All Else Confusion

Please pray for a senior girl at Franciscan University of Steubenville who died this afternoon. She was taken to the hospital by ambulance this morning around 10 and died in the hospital around 3. I don't have a lot of details, but I've been told that she was sick, but it didn't seem seriously so. She was around with friends last night. There is a question of pneumonia, but the hospital isn't exactly sure what killed her. They will be performing an autopsy soon to figure it out and also to determine if they need to test and/or treat the other students on campus.

Please pray also for her family. She is from Vermont and is one of four girls. She is also a twin.

Please pray as well for the other students at Steubenville, especially the girls of Marian Hall (including my sister) where she lived.

Labels: prayer request

Monday, February, 11 is the 150th Anniversary of Mary's first apparition at Lourdes to St. Bernadette. During this time, the Pope has granted a special indulgence. Here are the details:

Pilgrims who visit any public sanctuary, shrine or other worthy place dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes may receive the indulgence Feb. 2-11. Feb. 11 is the day the first of 18 apparitions occurred and is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. Feb. 2 is the feast of the Presentation of the Lord.

Cardinal Stafford said that to obtain the special indulgence one must fulfill the normal requirements set by the church for all plenary indulgences; these include the person going to confession within a reasonably short period of time, receiving the Eucharist and praying for the intentions of the pope, all in a spirit of total detachment from the attraction of sin.

Here is a description February 11, 1859 from EWTN:

It was very cold on February 11, 1858, the day that was to mark the beginning of such an extraordinary series of events at the rock of Massabeille. When Bernadette returned from school her mother gave her permission to go down by the river to pick up driftwood and fallen branches. Toinette Marie, aged nine, and Marie Abadie, aged twelve, a neighbor's child, went with her. When the three girls reached the Massabeille, the two younger ones took off their wooden shoes to wade across an icy mill-stream which here joined the river. Bernadette, more sensitive, hung behind. Standing alone beside the river, she had started to remove her stockings when she heard a noise like a sudden rush of wind. Looking up towards the grotto she saw some movement among the branches, then there floated out of the opening a golden cloud, and in the midst of it was the figure of a beautiful young girl who placed herself in a small niche in the rock, at one side of the opening and slightly above it. In the crannies around this niche grew stunted vines and shrubs, and in particular a white eglantine. Bernadette, staring in fascination, saw that the luminous apparition was dressed in a soft white robe, with a broad girdle of blue, and a long white veil that partially covered her hair. Her eyes were blue and gentle. Golden roses gleamed on her bare feet. When the vision smiled and beckoned to Bernadette, the girl's fear vanished and she came a few steps nearer, then sank reverently to her knees. She drew her rosary from her pocket, for, in moments of stress, she habitually said her beads. The mysterious being also had a rosary, of large white beads, and to quote Bernadette's own account: "The Lady let me pray alone; she passed the beads of the rosary between her fingers, but said nothing; only at the end of each decade did she say the Gloria with me." When the recitation was finished, the Lady vanished into the cave and the golden mist disappeared with her. This experience affected Bernadette so powerfully that, when the other girls turned back to look for her, she was still kneeling, a rapt, faraway look on her face. They chided her, thinking she had passed the time praying to escape the task of gathering fuel. Tying up their twigs and branches into faggots, they started for home. Too full of her vision to keep quiet about it, before they had gone far Bernadette burst out with the whole wondrous story; she asked the girls to say nothing at home. But Toinette told Madame Soubirous that same evening, and soon the news spread further.

Labels: Feast Day

Last Saturday we held our first workshop for the children about to go to Confession for the first time. The second one is tomorrow morning. We have about 120 students making their First Penance and First Communion this year so we have to do things in shifts!

Since both of us are doing this for the first time, I was nervous about how it would go, but things went very smoothly.

We built a 1/2 hour coffee and muffin period into the day so that everyone was present by the time we were ready to start and we were able to pass out all the materials. To begin we sent the children out in 4 groups to make Act of Contrition Holy Cards. We had pre-printed the Act of Contrition on index cards and provided the students with crayons to color them. We also gave them each a piece of paper so that they could write the Act of Contrition themselves to help with familiarization. While the children were working on their project, the DRE spoke to the parents about the importance of Confession and also gave some specific instructions about the night of First Penance such as the importance of being dressed properly. After the children returned, we showed them a video on making a good confession from the Truth in the Heart Series by the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. Then it was one of the priest's turn to answer some questions (we had a question box set out for the parents and children and they surprised us by stuffing the box with questions!) and then to perform a mock confession so that the children could see what will happen in the confessional. Finally, it was time to take them all to the church so that they could take a tour of the confessionals.

We tried to emphasize the importance of frequent confession - DRE, father, and sister in the video all noted how important it is make frequent use of the sacrament. One of the parents afterward told me that she really enjoyed the workshop and that it made her think about confession again. And, she went on to say that in her family they were going to schedule a monthly Saturday confession. Hallelujah!!

Labels: DRE