Confirmation! Check!

Our 8th graders are a step closer to graduating. With less than four months to go, another rite of passage has been checked off the list for these young folks. This past Friday evening in a beautiful Mass celebrated by Bishop David Talley, these students received the Sacrament of Confirmation.

They have been Baptized, participated in Reconciliation, received First Communion, and sealed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit better known as Confirmation. They are the recipients of four of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. It will be awhile before they receive anymore sacraments (let's hope).

To me, Confirmation becomes a crucial time in the lives of our Catholic youth. Will they be strengthened for service to the Body of Christ or will they fall away from their faith? With all my years in Catholic education, I have seen both. Some of the students go through Confirmation because that's what they are supposed to do as Catholics, and afterwards no longer have a faith life. For some, it is a sacrament that brings the confirmandi a renewed sense of purpose in their faith and a dedication to the Church.

Here are a few tips for anyone reading this blog as well as our newly confirmed youth about living a life of faith. Keep in mind that our actions will have the biggest impact on promoting faith in ourselves first and then to those around us. Set the example and be intentional in your actions. Develop your faith for you.

Develop your faith by studying and reading about your faith. If you don't know where to start, check out what Dynamic Catholic has to offer. Their books are fantastic, simple to understand, inexpensive, and easy to get your hands on.

Read or listen to the daily Mass readings. You can receive the daily readings via email from the USCCB every morning. They also have podcast readings and reflections if you prefer. The reflections will help you better understand the readings.

Develop a prayer life. Prayers don't have to be complicated, memorized, nor long winded. Most of my prayers consist of "Thank you," "I'm sorry," "Help me do Your will," and "Lord, keep me from screwing up." I pray that last one often. 

Participate in Church activities and organizations. Click here to find out all that St. Ann offers. Don't stand on the sidelines. Get in the game!

Go to Mass wherever you are. I use MassTimes website and app to find a Mass near me whenever traveling. I have a goal of attending Mass in every state I visit.  I'm doing pretty well but not batting a thousand.

Set the example by making Mass an event to look forward to. Take the family. Go to lunch or dinner afterwards. Be happy and make it joyful. Going to Church should be a "want to" and not a "have to." As Thomas Aquinas once said, "The celebration of Holy Mass is as valuable as the death of Jesus on the cross."

I will end by saying: Don't just go to Church, be the Church. Live the Church in your heart, mind, and actions.

God bless and love you, Didier Aur

www.sascolts.org

Patience and Compassion

Having Coffee With Mom

I want to share one of this week's teachable moments with you, and the lesson I learned about patience and compassion.

Life Happens! And, when it does, we should do our best to learn from those moments. Many times the good moments are taken for granted and the bad moments stick with us. The bad moments tend to become fodder for complaints and opportunity for us to curse our bad luck.

We should all be on a constant lookout for teachable moments especially when the negatives pop into our lives. These moments are to be used to first teach ourselves a lesson so that we can help others learn from a misfortune. Kind of difficult to teach something we haven't learned ourselves.

As educators, we are on a constant lookout for teachable moments in order to help our students grow. When the bad happens, those are perfect opportunities to teach a lesson because, unfortunately, the bad moments stick out in our minds more than the good moments.

I was the recipient of a teachable moment this week that came to me from Dr. Mary McDonald, former Catholic Schools superintendent. As we shared family updates, I asked what was to be learned from both my mother and mother-in-law being in memory care facilities? Why do the latter years have to be a struggle for our parents and cause so much stress to the families? Without missing a beat, Dr. McDonald said, "The purpose is to teach you patience and compassion." Whack! That hit me right between the eyes. She took that teachable moment and put it in the upper 90. For you non-soccer people, that means she hit a home run. Patience and compassion are much needed and definitely missing in many parts of our lives.

