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Monday, 25 February 2008 |
Chris Bolesta is principal of John F. Kennedy Catholic High School in Manchester, Missouri. She has served in the Franciscan missions in Honduras.
 It seems that often we see Lent as a time to give up something pleasant but it is not as easy to see Lent as a time when we are called to do good works. It is important to remember that our faith is not about a list of don’ts but rather a charge to do good things for each other. That being said, it is often more powerful to do good works together. At Kennedy Catholic this Lent, we are calling each other to do exactly that. Our collective Lenten focus has been to support the work of our alum, Father Brian Fischer, and his fellow priest missionaries in his work in Bolivia. Not only are we supporting Father Brian and the people he serves, we are also learning more about the critical work being done in the missions.
Father Bob Suit and I met with Monsignor Francis Blood and Colleen Coughlin of the Mission Office a few months ago. We discussed how to raise our students’ consciousness – and consequently our support – of the missionary effort. We settled on the idea of adopting the missions as our Lenten project. The results have already been astounding.
Father Bob kicked off the initiative at our Ash Wednesday Mass by challenging the students. He told them that he would personally match all money collected at Mass that day. True to his word, he donated $240 to match the $240 in student contributions. There was a second part to his challenge. Father Bob told students that while there would be donation boxes all around school all during Lent, he wanted each of them to make a personal pledge. He said that giving just $.25 per day would result in an $8.00 gift. Upon returning to class after mass, each student pledged anonymously and in writing. Almost $1,400 was pledged that day by students and staff.
 What will our money do for Father Brian’s people? Our donations will be used to offset construction costs for a new chapel in an outlying neighborhood of La Paz called El Vergel. We know this because every day we can see pictures of the construction project displayed in our commons. We have come to understand that the people of La Paz prefer the intimacy of small neighborhood chapels and we hope to help make this happen in Vergel. We also know that the people of Vergel have a special devotion to St. Barbara and the chapel will be called Santa Barbara in her honor.
My hope is that helping our brothers and sisters half a world away will help us all to understand how big our Church really is and how our shared beliefs and love of God unite us at a very primal level. We truly are one body. Back in the day when I was younger, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to make several service trips to the Franciscan missions in Honduras. One of my most powerful memories is of sitting in the adobe church in the small village of Las Flores with the local people as well as their dogs, chickens and roosters and saying the same prayers and singing the same songs but only in a different language. I think that was the first time that I truly realized what the phrase “universal church” means.
My hope is that we can contribute in excess of $2,000 at Kennedy this Lenten season. My dream is that at least one of us can some day pray in the chapel at Vergel. To those in the Kennedy community I say “mil gracias”, one thousand thanks, on behalf of their Bolivian brothers and sisters. I know that we send the same sentiment to them as we thank them one thousand times for allowing us to love them as Jesus does.
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