VBS July 13 - 17

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Registration forms/ leader applications due JUNE 30!

End of the Year

To end the Faith Formation year, there will be a brief meeting (with coffee and food!)  and prayer service May 17 and 18 during class.

Congratulations First Communicants!

HAPPY EASTER!!!

NO CLASS MARCH 2

NO CLASS MONDAY MARCH 2

As Montgomery County Public Schools were closed today, so we do NOT have class tonight. Hopefully Spring will follow shortly.
Call 612-615-4393 with any questions, concerns

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday services at St Judes are at 6:30pm (English) and 8pm (Spanish)

An old poem, asking God to teach the speaker how to repent, from 17th century poet John Donne:

At the round earth's imagined corners blow

Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise

From death, you numberless infinities

Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go;

All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,

All whom war, dea[r]th, age, agues, tyrannies,

Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you, whose eyes

Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.

But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space;

For, if above all these my sins abound,

'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,

When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,

Teach me how to repent, for that's as good

As if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood.

A fitting reflection for an Ash Wednesday, as for the next 40 days are days of learning how to ask for and receive and live God's Mercy. When we do this, we prepare ourselves for His death and Resurrection at Easter, when God does seal our pardon with His blood, which is more than enough for any poor, penitent sinner's redemption. A Blessed Lent to all! Feel free to stop by the Faith Formation Office to check out Lent prayer books and such to help you and your family along in your praying, fasting, almsgiving journey to Easter.


How is your family observing Lent this year? Comment below!

FIRST RECONCILIATION RETREAT THIS SATURDAY!

Saturday, 10 - 12 is the First Reconciliation Retreat and Confession for all preparing to receive First Communion this Springs. At least one parent must accompany child, families are more than welcome to join and participate.

This Sunday: Feast of Christ the King, Office Blessing!

After the 10:30 Mass, your newly renovated Faith Formation Office and the Parish Office will be blessed.  Please come and participate, see the new space.  Followed by Intercultural Reception.

The Feast of Christ the King... [to be continued]

It's an Ascension Day Miracle!

Online registration now available! Fill out the form HERE!

Happy Ascension Thursday!

And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.

Today, 40 days after Easter, is the Feast of the Ascension (which we'll celebrate Sunday, but still), when Christ returned to His Father and there at His right hand intercedes for us.  As I like to do, I direct your attention to the wonderful Bl. John Henry Newman, who says:

Christ is already in that place of peace, which is all in all. He is on the right hand of God. He is hidden in the brightness of the radiance which issues from the everlasting Throne. He is in the very abyss of peace, where there is no voice of tumult or distress, but a deep stillness,—stillness, that greatest and most awful of all goods which we can fancy,—that most perfect of joys, the utter, profound, ineffable tranquillity of the Divine Essence. He has entered into His rest.
O how great a good will it be, if, when this troublesome life is over, we in our turn also enter into that same rest,—if the time shall one day come, when we shall enter into His tabernacle above, and hide ourselves under the shadow of His wings; if we shall be in the number of those blessed dead who die in the Lord, and rest from their labour. Here we are tossing upon the sea, and the wind is contrary. All through the day we are tried and tempted in various ways. We cannot think, speak, or act, but infirmity and sin are at hand. But in the unseen world, where Christ has entered, all is peace. 

Just as His Resurrection opened for us the path of life over death, His Ascension shows us our way back home to the Father, to the Love of the Trinity that created us and for which we were created.

REGISTRATION FOR 2104-2015 NOW OPEN!!!

Sign up now for 2014-2015 Faith Formation!

Forms are available at the entrances of the Church, as well as the Faith Formation Office and the main Parish Office. They can be returned to either office or the drop box outside the Faith Formation Office after hours.
They are also accessible here.

Please NOTE THE LAST PAGE! It is a volunteer information request form. Please please please sign up for more information about volunteering with the program, for anything from catechist to office work to retreat help.  We need help with everything, but especially teaching.  Be not afraid, there are plenty of resources for first time teachers, and it is a fantastic way to deepen your own faith.

We also need teenagers willing to volunteer to be Faith Mentors, for younger children and for those with special needs.  A great experience for high schoolers!

From the Holy Father: Catechesis on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit

As many of our children prepare for Confirmation, that special outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Pope Francis has much to share with us about the the gifts the Spirit offers us:

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!
Today we begin a series of catecheses on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. You know that the Holy Spirit constitutes the soul, the life blood of the Church and of every individual Christian: He is the Love of God who makes of our hearts his dwelling place and enters into communion with us. The Holy Spirit abides with us always, he is always within us, in our hearts.
The Spirit himself is “the gift of God” par excellence (cf. Jn 4:10), he is a gift of God, and he in turn communicates various spiritual gifts to those who receive him. The Church identifies seven, a number which symbolically speaks of fullness, completeness; they are those we learn about when we prepare for the Sacrament of Confirmation and which we invoke in the ancient prayer called the “Sequence of the Holy Spirit”. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord.
1. The first gift of the Holy Spirit according to this list is therefore wisdom. But it is not simply human wisdom, which is the fruit of knowledge and experience. In the Bible we are told that Solomon, at the time of his coronation as King of Israel, had asked for the gift of wisdom (cf. 1 Kings 3:9). And wisdom is precisely this: it is the grace of being able to see everything with the eyes of God. It is simply this: it is to see the world, to see situations, circumstances, problems, everything through God’s eyes. This is wisdom. Sometimes we see things according to our liking or according to the condition of our heart, with love or with hate, with envy.... No, this is not God’s perspective. Wisdom is what the Holy Spirit works in us so as to enable us to see things with the eyes of God. This is the gift of wisdom.
2. And obviously this comes from intimacy with God, from the intimate relationship we have with God, from the relationship children have with their Father. And when we have this relationship, the Holy Spirit endows us with the gift of wisdom. When we are in communion with the Lord, the Holy Spirit transfigures our heart and enables it to perceive all of his warmth and predilection.
3. The Holy Spirit thus makes the Christian “wise”. Not in the sense that he has an answer for everything, that he knows everything, but in the sense that he “knows” about God, he knows how God acts, he knows when something is of God and when it is not of God; he has this wisdom which God places in our hearts.

