Monday Message, November 15, 2021
KNOW
We have our Parish Leader Check In this week. Please find the link here and join us to discuss:
- Adult Confirmation workshop
- Best practices meeting
- RCIA Collaborative
- Online Directory
- LEAD Changes
There will be a Clergy Check In on Wednesday. Be sure to remind the clergy in your parish and share the link.
If you have not yet picked up your Advent Calendars (presuming you ordered them), please do so this week. We have a waiting list since we only printed a limited number. Any calendars not picked up by Friday will be forfeited.
The November issue of the Fairfield County Catholic will include a thank you to all our catechists. To compile the list, we will use LEAD completions.
REFLECT
Someone gave our son tickets to see the Bridgeport Symphony play Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on Saturday night (at the same time Notre Dame was playing). My wife and I flipped for it. She won, so I went.
I had forgotten what it’s like to sit next to a child who is totally enraptured in something. I had forgotten how music well played can lift you up and carry you away. I even forgot to check the score of the game on my phone. Let’s be clear – these folks can play.
If you’ve not taken the time to listen to the full symphony, download it and turn it up. Written in a time when the world was a depressing place for the composer, when anxiety was high as a leader failed to serve the people, the orchestration is written to reflect the trying times in which Beethoven found himself. While we are all familiar with the opening notes, few of us have ever listened all the way through – to the triumph, the pageantry, the mystery, and hope that the composer finds in the end.
As we walked to the car, I couldn’t help thinking what a gift the evening had been. Not just because I got to spend it with my son, but because it had challenged me to stand still and listen – and it gave me hope for all that still stands before us.
LAUGH
