Celebrate Our Annual Catholic Schools Week

My Dear Parishioners,

Next week we celebrate our annual Catholic Schools Week. This is a special time when we acknowledge and celebrate all the blessings we have at St. Joseph/St. Robert School. This includes our terrific students, excellent principal, talented faculty, hardworking administration and staff, and generous volunteers. Our School is a true community where we are, “Focused on Faith and Learning.” Our Mission Statement reads: “St. Joseph/St. Robert School Community, with Jesus as our foundation, inspires us to live fully His message of love, courage, and compassion. Our academic rigor and relevance empower us to be contributing members of the Church and the global community.” All are invited to check out the good things happening at our school by coming to our Open House, next week (Sunday, Jan. 28^th) from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

The 3 year Catholic Schools Week (CSW) 2023 – 2026 theme is “Catholic Schools: United in Faith and Community.” Catholic schools have an irreplaceable role in the Church’s evangelizing mission. Building on the central goal of Catholic schools to form saints, Catholic schools teach and embrace the whole person, body, mind and spirit. The fact that all members of a Catholic school community share the Christian vision of faith that Christ is the foundation of Catholic education is what unites the school as a faith-filled community.

While faith is the binding element in Catholic schools, the Church reiterates that parents are the first teachers of their children. Holding this tenet, Catholic school communities expand beyond the walls of school buildings to envelop the family as an integral part of the school community. Together teachers, administrators, staff, students and parents fuel the light of faith by integrating culture with faith and faith with living.

The CSW logo symbolizes the united community of Catholic schools – not a building or an institution, but people of faith serving God and others. No Catholic school can fulfill its educational role alone. As a community, Catholic schools are nourished and stimulated by the centrality of the word of Christ expressed through knowledge, service, scripture and sacramental tradition. Catholic Schools: United in Faith and Community is a theme on which to build a spirit of the gospel to benefit the human family.

Now would be a good time to remind everyone that you can help us in our efforts to provide a quality Catholic Education by buying and using our Scrip. Scrip is actually a “gift card” that you can purchase at our parish rectory (please call ahead first) or at the SJR school office. The cards can be used at local grocery stores, restaurants, and other area stores. You get the full value of your purchase price and in addition, for most of the stores, you receive a $2.00 tuition voucher for every $50.00 purchased. Those vouchers can then be used to help pay tuition, or if you do not have a child in Catholic school, they can be donated back to a needy family who uses our school. In 2019 Pope Francis designated this Sunday (the

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time) as the “Word of God Sunday.” He issued this directive to set aside “a Sunday given over entirely to the word of God, so as to appreciate the inexhaustible riches contained in that constant dialogue between the Lord and his people.” The following is an excerpt from the U.S. Bishops website for Word of God Sunday:

Feeding Your Family Food for the Soul

Recent surveys have shown that few Catholics read the Bible on their own or as a family. But what better place is there to encounter the person of Jesus Christ than in God’s Word? As St. Jerome once noted, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” The Church continually invites us to return to God’s Word. For when we pray with the Bible— personally and in our homes—our encounter with the living Word of God is not a mere intellectual exercise but a spiritually nourishing feast. As we find ways to share God’s Word in our homes we will experience firsthand what the Second Vatican Council means in Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum) when it states that “in the sacred books the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children, and talks with them. And such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigor, and the children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting fount of spiritual life” (no. 21, in Flannery).

May God Bless You,
Fr. Bordonaro