We’re asking students, staff, parents and alumni to reflect on the following…
OR
Today is our first official day of Catholic Education Week. Preparing soil for planting involves knowing what has happened to the land before. As we look back to what has been lost during the past very unusual year that we have all shared, we also look at what we have learned.
FAITH ROCKS, CHALLENGE
Use paint or marker to write a message about faith on a rock. Go to one of your favourite places in nature and place your rock for someone else to find. Take a picture of your rock and share it using the hashtags. If you find someone else’s rock, take a picture and share it too. Over the past year, we have done an amazing job of finding ways to connect while physically keeping our distance. Let’s continue to do so, for a little while longer.
- Monday’s Reflection -
The pandemic has changed all of our lives and our world, the ways we interact with one another and how we go to school. As we move from one season into another, we prepare for what we think is ahead. Hope is a gift God gives us so that no matter what challenge is ahead, God is there with us and within us.
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” - Hebrews 11:1
Day two of Catholic Education Week!
We can’t help but remember and be thankful for the health care providers, the essential workers, volunteers and teachers whose sacrifices contributed to the common good during our time of separation from each other.
What does “vocation” mean? Where do we see the steadfast love of God today while many are still struggling with the challenges of a pandemic? How might people show their faith in the way they live their lives?
- Tuesday’s Reflection -
Gratitude is a virtue that can bring light to our lives and helps us to live out the gospel. Gratitude is central to the spirituality of the traditions of First Nation, Metis and Inuit people.
Chief Dan George was chief of a Coastal Salish band in British Columbia. He was an actor, poet, and musician, and a great Canadian. Many of Chief Dan George’s works speak of gratitude. The following poem is an example:
Looking behind
I am filled with gratitude,
Looking forward
I am filled with vision,
Looking upwards
I am filled with strength,
Looking within
I am filled with peace.
- Chief Dan George
“We all have seeds of love in us. We can develop this wonderful source of energy, nurturing the unconditional love that does not expect anything in return.” - Thich Nhat Hanh
Day three of Catholic Education Week!
COVID-19 has made clear how deeply we are all interconnected. The experience of staying at home for months, impacted our relationships with our families, friends, schoolmates, and nature, some of which suffered from the time apart and some of which were strengthened.
- Wednesday’s Reflection -
Creator of our human family, you created all human beings equal in dignity: pour forth into our hearts a fraternal spirit and inspire in us a dream of renewed encounter, dialogue, justice and peace. Move us to create healthier societies and a more dignified world, a world without hunger, poverty, violence and war. May our hearts be open to all the peoples and nations of the earth. May we recognize the goodness and beauty that you have sown in each of us, and thus forge bonds of unity, common projects, and shared dreams.
Day four of Catholic Education Week!
The experience of the last year has helped us realize that things may never again be like they were before. This may not be a bad thing, because the earth was in need of healing. Perhaps this pandemic can be part of an ecological conversion – a harvest of change – that will lead us to ask what it will be like for our descendants seven generations from now.
- Thursday’s Reflection -
The Christ-centered mission of a Catholic school includes a call to service in the greater community.
Open our minds and touch our hearts, so that we recognize that we are part of creation. Make us courageous in embracing the changes required to seek the common good. Now more than ever, may we all feel interconnected and interdependent. Enable us to succeed in listening and responding to the needs of the poor and the needs of the earth. Help us to use our gifts to create a more unified and sustainable world.
“Let us be protectors of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment.”
- Pope Francis
Day Five of Catholic Education Week, our last day!
When creation was completed, God saw that it was good, and rested. The sabbath was not just recovery from all the work God had done, but time for God to take pure delight in its goodness. We too are invited to be silent and contemplate the beauty of the created order; to stand in reverence before the awesome gift that is our common home.
As a special way to end our week together, please join in our virtual prayer service today. You can join through the link below.
note: you will have to log into your child’s tbcschools account in order to watch.
- Friday’s Reflection -
Give us eyes, O Lord, to see your presence and your work all around us, in the greatness of the universe and in the smallest acts of kindness and compassion. Give us an open heart, to recognize the countless miracles of each day, and to know you are the source of all of them. Give us the curiosity to keep asking questions, to keep learning and growing, and to know that you are with us at every step of that journey. May we come to know you better, and may we come to love you more, so that our lives will be filled with awe, gratitude, and praise.
We are deeply grateful for our beautiful community in which we live and for our Thunder Bay Catholic family. Remember that our actions today, taken in faith, will help to ensure a hope-filled future for many generations to come.
“Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” - John Milton
© Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board 2023
