Where Did July Go?

Friends, peace be with you.

Where did July go?

This next week is the last full week of July. We will be having Vacation Bible School with our friends from Immaculate Conception and St. Wenceslaus churches, which will entail a lot of extra activities for the staff and volunteers and a little extra tolerance from our adorers in the chapel. There will, undoubtedly, be extra noise from the kids moving from one activity to another and possibly even if they choose to stop into the adoration chapel. I ask that we be patient with our little ones. Whether they’re learning the value of silence by spending those precious moments in adoration or being a little more boisterous than is necessary moving from one activity to another, this is a treasured time for them of encountering the one, true God through his son.

This was, in part, what I was reminded of last week when I accompanied the sixteen students to Rochester, Minnesota for a Steubenville Conference. The students were very active in the van on the way up talking about so many different subjects aside from religion while playing a game called psychiatrist. We heard great talks by Sr. Josephine Garrett, Matt Regitz, and Kelly Colangelo. I ended up spending a lot of time in the confessional during Saturday so I didn’t get time to process how the kids were doing but it was obvious that the talks were having an impact. Then, on Saturday night, a priest slowly processed the Blessed Sacrament through the conference room while singing praise and worship music and offering blessings to everyone present. It was a truly powerful moment. You could tell the kids were growing deeper in their faith and spirituality the whole time. Even though the ride home was, in many ways, just as boisterous, the kids all talked like they were open to going again next year. I think that points to the impact of the weekend, especially that treasured time of adoration.

There are elements of it which I hope to incorporate with our LEVARE Adoration, which we do on the first Saturday of every month. I have heard confessions for the first half hour (or so) the last few times but then I generally go and sit down and pray until the time for Benediction. I think, in August, I will hear confession and then take my place until close to 8:10 or 8:15. Then I will process the monstrance around the church and give people individual blessings before I head back to the altar to start benediction. That one or two moments of being close to the Lord can be very impactful and the individual blessing reminds us that we are all, individually, children of a God who loves us as individuals and cares deeply for you and me.