Commissioning Day

My commissioning for lay ministry is today. I choose ‘catechetical leadership’ as my ministry. I will be teaching the Confirmation class starting next year.

So many people are asking what this is so I am adding the following clarifications. (thank you to a classmate who first posted this)

Lay ministers serve in many different capacities; their duties can vary according to their denomination. According to the Catholic Bishops of the United States, lay ministers are "co-workers in the vineyard of the Lord."

Lay ecclesial ministry is the term adopted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to identify the relatively new category of pastoral ministers in the Catholic Church who serve the Church but are not ordained.

According to the USCCB, this ecclesial ministry includes:
• Authorization of the hierarchy to serve publicly in the local Church
• Leadership in a particular area of ministry
• Close mutual collaboration with the pastoral ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons
• Preparation and formation appropriate to the level of responsibilities that are assigned to them including; human, spiritual, pastoral, and theological dimensions.

 

Home from the Commissioning ceremony. 

It was a beautiful service and again I am reminded of how lucky we are to have such an amazing Bishop. He makes such an effort to have something to say to every single person he talks to.  He even remembers when he saw you last. 



It's pretty dark, but this is Fr. Martin handing me my certificate.





Congratulations to all my wonderful classmates from the Malone site, and also from Ogdensburg and Ticonderoga.  What a great group of people. I am so glad I got to meet you all and look forward to seeing you around the Diocese.

Obviously not the official picture, but I liked how half of everybody was laughing.

 Donna, Fr. Martin, Cassie, and me.

 

Now on to the rest of the week. 

I will be heading to Boston tomorrow to join the rest of our group that left bright and early this morning on our annual service trip to Catholic Heart Workcamp.  It is an amazing week filled with service work, and praise and worship. 

I’m excited for all of our new group members that are joining us for the first time this year.  I know the week will be an amazing time for them, spent surrounded by other youth that have the same beliefs and values as they do.  This week they will get to see what service to others really means. They will learn that there are people in the world that have so much less materially then they do, but that these people are so full of love and thanksgiving for what we as a group have done for them in just a few short days. 

They will get to see a glimpse of how much love Jesus has for them through the testimony of the other campers by their active participation in the activities, including daily Mass, adoration, reconciliation, and prayer. The Holy Spirit is active all week.

I find such joy in seeing our youth so filled with God’s grace. I can’t wait to join them.

And Ninth Grade is Done

It's that time of year...awards ceremony, band concert, regents exams, and last day of school. Hunter is finished with Ninth grade.  He couldn't be happier. 

First day of school (doesn't he look thrilled?)



On May 2, 2013 was the award ceremony.  Hunter got two awards, one for Honor Roll (the requirement to get it is three consecutive marking periods, however Hunter was on Honor Roll for all four). The other award was for his participation in Project Challenge at Clarkson University.



The picture is terrible (as is usual in the auditorium) but he is on the right in stripes.



May 16th was the last band concert of the year.  Hunter is a little nervous about next year because, apparently he will be one of only 4 or 5 students in the percussion section.  Some of the kids are graduating and others are switching instruments.  For some strange reason I don't have a picture of him from a concert this school year.  However, he did have two different band trips this year.  In March they got to perform in Albany at the state capitol.  I may have posted this picture earlier, but here is the group shot:



Hunter is in the back just right of center

 

They also traveled to Lake George for "Trills and Thrills" a couple of weeks ago.  They had a competition at the beginning of the day and then got to go spend the rest of the day at "The Great Escape Amusement Park".  He was really looking forward to this trip, unfortunately it rained the whole day.  He said he still had a good time though.

 

The last regular day of school was Monday for the high schoolers.  Hunter lugged home all his binders and school work that has been collecting in his locker all year.  I guess I'm gonna have to figure out if any of it is worth keeping or not.

 

He had his biology regenets exam on Tuesday. Biology was one of his best subjects this year.  He was shooting for a perfect score on the regents. We will see...he says there was one question that he wasn't sure about.  On Wednesday was the Algebra regents, this is the one he was really worried about.  He was shooting for an 80, he says the multiple choice was easy but the problems were hard.  (**Update: He ended up with a 92 on the algebra regents and a 97 on the biology regents!!**)

 

He participated in Robotics and I am sure he will continue that next year.  The schools Robotics team did really well at the regional compition and he is proud of having some part in the programming of their robot.

 

That is pretty much Hunter's ninth grade school year in a nutshell. 



Growth - Week 5

So I have finally caught up my blog posts to this week... With a LOT of rain this week, the corn is growing like crazy. (June 14):

Week 5 - Full Field
 

Week 5 - Close Up



Growth - Week 4

Due to a some great sunshine, we are really seeing some progress this week (June 10):

Week 4 - Full Field

 

Week 4 - Close Up



Growth - Week 3

So I didn't do very well keeping up with posting the pictures from the corn growing.  For those of you who didn't the see original post here, I have a little project I wanted to do because I think it just amazing at how fast the corn grows around here.  So my project is to take a picture once a week so I can document it.
Anyway, in the original post I had two weeks worth so here is the next week (May 31st):



Week 3 - Close Up



Week 3 - Full Field
 

More to come...