11/6/20 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: Halloween fun at Our Lady of Peace School!

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family:

No matter how you feel about the election this week it seems clear to me that our country is divided in ways that I certainly have not seen in my lifetime. I don’t have any answers politically, but as the principal of a Catholic school I certainly feel that following the Gospel message in all we do is better than trying to do our own thing and go our own way.

One of the exhortations of that Gospel message is to pray. Of course, Jesus Himself gave us the words to the most ideal prayer of all, The Lord’s Prayer. But it seems clear that we all should be doing a lot more praying for ourselves our neighbors, whether red or blue, our country and our world.

Each family is going to receive via your students, a copy of The Family Fully Alive; Building the Domestic Church. It is published by the National Knights of Columbus and our copies are courtesy of our local Our Lady of Peace Knights Council. It is a very readable and practical guide to “prayers, meditations and activities to enrich your family life.”

I think that it would be wonderful if all of our Our Lady of Peace School families made a pledge to spend the next twelve months praying together as a family. The book takes each month as a separate theme with easy to follow things to do and prayers to say together.

From the booklet:

“Designate a space in your home where your family can gather togetherfor prayer. The space should be free from distractios and, if possible, decorated with religious images and sacramentals to help direct the family’s thoughts toward God. Open each week with the Our Father, Hail Mary or one of the other prayers included in appendix of the book. Next, ask a family member to read the theme. Then, proceed with the month’s prayer and activities. Then, offer some petitions with each family member, adding personal intentions to the prayer. Conclude by reciting Archbishop Lori’s Consecratoion fo the Holy Family. Feel free to add to this basic structure other devotions, songs and whatever your family finds spiritually enriching for prayer.”

A good time to start is next month with season of Advent. The theme for December is Joy. As we approach the last month of 2020 isn’t that something that we all can get behind praying for?

I invite all families, Catholic and Non-Catholic to unite in this project. I will even be soliciting testimonials from families about what you are doing to pray together whether it be with this booklet or some other prayer guide. I will also be incorporating this booklet into our morning prayer here at school.



Jim Silcott