Lenten Season

Kathy Parish Activities

The parish theme for Lent this year is “Return To Me“; and throughout the Lenten season, there will be a number of opportunities for parishioners to put the theme into practice. The first opportunity starts with the Lenten booklets the parish makes available for everyone. Pick one up; and use it daily. It’s a great way to spend an easy five minutes a day focusing on the Lord.

In addition to the Lenten booklets, a number of weekly prayer opportunities have also been planned- to help us reflect upon and rekindle our faith; refresh our hearts and souls; strengthen our hope; and develop our spiritual mercies. This Lent, make a commitment to participate in these weekly opportunities; and invite your family members and friends to join you, as we all prepare for the Resurrection.
St. Valentine Worship Commission

March 1st – Ash Wednesday

Mass, Church 8:30 am & 7:00 pm

Scripture Service with imposition of ashes, Church – Noon

Wednesday Lenten Soup Suppers

Redford parishes will once again take turns sponsoring Lenten Soup Suppers. Below are the dates for each parish; and all suppers begin at 6:30pm.

March 8: St. John Bosco
March 15: St. Robert Bellarmine
March 22: Our Lady Of Loretto
March 29: St. Valentine Friday

Stations of the Cross

Stations of the Cross will be prayed in our church at 7pm on Fridays. Start Date: March 3rd.   End Date: April 7th

Sunday Evening Prayers

Evening prayers will take place in our school chapel at 5pm on Sundays. Where: In the school Chapel Start Date: March 5 End Date: April 9

Catholic Schools Week

Kathy St. Valentine School

This week we celebrate National Catholic Schools Week as a parish with a school. The faith and sacrifice of our parish has provided Catholic faith based education to students in the Redford community for 65 years. This is a blessing that we do not take for granted. Catholic Education is needed to help provide a beacon of Christ’s light in a world that is getting to be more confusing and challenging for our children every single day.

The theme of Catholic Schools Week 2017 is “Catholic Schools: Communities of Faith, Knowledge and Service.”

As we celebrate Catholic Schools Week I would like to share some Catholic School facts that I gathered from a variety of online sites.

Research on Catholic schools shows:

· Overall academic achievement is higher (Coleman, Hoffer, & Kilgore, 1982; Sander, 1996)

· The student/teacher ratio in Catholic schools is 14:1.(NCEA 2015)

· 99% of students who attend Catholic high school graduate. Of those, 88% attend 4-year colleges.

With attendance in any Catholic school for any period of time, students are:

· 4x’s more likely to be attending church at the age of 45

· 3x’s more likely to be confirmed

· 2x’s more likely to be married in Church (research noted by Sr. M. Paul McCaughey, O.P., Back to School Kick-Off, 2009) 

Catholic school graduates are:

· more likely to vote (Dee, 2005)

· more likely to earn higher wages (Neal, 1997)

· more civically engaged, more committed to service as adults  (Campbell, 2001; Wolf, Greene,  Kleitz,& Thalhammer, 2001)

· Currently, 6 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices went to Catholic school. (Boston.com)

Affordability:

· Catholic schools provide over 20.5 billion dollars a year in savings for the nation. (NCEA)

· St. Valentine School tuition cost is BELOW the actual cost per pupil

· The mean cost per pupil at Catholic schools is $5,436; the national per pupil average is $10,792). (NCEA; National Center for Education Statistics) St. Valentine School is more than $1,500 below the national average for in parish tuition.

· Catholic families can apply for tuition assistance from the Archdiocese for tuition assistance ($800 for K-12 and $500 for 9-12)

· St. Valentine School also provides tuition assistance to families with financial need

 

Cardinal Dolan of New York and former President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said in his blog: “There is no more tried-and-true way of passing on our Catholic faith to our kids than by sacrificing to put them in a Catholic school. Data proves they persevere in the faith at higher rates, pray better, are more faithful to Sunday Mass, live gospel values, are more generous to their parish, even have happier marriages, volunteer more, and transmit the faith to their own children, than those not in a Catholic school.”

May God Bless St. Valentine and all Catholic Schools. Please keep St. Valentine Catholic School in your daily prayers.

Mrs. Rachel Damuth
Principal

 

 

Future City Competition—

Congratulations to the 8th Grade Class on their 1st PLACE Victory!

On Monday, January 23 the 8th grade class competed in the ESD Michigan Regional Future City Competition held at the Suburban Collection Showplace and took home a 1st place victory over 30 other MI schools as well as 4 Special Awards: ASQ Quality Improvement Award, Best City Award, Best Design, Engineering+Construction Award and People’s Choice Award.

Congratulations to the class  presenters on their excellent presentation, Anna Damuth, Faith Emmerling and Frankie Nelson-Pawlik and to the entire class: Brianna Betzler, Mya Chapman, Colin Crenshaw, Nyla Flack, Asia Flint, Daniel Hawn, Jordan Hobson and Joe McComb.

Also congratulations to their teacher Mrs. Meghan Ciechanowski, Mr. John Danic (mentor engineer), and Mr. Dan Brooks (mentor engineer) who tirelessly worked and selflessly gave of their time for this project for the kids.

The Finals will be held in Washington DC February 18-21. At this time the staff is trying to find ways to raise some quick cash to send the remaining 8 eighth grade students to DC. EDS pays for transportation and lodging for the presenters, teacher and one mentor. If you are inclined to donate to this worthy cause to send our students to our Nation’s Capital, please put your donation in an envelope marked Washington DC; it can be dropped off at the school, parish office or in the collection basket and we will forward it to the school. Checks may be made payable to St. Valentine School. Thank you!

 

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Kathy Weekly message

The poinsettias are gone, the crib and the lights are down and the Christmas season is over and now we begin the Ordinary Time of the Year with the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.

 Just a few thoughts on the Gospel passage for this weekend.

 1)      We come upon John the Baptist seeing Jesus and pointing to him: “This is the Lamb of God.” And with His baptism, Jesus the Lamb of God begins his ministry. Our call, through baptism, is to become involved in a Christ-centered ministry. We must give up any thoughts of using our ministry to achieve power, to lord over others, and instead, like Jesus, embrace prayer and forgiveness.

2)      John the Baptist saw Jesus and proclaimed, “Look, there is the Lamb of God. He is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit”. Jesus’ disciples would be given the same power, to transform the world. They would be given the power to create a new world, a world with a new way of living, the way of sacrificial love. When we sing the “Lamb of God,” we are remembering what Jesus did for us and what he is empowering us to do.

3)      John the Baptist found his reason for existence. He was to point out the Lamb of God to the world. His mission is not different from the mission of every Christian. We are to point out the Lamb of God to the world. There is nothing greater that any of us can do in our lives than point out Christ to others. John looked to Jesus and said: “There is the Lamb of God.” We have been called to do the same.