Read the rest here.

Follow Papa's example this Lent!

Happy Feast of the Annunciation!!!

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end." And Mary said to the angel, "How shall this be, since I have no husband?"  And the angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.  For with God nothing will be impossible." And Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.

--Luke1:26-38

Happy Feast of St. Joseph (It's a Solemnity!!!)

CONFIRMATION RETREAT!!!

The Mandatory retreat for all receiving Confirmation this year is tomorrow, Saturday March 15, beginning at 9:15! See you there! Last minute volunteers welcome. Cost for the retreat and Confirmation gown is $70. If you already have a red gown, the retreat is $55.
Pizza will be served.

LENT

It's HERE.

And to start off the beautiful Lenten season I thought I would introduce you all to the recently beatified John Henry Cardinal Newman.  He was a 19th century English convert, apologist, philosopher, cardinal. His writings are incredibly insightful- he has a great gift for speaking to the modern world, encountering modern problems and responding to them with timeless love of Christ. I strongly encourage reading him - slowly, prayerfully- as part of your preparation for Easter. 

This is from a sermon he gave on the first Sunday of Lent in 1848, entitled "Surrender to God":

[F]asting is only one branch of a large and momentous duty, the subdual of ourselves to Christ. We must surrender to Him all we have, all we are. We must keep nothing back. We must present to Him as captive prisoners with whom He may do what He will, our soul and body, our reason, our judgement, our affections, our imagination, our tastes, our appetite. The great thing is to subdue ourselves; but as to the particular form in which the great precept of self-conquest and self-surrender is to be expressed, that depends on the person himself, and on the time or place. What is good for one age or person, is not good for another. . . . 

[O]ur Lord's temptation in the wilderness… began, you will observe, with an attempt on the part of the evil one to make Him break His fast improperly. It began, but it did not end there. It was but the first of three temptations, and the other two were more addressed to His mind, not His bodily wants. One was to throw Himself down from the pinnacle, the other the offer of all the kingdoms of the world. They were more subtle temptations. Now I have used the word "subtle" already, and it needs some explanation. By a subtle temptation or a subtle sin, I mean one which it is very difficult to find out. Everyone knows what it is to break the ten commandments, the first, the second, the third, and so on. When a thing is directly commanded, and the devil tempts us directly to break it, this is not a subtle temptation, but a broad and gross temptation. But there are a great many things wrong which are not so obviously wrong. They are wrong as leading to what is wrong or the consequence of what is wrong, or they are wrong because they are the very same thing as what is forbidden, but dressed up and looking differently. The human mind is very deceitful; when a thing is forbidden, a man does not like directly to do it, but he goes to work if he can to get at the forbidden end in some way. . . . 

What all of us want more than any­thing else, what this age wants, is that its intellect and its will should be under a law. At present it is lawless, its will is its own law, its own reason is the standard of all truth. It does not bow to authority, it does not submit to the law of faith. It is wise in its own eyes and it relies on its own resources. And you, as living in the world, are in danger of being seduced by it, and being a partner in its sin, and so coming in at the end for its punishment.

The law that saves us from the evil one and from ourselves is, of course, Jesus, the Word made flesh, who is not only waiting for us at the end of our journey in the joy of Easter, but also accompanies us every terrible, difficult, dragging step of the way.  We will all fall, give in to some temptation or another, neglect our duties and sleep, but as long as we keep trying and allow Christ to transform us, as long as we continue to strive to joyfully surrender ourselves to God this Lent, it will all work out.  That's the great wonderfulness of merciful Providence. 
As Papa Francesco said at Ash Wednesday Mass, "it is possible to realize something new within ourselves and around us simply because God is faithful, he continues to be rich in goodness and mercy, and he is always reading to forgive us and start all over."

Mrs. Wofsy

We are heartbroken over the loss of our Faith Formation Office secretary and 2nd grade catechist, Mrs. Kathie Wofsy, who died Saturday, February 22. She was a wonderful, sweet lady, whole-heartedly dedicated to bringing the little ones (the "itty-bits") to Christ.  Mrs. Wofsy directly prepared scores of first communicants over the years, and her selfless hard work was a vital part of the functioning of the program. She is sorely missed.

Requiem Aeternam dona eis, Domine

et lux perpetua luceat eis

Requiescant in pace. Amen.

Eternal rest, grant unto her O Lord

and let perpetual light shine upon her.

May she rest in peace. Amen.

May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed,

through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Amen.

Welcome

Welcome to Shrine of St. Jude Faith Formation's new website!
Here you will find handy reminders and updates [such as: NO CLASS THIS PRESIDENTS DAY WEEKEND or, MANDATORY FIRST COMMUNION MEETING POSTPONED TO NEXT WEDNESDAY 2/19 at 7pm]
as well as general Catholic awesomeness [like this gem from Pope Francis which you probably saw all over the internet a while back:

]

for parents and kids and anyone involved with SSJFF.

Hope you find it helpful! As always, let me know if you have any thoughts, questions, concerns! This time at stjudefaithformation@gmail.com