Monday Message, January 29, 2024
KNOW
Rite of Election is coming up and only a few parishes have responded. Please remind the folks at your parish. All details here.
Adult Confirmation learning path is open and available on the home page or in English here and Spanish here.
If you ordered Lenten posters, contact Carmela to arrange pickup. We have lots of folks who didn’t order them, so if you don’t want them anymore, let us know.
All of the sessions for The One are here.
You can now register for the Overview of the Directory for Catechesis with Bishop Caggiano and Joe Paprocki on March 13th. If you previously registered for the in-person session on March 14th (which has been moved to the 13th), we already moved you to the new date.
Our friends at Lifelong Learning are hosting a webinar on Understanding Suicide and Mental Health. Details are here. If you are an approved SPX parish, Foundations in Faith has offered tot pay for you and your team to attend. Please contact Kelly if you have questions.
We are going to rearrange the details for what was going to be another ministry day on April 20th. Details to follow.
REFLECT
My kids are simultaneously really smart and really dumb. I blame technology and the constant need to have the phone in the hand.
Case in point: my oldest is a freshman in college. By all accounts, she is a smart kid, gets good grades, and is doing well socially and emotionally.
Last week, I dropped her off at the train station to head down the tracks a few towns to school. Since I had a meeting, I dropped her off early with the plans to get to school early and hang out on campus.
Instead, she got on the wrong train and ended up in Harlem.
The conductor took pity on her, gave her a new ticket, and sent her north towards school.
She got on another wrong train and ended up at Fordham. Good school, but not the right school.
Finally, she made it to class – on time as luck would have it – and settled in for the day.
On the one hand, I was incredible proud of her for keeping it together, managing one train after another, and getting to school. A lesser child would have given up, called for a ride, and skipped the class.
Technology puts the world in our hands. It also distracts us from the world around us. Headphones shut out the noise, but also the voice of mom or dad or really anyone else who is trying to get your attention. We rely on technology to tell us where to go, but surrender our own sense of direction in the process. I can see where I am going, but I still defer to the voice in the computer that tells me to turn left. I know it’s wrong. I see it’s wrong. I do it anyway.
I guess I am a little dumb too.
This week, I will invite my children to put the phone down, listen to one another, and enjoy the world around. I suppose I will have to take my own advice as well. Hmmmm… Let’s think about this.
LAUGH
