Catholicity of St. Ann

Library Council

Seeing St. Ann in action this week made me thing about our school's Catholicity in action, virtue, and demeanor. Without trying to be all holier-than-thou and high and mighty, which I'm definitely not, thought I'd use this week's blog to highlight some of the Catholic things that take place at the school, which probably most people aren't aware of. Parents know about these and that's one of the many reasons they send their children to our school. What we do isn't exclusive to St. Ann, these are things done in just about every Catholic school. All Catholic schools do these but with their own little twist.

Here are a few of the things we do because we are a Catholic school.

We frequently receive prayer requests from St. Ann families. So, we pray for families in need of prayer.

Library Council

We have an unofficial faculty prayer warrior team. Whenever prayers are needed, a prayer warrior will text the rest of the group to ask for prayers.

St. Faustina Youth Society (SFYS) meets once a month after school to pray the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy. They also participate in service projects throughout the year. My personal favorite is the teacher prayer gift. They are also great supporters of Room in the Inn (RITI).

Last week, the 8th graders went to Ave Maria to play BINGO with the residents.

For the past couple of years, we have teamed up with Catholic Charities (CC) to assemble hygiene kits for distribution to those needing basic hygiene supplies. Every class is assigned a different hygiene product (tooth brush, tooth paste, soap, shampoo....) to bring in for the kits. There is usually a surplus of hygiene supplies that we will send to RITI.

Our students in the Library Council collect books and set up a library space for the children at RITI.

BINGO at Ave Maria

We host an annual Thanksgiving food drive for Dorothy Day House (DDH). Every class is assigned a certain food item to bring in so that we can assemble and deliver food baskets to the DDH families.

For our faculty religious retreat day this year, we spent that day split into three groups serving at DDH, CC, and RITI.

Throughout the year, we will have clothing drives for CC.

CC contacted us in the fall to say they were running short on peanut butter for the hundreds of families who come to them weekly for food. So, our 8th graders led a school-wide peanut butter drive as one of their Confirmation projects to benefit CC.

Every year, we host a candy cane sale to benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Just like most every business, organization, church, and school in Memphis, St. Ann has a deep and personal connection with St. Jude.

Once a month, we pray an all-school Rosary together in the church. Every month, a different grade leads the Rosary. The February Rosary will be led by the 7th graders. This is for all students K-8.

Every morning and afternoon, we have student led school-wide prayer over the intercom system. The prayers include the WIT prayer (from Fr. David Knight), Act of Contrition, and Hail Holy Queen. The students of SFYS take turns leading the afternoon prayer.

On Fridays, we have our weekly all-school Mass attended by all students. Our January and February Masses have been led by our 5th graders. They serve as the readers, altar servers, gift bearers, and greeters.

Fr. Ernie has been leading our altar server training. So far, every 5th-8th graders has participated in the training. The 4th graders are next on the alter server training list.

Mass Buddies

This next event is one of my favorite things we do. For our weekly all-school Mass, the PK3 and 8th grade students partner up and are Mass buddies. The 8th graders go to the PK3 classroom to get their Mass buddies and they head off to Mass. They sit together at Mass and the 8th graders teach their PK3 buddies about the Holy Water, Sign of the Cross, genuflecting, kneeling, praying, and generally how to behave during Mass. It also helps the 8th graders behave properly at Mass because they have to set an example for their Mass buddies.

At our weekly all-school Mass, our school choir is in action leading our student body in singing the hymns. Well, they are leading the younger students in singing the hymns. The older students have somehow forgotten how to sing during Mass. It is some type of middle school disease.

At the beginning of the school year, the Knights of Columbus lead the annual Prayer Walk. We join together in prayer as we walk through the school asking for God's help and intervention for a wonderful and safe school year.

BINGO at Ave Maria

We have added two awards this year to recognize our students for being excellent examples of Christ-like behavior. The first is the St. Veronica Kindness Award. St. Veronica is the patron saint of kindness. This award is presented monthly to one student from each class for showing outstanding kindness towards his or her classmates. The other award is the St. James Good Deed Award. St. James the Lesser is the patron saint of good deeds. This is given at anytime for a student going above and beyond in performing a good deed. Students can be nominated by any faculty/staff member.

For many years now, we have presented the Fr. Oglesby Character Award. This award is presented to students who exhibit Christ-like characteristics such as kindness, thoughtfulness, and a caring attitude towards their teachers and fellow students.

Thought I'd share these with you so that you can learn a little more about the Catholicity of St. Ann and our students. Just like everyone else, we stumble and fall, but we do our best to stand up, dust off, learn from our mistakes, ask for forgiveness, and move forward.

Wishing you a fantastic week!

God bless you and love, Didier Aur

Previous Blogs:

Finally, An 8th Grade Volleyball Victory

Confirmation! Check!

Patience and Compassion

8th Grade Confirmation

Begin Again