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Hey Everyone,

1. MASS this Friday – Due to last week’s rainstorm from Hurricane Harvey, we have rescheduled our Labor Day Mass for this Friday at St. Luke at 7pm. Please arrive by 6:30 to help prepare for Mass and bring food for afterward! Fr. Riccardo of the Fathers of Mercy has agreed to celebrate this Mass for us, including a great talk on the importance of Chastity in today’s culture.
2. SAINTS ALIVE this Friday – After Mass, the Ambassadors for Life with Ed Harpring and Karl Dolson of the Archdiocese will be having a discussion about Fr. Riccardo’s talk. We will join in on this discussion and transition into our first Saints Alive auditions / casting. Some of the scripts will be completed by then so this will begin the process. This years Saints are as follows:
   1. St. Michael the Archangel + Our Lady of Fatima
   2. St. Kateri Tekakwitha + the North American Martyrs
   3. St. Vitalis of Gaza, Egypt
   4. St. Agnes
   5. Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati
3. MISSION TRIP – Next Friday, September 15 is when registration opens for our high school trip through Catholic Heart Work Camp to Wichita, KS (July 15-21, 2018). Please pray we can get into this camp quickly. I will have more information about this by the end of the month.
4. MARCH FOR LIFE – First $50 deposit is due October 30. Click on the link for more details. Parent meeting for this is tentatively set for Sept 26 @ St. A (Time TBA)
5. SILENT RETREAT – Our first ever “Mobile Silent Retreat” for high school+ will be to New Orleans, LA to see the theatrical performance of “Garden” by Dumbox Ministries. This is tentatively set for the weekend of January 12-14, leaving after school and coming home Sunday evening. The play will be on Saturday.

More to come next week!

In Christ, for Love & Life,

John Sohl, CYM

502-428-6757

Hey Everyone!

Here is the Fall Calendar, including the Middle School Calendar, & the new SVDP Wednesday Dates, and more!

1. Fall Calendar
2. Middle School Dates
3. St. Vincent DePaul Wednesdays

1. MISSION TRIP – Keep an eye out for registration for our first BIG High School Mission Trip to Wichita, KS on July 15-21, 2018! After we secure our spots in mid-September, I’ll have more information about first deposits and more before the end of November.

2. SAINTS ALIVE – Auditions will be next Friday, September 8 @ 6:30-9pm @ St. Luke. The commitments are Sat, Oct 21 @ St. Luke (5-10pm) & Sat, Nov 4 @ St. Rita (4-9pm) at the Fall Festivals. Remember, this is HUGE for evangelization so be prepared to be at all the practices and rehearsals to make this the best Saints Alive yet!

3. St. Vincent DePaul Wednesdays, etc. – Check out the dates above, but please come to our newest outreach of the Circle of Life Youth. Contact Mary Whitfill @ 502-383-3295 for more information.

4. MARCH FOR LIFE – We will have more details on logistics in the coming weeks. First deposit of $50 will be due October 30. The tentative itinerary is as follows:

Wednesday, January 17 — Depart for Washington, D.C.

Thursday, January 18 — Holocaust Museum & Basilica for Vigil Mass

Friday, January 19 — Youth Rally & March for Life

Saturday, January 20 — SFLA National Conference (return home Sunday morning)

More to come in the coming weeks!

In Christ, for Love & Life!

John Sohl, CYM

The Circle of Life Youth

502-428-6757

The Silent Key

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, as we begin these daily reflections on the Silent Key and what it means to adore you properly, we offer up our whole selves as the only appropriate gift to you. Just as you gave your life for us, it seems fitting that our response to your unconditional love should be to allow you to have all of us as well. I ask all the saints in heaven, especially St. Maximilian Kolbe and St. John Paul the Great to pray for me, an unworthy servant of the Eucharist, that I may be able to endure the sacred tasks of this noble endeavor.

Above all, on this Feast of the Queenship of Mary, I ask you Immaculata to dissolve me completely into your womb so that these words may be yours entirely, in a way that my only contribution is perhaps the flavor by which these truths are received, similar to the salt in the ocean. Only, you exemplify what it means to be dissolved in the Ocean of Mercy Mary, and for that—your title as Queen of Heaven and Earth is most fitting. At last, I offer up this initial reflection for the intentions of the Holy Father Pope Francis and for the continued expansion of the Kingdom of Heaven, particularly through the teachings of the Theology of the Body.

We pray all of this to Jesus, through Mary. Amen.

August 22, 2017 – The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary

From Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s “Spirit of the Liturgy” before he became Pope Benedict XVI, excerpt from page 36-37.

“What, then, is special about the liturgy of Israel? First of all, without doubt, the One to whom it is directed. Other religions frequent direct their worship to subordinate powers. … Adoration is due to God alone: that is the first commandment. Now this one God is worshipped through an extensive sacrificial system, the meticulous regulations for which are set out in the Torah. However, when we look at the cultic history of Israel more closely, we run up against a second characteristic, which leads finally, by its inner logic, to Jesus Christ, to the New Testament…What at first seems to be a break turns out, on closer inspection, to be a real fulfillment, in which all the paths formerly followed converge.” (SL, 36-37)

At the foundation of every relationship is Communication. Without this giving and receiving of one another, it is impossible to know any substantive aspect of a person. Yes, while information can be acquired through other people and through other means, the reciprocal reality of relationship can still come into being only through the willful embrace of two persons. In other words, if you don’t talk to someone, you won’t know who they are!

