Blessings to our students, staff, faculty, and administration at Notre Dame de Lourdes School as we celebrate Catholic Schools Week. The events of Catholic Schools Week begin today (Sunday 25 January) with an Open House at the School from 10:30 – Noon. Please stop by our parish school and explore the wonderful programs and accomplishments of our students. Whether you are a prospective student, parent, grandparent, alumni, or curious parishioner you are most welcome to visit our school during its Open House.
Notre Dame de Lourdes School is truly a Catholic School in the sense of spirituality, faith formation, and universality. Prayer is an essential component to each school day where the words are not simply recited but expressed from conviction. You can hear this by attending our First Friday Masses at Notre Dame de Lourdes and listening to our students pray, with an exuberant spirit, the congregational Mass parts. Our school’s Mission and Belief statements are:
Mission:
Notre Dame de Lourdes is a Catholic school where Jesus is the reason for our existence. We live our gospel values through a strong commitment to service. Our vibrant and challenging curriculum develops creative, critical, and moral thinkers. Together we strive to meet the demands of a rapidly changing and morally complex world.
We believe that:
- Effective education develops the whole child – spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, socially and physically.
- It is essential for the school to foster each child’s uniqueness.
- A joyous and safe school environment is necessary for students to learn and grow.
- It is vital for the school to parallel academic excellence with the student’s relationship with God.
- A strong partnership between home and school develops faith-filled learners.
- Brain-based strategies enhance each student’s learning style.
- It is necessary to prepare our students to meet the challenges of the future.
- It is important to engage in service to others.
Blessings also to our second grade Notre Dame de Lourdes and PREP students who will receive the Sacrament of Penance for the first time tomorrow evening (26 January). This reception of God’s gift of forgiveness and mercy will prepare them for their reception of First Holy Communion in May. Please also keep in your prayers our parishioners who will receive the Sacrament of Confirmation on Thursday 26 February. Thank you.
Today 25 January, the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, closes the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. There have been many devastating fractures in the Church through its nearly two millennia existence. These fractures include the Schism of 1054 which led to Eastern and Western branches of Catholicism. This, along with the Reformation movements of the sixteenth century have divided Christianity into many, sometimes discordant branches. The Week of Prayer seeks to celebrate what unites us – our common Trinitarian Baptism – and to use this grace to build hope and reconciliation as we recognize the truth that joins us while also striving for agreement for continued dialogue for the areas where we may be in the same chapter but not quite on the same page.
These words of St. Irenaeus are most fitting for this week of prayer. “The believers come from many different locations, but they live in one house. They have different perspectives but share one heart, they have different personalities but share one soul, they have many voices but speak through one mouth.”
O God, who taught the whole world through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul, draw us, we pray, nearer to you through the example of him whose conversion we celebrate this day, and so make us witnesses to your truth in the world. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.
- Roman Missal for the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul