For the Clay family, home-based catechesis through CtR Religious Education’s new “At Home With Jesus” program created in response to the pandemic has brought forth new opportunities to grow and learn together.
This week as we light the second Advent candle, we meditate on love, the love that God brought into the world in the stable in Bethlehem and desires to bring into our hearts.
Hope, in the way we mean it as a virtue, is not just optimism or positive thinking. Rather it is in the confident expectation that God’s promises of blessing are true and will come to be in our life.
Have you ever noticed the joy and happiness of a married couple that openly express their love for, and delight in each other? The witness they bear is enormously contagious! I have had the privilege of knowing several such married couples. The love they show for each other literally radiates warmth to everyone around them.
by Camilla MacKenzie, Director of Adult Discipleship
A couple of weeks ago, Pope Francis published a new encyclical called Fratelli Tutti on the feast of St. Francis. Usually, encyclicals are addressed to those in the Catholic Church, since they often focus on clarification or promoting a certain aspect of faith. However, Pope Francis addresses Fratelli Tutti to the whole world because the subject pertains to every person, not just Catholics.
Mother Theresa was quoted saying, “I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.” In many ways, this has been the theme of our start to a very different catechetical year. Parents, upperclassmen teens, and our many volunteers have stepped up to work with the challenges brought to us this year. It may not look like years past, but God is still moving in powerful ways!
Reconciliation is a celebration of the fact that God has already forgiven us! What a beautiful statement. It reminds us that there is a dimension to the Sacrament that is often overlooked. We have only to think of the father waiting for his wayward son’s return from the Parable of the Lost Son in Matthew’s Gospel. God is always waiting for us, hoping for our return to him when we have strayed.
We are tired of restrictions on activities and travel, worried about our jobs, our families, our country. We must realize, though, that we are not unique. In every generation there have been very difficult tests and challenges.
As the new school year begins with much anticipation and some anxiety, parents of young children are having to make extremely difficult choices for their children this year. Genesis has been preparing all summer to support families and their children this year.
Despite all the struggles and controversy we face today, we see Christ’s Love made visible when two people join with God to give themselves to each other in love without conditions.
by Camilla MacKenzie, director of Adult Discipleship
Every Aug. 15, Catholics around the world celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary. What is the Assumption? Where does it come from? What is its importance?