But it goes a bit deeper doesn’t it? If we only ever talk to someone, we may thoroughly communicate who WE are to the other, but we may still know nothing of the other. This could present a problem if we don’t learn how to LISTEN. Suddenly, it’s not just in the giving or doing that we find relationship, but in the receiving of the gift of the other. What better way to receive than to be silent before the other in both manner and speech? Body language is critical in this because that too communicates whether or not we are invested in understanding what is being communicated from the other. That means—pay attention by looking them in the eyes, calming your movements, asking questions, waiting for them to finish what they’re saying, and then restating what they’ve said to ensure you understand what’s being communicated.

I experienced this in Adoration just last night. After sitting with a particular chapter from Scripture, I started to wonder exactly what God was really trying to say to me. After everyone else had left the room, I got my chance to just sit before the Tabernacle in total silence, in both manner and speech. After a while of reading the Word made Flesh over and over in meditation, I felt the confidence to speak outloud what I felt God was saying to me. Suddenly, the peace of my relationship with Jesus came flooding back in a way I had not felt in a long while. Give it a try sometime, and see what Christ is trying to say to YOU, if only we communicate with Him in prayer in Silent Adoration.

More reflections to come as the Silent Key continues!

Good afternoon everyone!

Don’t forget, this Friday is when the Crescendo Talent Show Acts will be DUE for our lineup! Again, that will be Sunday, August 13 @ 2:30-4:30pm, St. Rita Casper Center. Text me at 502-428-6757 (John) to sign up officially!

This Friday, meet at the Big Four Walking Bridge @ 7:45pm for a Rosary Walk. This will be right after the 5pm Mass for the Fortnight for Freedom at the Little Sisters of the Poor. The Ambassadors for Life will take part in that before we meet at the Walking Bridge for our follow-up Rosary. Our walk will only last about 45 min so please make sure your ride stays and prays with us before you head back home!

We hope to see you there!

Also, if you can help us–all the Ignite teens will be doing a Circle of Life CAR WASH at St. Rita on Saturday morning, 8am-1pm in the front parking lot. Please come out and support their efforts! We’ll also be selling donuts after the 9am and 11am Masses at St. Rita on Sunday morning.

Thanks and God bless!

John

Hey everyone!

Circle of Life meets this Friday, June 2 @ St. Luke, 7-9pm for all high school youth! The location has changed to St. Luke for the Circle of Life youth choir “Sempiterna” to plan for this Sunday’s Liturgy! Also, for ANY youth who wish to take part in our TALENT SHOW on Sunday, August 13th — send your ideas to John no later than Friday, June 23 so we can plan out the full itinerary!

Details for our 1st Annual “Crescendo” Talent Show will be forthcoming!

More to come soon!

Hello.   You’re pretty sure you don’t know me — I don’t blame you.  We haven’t talked in a while.  But I thought I might as well send you this.

We used to be best friends when you were younger — remember that?  No, I don’t expect you to.  But maybe you remember a little bit.  You had all those imaginary friends?  All those make-believe worlds?  All those fanciful lives you loved to pretend you had?  I was all those friends.  I took you to all those worlds.  I showed you all those lives.

Remember when your parents took off your training wheels?  Remember how unsteady you felt, but how you somehow managed to stay up?  That was me.  I held you better than any training wheels could.

And then when you got old enough to walk around the streets by yourself — you were never by yourself.  But it was around that time that you started forgetting about those imaginary friends.  You started settling for the life you were given instead of pushing out of it to what might be.  That’s when you started to forget me. . .

I’ve been working overtime since then.  Why don’t you sleep as much as you used to?  When you were sleeping, there was less to worry about.  Now I have to be behind every wheel wheel, in all the stores, at all the friends’ houses, around all the TV’s, between every hand you hold, nearly every hour of the day.  There are a million perils I’ve helped you avoid and you don’t even know it.

Other people recognize me more than you do, and I’m not even focusing on them.  I guess they see the effects.  You and that one “friend?” — everyone but you realizes that I’m the only one that’s prevented you from going out with each other.  How that wreck was somehow not your fault? — you’re the only person who doesn’t see my hand in that.

I can’t honestly blame you for a lot of your attitude, though.  You must find it hard to see someone who, honestly, can’t be seen without years of practice.  But I encourage you — be like those other people who see what I’ve done.  Accept that there’s someone there working on your side all the time.

And see me in other people.  I said I don’t particularly focus on others, but sometimes they help me work a lot better than I can on my own.  Because, you see, you listen to people who look like you.  That one friend who’s advice stuck in your mind for some bizarre reason?  I bet you can guess who told him to say that.  Or that driver who slammed on her breaks with inhuman strength and speed so you could safely run that red light?  Yes, I had a hand in that.

I love you.  You’re worth all the effort.  You’re worth all the trying and failing.  You’re worth all the headache and heartache.  Because I see something absolutely beautiful — something precious, something that deserves to be guarded by one of the strongest forces on earth.

Everyone needs a guardian.  Call it a rule of thumb.  Call it a necessity.  Personally, I prefer to call it a principle.

I have a name, but I’d be happy if all you ever remembered was,

~G.A.