A Doozy of an Epiphany

30 Years in Education
20 Years in Memphis Diocese

I often forget that this blog was meant to be more than just about my work. I started this blog to share my thoughts. Even though my thoughts aren't always worth sharing, once in a great while I come up with a doozy. Today's doozy to me was more of an epiphany. 

My wife and I have gotten into a great habit of attending weekend Mass at both St. Ann and St. Michael. St. Ann is our parish, and we live around the corner from St. Michael. We love Fr. Ernie, Fr. Bill, and Fr. Ben. So, going to Mass at both parishes is a treat. I know we are not supposed to go to Mass to be entertained, but to worship. At the same time, I want to leave Mass on a spiritual high. I not only want to know Jesus, I want to feel Jesus. I can say that I do experience that spiritual high at St. Ann and St. Michael.

Cross at St. Michael

At this morning's Mass at St. Michael, I experience that epiphany I mentioned earlier. While singing these lines of the Gloria, "Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, you take away the sins of the world," a vision came to me of Jesus taking away all our sins. I know it sounds crazy, but I could feel Jesus taking away our sins. This son of Mary, carpenter, radical, rebel, who challenged authority, associated with sinners, feared no one, took away our sins. He was crucified for our sins. I thought of what Jesus said in John 8:11, "Go, and sin no more." It was definitely a powerful moment. Almost brought me to tears. Those moments when epiphanies occur are few and far between, but they are incredible and powerful when they do come our way. Most definitely a spiritual high!

This past week ended with the annual Catholic Schools Professional Day at CBHS. This is a time for all Catholic School teachers and administrators to come together for Mass and professional development. This is also the Catholic Schools awards day, and St. Ann staff received numerous awards. The following staff members received the following awards.

St. Ann Award Recipients

Years of Service Award:
Didier Aur- 20 years
Kristen Sellers- 25 years
Carol Caesar- 30 years
Karen Otts- 30 years
Betsy Highland- 35 years

Patricia Cooper- Immaculate Heart of Mary Award
Angela de Jong- Good Samaritan Award

The Fall Fest needs your help with providing water (1 case) and soft drinks (12 packs) at our Italian Dinner. Your student will receive an “out of uniform” pass for the donation. Each grade has an assigned item. 
PK3 & 4 - Water bottles
K - water bottles
1st - Sprite
2nd - Sprite 
3rd - Diet Coke
4th - Diet Coke
5th - Diet Coke
6th - Coke
7th - Coke
8th - Coke
The Fall Fest volunteers will be collecting the donations on Wednesday, October 10th at drop-off. They will hand out “out of uniform” coupons at that time. The Fall Fest planning committee would like to thank you in advance for your donation to the Italian Dinner.

20 Years of Service

The 3rd Extracurricular Exploration session begins on Wednesday with many new offerings. Here is a list of the EE classes for the 3rd session:All West Band (John Baum)Robotics (Stacey Griffith)Sewing (Ruby Langford, Lauren Truelove, and Justin Kissell)Karate /Soccer (Angela de Jong/Didier Aur) Every other dayAnime/Dance (Katie Jones/Tracy Angotti) Every other dayCreating Rosaries (Annmarie Ghio)

Pyle Speakers

We would like to purchase Pyle speakers for the classrooms. Using the iPads through the projectors works well except the speakers on the projectors are very small, and it is hard to hear using those speakers. We purchased one set of Pyle speakers to see how they work in the classroom. We installed them in the 5th grade classroom. Mrs. Metaxas is extremely happy with the speakers, and said the speakers work well with the iPad.

The cost of the Pyle speakers is $50 a set. We would like to purchase a set of speakers for each of the classrooms since the students use the iPads, and they are making more and more presentations as we move more towards project based classes in our STREAM program. Fr. Ernie tasked me with improving the quality of education we offer our students. Having the right tools to aid in instruction is critical. This is a relatively inexpensive way to help the students and teachers. The speakers will last for many years. You can give online via our website. Just designate your gift in the comment section for classroom speakers. Also, specify if you would like to donate speakers to a particular classroom.  https://stannbartlett.weshareonline.org/St.AnnSchoolAnnualGivingSociety

The speakers may also be purchased via Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XCYK12M/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Support St. Ann

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. It takes time to write a blog, but it gives me time to reflect on the work we do. We are making many improvements. We have some big plans for the future of the school. Improvements take time, lots of planning, and many people coming together to support. This is happening, and it needs to continue to happen. We need your support and prayers to get to where we need to be.

God bless you,
Didier Aur, Principal
St. Ann Catholic School