Let us look to our aging parents, if we are still fortunate enough to have them with us, with more patience and compassion. Let us not curse their situation and be agitated with them because they didn't choose their fate. Let us not be angry with God, He has His plan which is beyond our comprehension. Instead, let us treat those around us, especially the ones most in need, with patience and compassion. Let us replace agitation and judgment with patience and compassion.

If you have elderly parents, don't argue with them and constantly correct them when they are confused. It is not their fault. Try to do more listening than talking. Just be present in the moment. Nod your head in agreement and smile. Hold their hand. Bring them a little gift especially your presence. Be loving, patient, and compassionate. I am a strong believer in what goes around, comes around - Karma! Soon enough, we will be the ones sitting in their place.

As my mission trip students used to say, "See the face of Christ in those you serve. Be the face of Christ in those you serve."

God bless and love you, Didier Aur 

8th Grade Confirmation

My favorite part of the school day is when I remove the administrator's hat to enter the classroom as an educator. For one class period per day, I can fulfill the reason why I got into education in the first place; to teach.

My teaching assignment is predicated by need; I teach the class and subject where we would have to hire a teacher to teach just one class period. This year, I am teaching 8th grade religion. Whatever I teach, I spend the summer before the new school year prepping for that class. Since most of my outside reading is religion/faith based, prepping was something I looked forward to.

The focus of 8th grade religion is Confirmation prep. What is cool about Confirmation prep is that it is so much more than being "sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit." It is also about being "strengthened for service to the Body of Christ."

With Confirmation only two weeks away, my students have led several service projects (Catholic Charities and Dorothy Day House), studied the Sacraments and the Mysteries of the Rosary, learned the purpose of patron saints and sponsors, discussed the Sunday gospel readings, and spent every class period reflecting and writing. Most importantly, the students are focusing on God's love for them and their love for themselves.

As we learn everyday in class, we cannot take care of others until we can take care of ourselves first. And, we cannot love others until we love ourselves first. If I am not the person I want to be, it is up to me to become that person.

Our hope isn't just for the Sacrament of Confirmation, it is for a lifetime of service to the Church. As Fr. Dexter said in his homily at Mass yesterday, "Our duty as Christians is to lead others to God." As we continue preparation for Confirmation, your prayers and support are much appreciated. 

Enjoy your week, and see you on January 27th for Confirmation.

God bless you, Didier Aur

https://www.sascolts.org/

Begin Again

A former CBHS student and soccer player of mine, Andrew Holliday, started an accountability group focused on marketing resources to help folks combine the principle of commitment and consistency with resource and support to drive progress. Andrew has created an accountability board where members make public their commitment for the action each member will be taking to drive growth. Since the growth I posted has everything to do with St. Ann, I thought I would share my six commitments with you via my blog, especially since returning to blogging is my number four commitment. So, here go my commitments. I'm hoping each of you reading this blog helps to keep me on track to these commitments.

1.  Focus on posting appropriate (professional) news worthy information on LinkedIn at least once per week. The information we post needs to touch hearts since it is geared to friends and alumni. We already post daily on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

2.  Increase LinkedIn followers from 150 to 200+. We will reach out to friends and alumni on LinkedIn and invite them to follow. We went from about 50 to 150 in the past year and a half.

3.  Reach out personally to one alumni and/or donor per day via email, post card, or messaging (LinkedIn, Facebook,...)

4.  Return to posting a weekly personal blog. I stopped blogging about two years ago. The blog received good response but was just too time consuming. The blog needs to be a shorter, more focused blog that is informative and less time consuming.

5.  Develop a campaign to reach out to more potential families outside of our parish. Our main source of student recruitment has been on reputation and word of mouth.

6.  Focus on larger campaigns (annual giving and major fundraising events) and not nickel-and-diming events.

Thank you Andrew for inviting me to be a part of the accountability group. You can learn more about Andrew Holliday on his website, https://specialsaucebranding.com/about-us/

God bless you, Didier Aur, Principal, St. Ann Catholic School https://www.sascolts.org/