Reflection

Dear Friends:

One of the components of our mission here at Corpus Christi Church is the evangelization and catechesis of our children who attend public schools. It is a huge undertaking and requires a lot of sacrifice on the part of the overall coordinator, parents, students, and volunteer teachers. We sincerely thank Sister Margaret Rose for her leadership in this area. She has been assisted by Anthony Austin, who previously did an excellent job with this mission. She has also been assisted by Jonathan Morano and by a wonderful team of dedicated volunteers. Sister Margaret Rose has sent out a letter to parents indicating some changes that we hope will be better for the people and the religious education program. The following are a few points that I would like to highlight at this time:

Responsibility

All Catholic parents have the duty to see that our treasured, Catholic faith is handed on to our children. As Pastor, I also have a responsibility to provide such education. We do so well in giving our children food, shelter, clothing, schooling, and love; but unless we give them Jesus Christ and His Church, we are cheating them. Therefore, if there are any parishioners who have for some reason not enrolled their children in our religious education program (or some other alternative), please do so for this coming year.

Change of Day and Time

For five months Sister and I have been trying to survey teachers, parents, and students to ascertain whether Sunday would be a better day than Monday for religious instructions. Most, not all, thought that Sunday would be better than Monday. Therefore, next year, we will hold religious instructions for all the classes (1st -8th) on:
Sundays – 9:45 to 11:15 am
We want the children to attend the 9:00 am Mass with their families; then they will attend class. In rare cases where a child may miss the 9:00 Mass, there is an opportunity to attend the 11:00 Mass.

Registration

It is imperative for proper planning that we begin the registration process for next year as soon as possible. In her letter of April 30th, Sister indicated the following dates for registration for the 2008-2009 school year:

• May 19 – Registration forms to be returned
• July 15 – Fees to be paid up
• September 7 – Classes begin

Fees

Some folks still owe us fees from this current year. We encourage them to help us cover our expenses for this program, which include things such as, textbooks, retreats, confirmation gowns, supplies, etc. Our expenses thus far have been: $13,473.51 and our income has been $10,285.00. So you can see that we are running a deficit. We are increasing our fees slightly for this next year.

• Grades 1,3,4,5,6,7……..$100.00
(additional child ……… $50.00)
• Grade 2 ………………..$150.00
(additional child ………..$50.00)
• Grade 8 ………………..$185.00
(additional child……….. $50.00)

Pick-up

Since classes will end on Sundays at 11:15 am, and since our upper parking lot will be full, we are asking that you pick up your child from the lower parking lot. We believe that this will be safer and hopefully avoid some of the congestion.

Knowing Christ

Bishop Morrow, a Salesian Bishop who served in India, wrote a well-known and well-used catechism many years ago. On the cover of his catechism he wrote: “To know Jesus better is to love Him more.” This is the goal of our catechetical program here at Corpus Christi Church. Please help us to attain this awesome goal.
Fr. Tom