Peter said, 'Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the
hope that is in you.'”

So on days like Monday when our students were out of school, our teachers were busy deepening their faith and their relationship with Christ.

Immigration Information

Bishop Flores wrote:

A few days ago, July 22, to be exact, I was happy to join a visiting delegation of the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention for a tour of the newly opened facility for processing unaccompanied minors, operated by Immigration Enforcement. It is important for religious leaders to see for themselves the extent of the human tragedy unfolding in our time here in the Western Hemisphere.

I am particularly fond of this picture to the side. Not because I am speaking, but because I am really happy to have these gentlemen of faith covering my back!

 

While inside, we had a chance to see the children and speak briefly with them. We also spoke with law enforcement personnel who assist in interviewing the children.  I think the common witness of the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention, calling for a humanitarian response to the current influx of unaccompanied minors from Central American, is a singularly important witness. We call on our political leadership to recognize that we as a nation have the resources to respond calmly and effectively to women and children who are fleeing violence and extreme poverty. After we visited the new detention center in McAllen, we traveled together to San Antonio, Texas, where we visited the detention center located at Lackland Airforce Base. Again, we had a chance to speak to officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, who oversee the operation at Lackland. We also had a chance to talk to some of the young people.

 

I think this would be a good moment to answer some basic questions I have heard asked by ordinary folks. Many tell me that the media reports they hear do not necessarily clarify what is happening. 

 

For more click here

Last week many of our parish staff attended a presentation on Immigration Reform led by Jossy Rogers from Catholic Charities and Omar Gutierrez from the Archdiocesan Office of Missions and Justice.

We are delighted that they will be leading a session at our parish. It will be:

Immigration Reform and the Catholic Church

Tuesday, August 26th

7:30 to 9:30

Social Level of the church

The Case of the Missing Pope

Omar Gutierrez is an Archdiocese story teller of non-fiction who told of the discovery of Saint Peter's tomb like a Dan Brown mystery being slowly revealed.

He introduced and described the many characters, Popes, Roman emperors, archaeologists, and clergy in the story as each designed, built, or excavated the Basilica and its tombs.

He revealed clues using humor

 and drawings and photographs.

We felt like a by-stander as the discoveries kept being revealed across the centuries.

Thank you Mr. Gutierrez!

Inspired by St. John the Baptist

Michael York as John the Baptist

In the 8th century a deacon named Paolo, upon having to sing the exultet on the Easter vigil, found himself hoarse. He prayed to St. John the Baptist and his voice recovered. Thus he wrote a special hymn for St. John the Baptist

This hymn was so widely enjoyed that it was added to the Divine Office as the antiphon for the psalms of the day celebrating the birth of St. John, which is still celebrated as a solemnity on June 24th. The hymn, because of its length, was divided to make up the antiphons for the Evening Prayer on the night before, the vigil prayer during the night and then the Morning Prayer the day of the solemnity. The Latin of the Evening Prayer, i.e. the beginning of the hymn, reads:

Ut queant laxis resonare fibris mira gestorum famuli tuorum, solve polluti labii reatum, Sancte Iohannes

“So that your servants may, with loosened voices, resound the wonders of your deeds, clean the guilt from our stained lips, O Saint John.”

Now in the early 11th century a monk named Guido d’Arezzo found that the hymn fit perfectly for his desire to find a system of solimization. That is, he could use the syllables from the hymn, known so well at the time, as a way of teaching the basic scale of C. Thus:

UT queant laxis REsonare fibris MIra gestorum FAmuli tuorum, SOlve polluti LAbii reatum, Sancte Iohannes

The UT was changed later to DO to remove a syllable that started with an open vowel sound, and was assumed to refer to Domine “Lord,” though the text is actually addressed to St. John. Also, SI was added later from the Sancte Iohannes for the missing note in the scale, but that too was later changed from SI to our now familiar TI. Some suspect this was because of anti-Catholic sentiments.

Thus we have the DO – RE – MI – FA – SO – LA – TI as the simple scale, which is still used as a teaching method in many parts of the world. It should be noted, too, that these come from Gregorian Chant which is the musical tradition that provided humanity with a system for writing music. Few realize that Gregorian Chant is the most influential musical tradition in the history of humanity, regardless if you’re Christian or not. With over a thousand years of use, it was also the longest musical tradition. It is just such a shame that so few Catholics are familiar with it at all or – worse – associate with it a “darkened” age. But don’t get me started on that.

This is a portion from Omar F. A. Gutierrez's March 21, 2011 blog entry

 "What We Can Learn From The Divine Office,

 or Why Culture Matters."

His blog is Regnum Novum.