September 17, 2024, Class Update: Tradition and God's Story

Greetings everyone!

During our class on September 17, we considered what makes us unique as Catholics.  Befitting US Constitution Signing Day, we watched a video filmed at the National Constitution Center and Independence Hall in Philadelphia describing how the founders' creation of a structured government is like how Jesus Christ established a structured Church.  Our Sacred Tradition is the structure by which the teachings of Jesus Christ have been handed down through the centuries to us.

We also spent time focusing on God's work of salvation in history with a series of hand motions.  I recorded this video to show what we did.

For our opening prayer, I showed a clip from a video of the Opening Session of the National Eucharistic Congress when Eucharistic adoration concluded and we sang "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name."

Our closing prayer was the National Eucharistic Revival Prayer.

Everyone wrote out prayers at the start of class, and I asked everyone to keep offering up those prayers throughout this week.

Looking ahead, we'll spend time on the Holy Spirit in our next class, which has a personal significance to me as we get closer to October.

As usual, please feel free to contact me with questions, etc.

We remain connected in our Faith as One Church:

All my relations.

Praying for you all,

God's blessings,

Paul

P.S. I also mentioned to the students that I participated in an OPRF History Museum online presentation 2 years ago that focused on how the middle schools were created in Oak Park.  Here's the link to the presentation, which is about half an hour long, and my part comes in the second half.

Inside the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Kansas City, MO, appearing to the left of the altar is the Cathedra, a chair that symbolizes the Bishop's authority to hand on the teachings of Christ, as a successor of the Apostles.

I saw a number of bishops at the recent 10th National Eucharistic Congress, and spoke personally with two of them.

A selfie with Donald Hying, Bishop of the Diocese of Madison, WI

Cardinal Wilton Gregory, Archbishop of Washington, D.C., and formerly a priest and bishop in the Archdiocese of Chicago, gives the homily at Mass on the morning of July 19 in Lucas Oil Stadium

Archbishop Jose Gomez, of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, celebrates a Spanish-language Mass on the morning of July 20

On my way back to Chicagoland, when I stopped for lunch at Culver's, I saw Bishop Paprocki, of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.