Feed Our Kids

Good Shepherd will once again participate in GRACE's Feed Our Kids program.  Good Shepherd's different Connect Groups (CRHP, Staff and VBS) will provide approximately 140 daily lunches during the week of July 21-25. 

As a staff member of Good Shepherd I have had the honor of participating in the Feed our Kids over the past few years. This will be my third time to participate and I can't wait.  

Pulling all together as a staff, we were able to prep, assemble, pack and clean up in right around an hour! Making 140 lunches in what seemed like a snap.  There is nothing like being given a task as a team and everyone working together for the common good of others.  

VBS 2014

Values worth Living

   Graduates of 2014, I congratulate all of you for your academic and extracurricular achievements that have brought you to commencement.  You have spent less than two decades of your life at home and in school and we are all proud of your many accomplishments, but even more so of the persons each of you has become.  Parents, teachers, your friends, and many others have made significant contributions to your special day.   Cherish them for providing you with such a foundation.  As you move on from this day, your parents and all of us share your happiness, but not without some apprehension as well, especially your parents.  They are torn between letting you go and no longer having as much consistent influence over your lives that have marked their early bond with you.  The question for them and for you is who will enter your sphere of influence once you leave home.  What values are worth living? And where will those values come from?  Whom will you value as mentors to guide you as you increasingly make more of your own decisions?  Will they be a classmate, a coworker, a professor, a clergyman or clergywoman?  And which values will have the power to sustain you in the long run?

Kathy Albert Scholarship Winners- Eva, Aaron, Sam, Erin & Samantha

 

My hope is that you will be diligent in seeking out persons whose values will challenge you to look    beyond immediate gratification to that which is luminous.  We all need the radiant light of a good conscience to guide and sustain our interest and concern for people on the margins who live in desolation.  Full of surprises in a little more than a year, Pope Francis has drawn the attention of many in the world today.  Shortly after his installation as Bishop of Rome, he broke a number of traditions of the past.  It began with his not taking up residence in the Vatican Palace, preferring instead to  reside in a modest guest hotel on the grounds.  He finds joy in being close to the people.  He mingles freely, smiles easily, and travels around Vatican City in a 20 year old Renault with 190,000 miles instead of an expensive limousine.  He also broke the Traditional Holy Thursday Ritual by his washing and kissing the feet of twelve teenagers, including two Muslims and two women at a Juvenile Detention Center in Rome instead of in a church. 

Who is this man and what drives him?  Regardless of your religious beliefs, how do these actions speak to you?  He leads by example, a humble man of mercy for a world in need of compassion. Could he be a mentor for those who desire to live joyful lives? 

Women's Group Scholarship Winners - Luke, Hallie, Erin, Theresa & Emily

He recognizes that young people are a powerful engine for society.  The material things of the world are not sufficient for you.  Nonmaterial values that are deeply rooted in the heart of a person are needed more than money, success, power and pleasure to live a dignified and fulfilled life.  In your studies and your work, you will be faced with a competitive attitude of consumerism that says what I alone want is most important.  It leads to feverish pursuits of frivolous pleasures and a stunted conscience.  Whenever the interior life of a person becomes caught up in oneself, we trade the genuine joy of living for a resentful, angry and listless life, we let ourselves be deceived by our own self-absorption.  May studies and work never allow you to think that you can only be happy once a thousand conditions are met.  Technology, to some extent, can also deceive us by successfully multiplying occasions of pleasure, but technology will not provide us with lasting joy.  The danger is that even before we are able to think of all the consequences that the applications of technology have on us, they already affect nature and our lives.  Who is capable of restoring our joy? 

Perhaps we all need a mentor whom we may have dismissed as beyond our reach.  Perhaps it is a voice that we once had heard, but no longer hear.  Is there a person who infinitely loves us?  Could that person be the God who guides us beyond ourselves and lead us into a life of joy?  Pope Francis, though a mentor for many, is a man who himself is mentored.  Status is clearly not an idol for him.  He seeks God, his mentor, and he searches the Scriptures.  Our renewed encounter with God can blossom into an enriching friendship.  It can liberate us from our self-absorption.  There is a single criterion that Pope Francis uses and it makes him an outstanding mentor.  Look at the poor and those living with disabilities around you.  They are the divine measure of our decisions and actions in relating to everyone in our world. I would encourage you to develop it as part of good conscience in relating to others in your life.  How do we treat the most vulnerable in our society?  This is the same criterion that we find in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures: a preferential option for the poor.  God is a mentor whom you can always count on.   From time to time throughout our lives, we all need a renewed personal encounter with God or at least an openness to letting God encounter us.  We  become more fully human when we are brought beyond ourselves.  It is then that we share in the divine.  Lasting joy is the fruit of detachment and simplicity in our lives.  My hope is that all of you will accept the path of divine, unconditional love and find joy in being fully human.

