Parish Article: St. Thomas Aquinas School Mission: 8-7-16

Did you know that school starts in one month?

September 6th, 2016 will open a new year of education in our area.  For some of you, this may be exciting.  For others, this may be an opposite reaction.  Even others may continue their normal routine for their job. 

Personally, I was always bummed for twenty-three years of my life for the end of “summer”.  To me, summer melded into school and athletics.

Why do I write this in August?  Well, August is a huge month for our mission: St. Thomas Aquinas School.

As I mentioned two weeks ago, our school is our mission.  As Catholic parishes we have dozens of ordinary ways to serve others: our seven corporal mercy (food, drinking, clothes, welcoming strangers, visiting patients in hospitals and those in jail and those who have died), sacraments, Mass, faith formation, on and on.  These are crucial for our family.  We must continue to grow each of these areas and others.  Our parishes around the world do this as well. 

We are unique because we have a Catholic school.  We are only one out of our ten schools in the Diocese of Duluth with a school.  This is a big deal!  This is not only for education, but also for Jesus Christ and our faith. 

When I began my first summer, I quoted Jesus Christ for St. Thomas Aquinas School: “Let the children come to me…”.  I also asked some questions to support our school as the year began.  (Last year, I did not because I was “on a vacation” for several months!)

Here are some ways for our mission:

•Could you invite other families to check out St. Thomas Aquinas School?  Our parishes?

•Do you know people who have not heard about St. Thomas Aquinas School?

•Do you have family members, friends, neighbors or coworkers to invite them to our family at Mass?

•Could you discern stewardship through time or/and, talent or/and, treasure to this mission?

•Could you support families that would like to enroll their children but could not pay for part (or whole) of the tuition?  

•Could you share opportunities to serve our school?

•Finally, let us pray for each of our schools as we begin a new year: St. Thomas Aquinas School, Falls High School and Elementary, Indus, Littlefork/Big Falls and even those who have home schools.

God Bless!