Graduates of 2014, my sincere congratulations to all of you and I wish you the blessings of a bright future as you continue to seek the “Values worth Living!”

 

Faith Journey

My faith journey started long before attending RCIA at Good Shepherd. However, joining this parish has only strengthened my desire for a closer relationship with God and evoked a sense of unity in me with this community. I look forward to the Easter Vigil as I know this will be the start of a long lasting relationship with God as well as my fellow parishioners. RCIA ELECT

My journey of catholic faith began when I was young. I have always enjoyed learning about different religions. It feels so great finally finding my true purpose and my home within the catholic religion and community. We all have more to learn, more questions, more searching within our quest to discovering our true faith. It's such a wonderful gift knowing all Catholics are worshiping the same true word together all around the world. I was lost but now I'm found.  RCIA CANDIDATE

Easter Vigil 2014

This journey has brought my personal relationship with God to a new level.  I feel more comfortable talking about God (and my new faith) and praying.  I can honestly say that I feel closer to God than I ever did before starting this program.   RCIA ELECT

My journey to the sacraments of initiation means a lot to me. I feel like I have come closer to God than I have my entire life.  I have a better understanding of the Catholic Church and have met new friends and found a church family that is open and gives me a sense of belonging. Within my first few weeks of joining the parish, I was offered to be an usher. The RCIA process has been a fantastic time of growth for me. It has shown me the history of the church from the beginning to now and that is extremely fascinating. I am excited to continue my spiritual growth and to see what the Lord has in store for me next. RCIA CANDIDATE

You shall love your neighbor as yourself

Parish Service Day 2014 Reflections

 

This was the first opportunity I had to participate in a work day with Mid City and cannot have met a more deserving family.  My husband and I had the pleasure of working with Bill & his son Danny… what a wonderful and inspiring work team!  Danny cracked the whip and kept us all on our toes keeping the trash bags flowing and ensuring to point out any neglected debris to get it picked up. 

Working at the home of Joe and Marie was especially rewarding knowing they are both members of GSCC and deserving of our support.  Upon meeting Joe and Marie and kicking off our work day with Joe’s blessing and prayer, I knew I was in the presence of someone very special that shared the love of God and the blessed Mother as we do.  All through the day, Joe & Marie continued to express their gratitude for our support; little did they realize that it was us that received the true blessing of getting to know this beautiful couple and offer our help in such a little way.  While our work team was small, the impact of the day was mighty. 

Thank you for blessing us with meeting this beautiful and deserving family!

 

From “On the Perfection of the Spiritual Life.”

– St. Thomas Aquinas

 

The basic commandments is "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."…

First, it must be true love,…

Secondly, we must love our neighbor with an ordered love…

Thirdly, we must love our neighbors with a holy love,…

Fourthly, we must love our neighbor with an efficacious love,…

 

Today, my wife, daughter and I experienced the agape love that St Thomas is describing in the above quote. It’s not the first time we have experienced the Love of Christ demonstrated by our fellow parishioners, but surely one of the most physically demanding expressions as Vern, Sarah, Bill, Danny, Cheryl and David, arriving at 9:00 AM literally tore into a terribly overgrown back yard, clearing, clipping, binding up and carrying out to the what amounted to many sheaves and trash bags. They stopped for nothing until finished and the back yard looks like it was the product of a master landscaper.

Surely the underlying motivation was the true love of Christ reflected in these brothers and sister in Christ.

Their labor was well planned and executed, demonstrating the planning of the ordered love St Thomas listed as the second most important evidence of loving their neighbor as themselves.

Before they started, we all gathered in a circle to thank the LORD for sending them, for their protection, and success of their efforts – transforming a mere yard cleanup into a prayer: a holy love.

The efficacious love is in the final product. Our back yard is something to genuinely proud of. It now gives glory to the LORD in a way that I have not be able to effect since first getting ill over two years ago.

So, please let these few heartfelt words express our sincerest thanks to all who participated in the planning and execution this Day of Service, most especially those mentioned in the opening paragraph.

One more thing, not specifically mentioned by St. Thomas but surely implicit in his words: their loving attitude, loving courtesy and loving patience to the octogenarian recipients and our daughter.

 

Our Good Shepherd teens participated in a 30 hour famine that began at Midnight on Ash Wednesday and ended, with a breaking of the fast, on Thursday morning at 6:30 am.  Our Knights of Columbus prepared a feast of pancakes and breakfast burritos and our very hungry teens were grateful for the food and fellowship.  Many of our teens attended Mass on Ash Wednesday at 6:30 am and then went to school with ashes on their foreheads.  They were prepared for the questions and stares they received from their peers.  Most were asked “Did you know you had something on your forehead?’ while others were asked questions regarding the significance of the ashes.

Our teens were on trend, Ash Wednesday selfies were prominent on twitter.  What a great way to evangelize our faith.  Even the USCCB was requesting twitter followers to submit selfies for a photo collage.