WEBSTER'S ENTRY 2

ALL FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

God created us because He loves us and wants to be with us in Heaven. Our final destination is to get to Heaven with God, but to get to Heaven is not easy to achieve because we have to live holy lives.

It is easy for religious to live holy lives because from the time they wake up to the time they go to sleep, their day is full of prayer and other acts of piety. Some of them are cloistered and are not surrounded by distractions as we are. We non-religious, on the other hand, may find it hard to live holy lives because our days are full of ordinary activity, and we are always tempted by the devil by almost everything in the outside world. But St Bernadette Soubirous provides us with very good advice.

When St Bernadette became a nun, her brother joined the army. One day he sent her a letter about how difficult being a soldier was because it was hard to find time to pray and do other spiritual activities while performing his duties. She sent him back this advice: "If every morning you say, 'Dear God, I will endure everything for Thee,' you will have earned as much graces as a cloistered monk." The same goes with us. We may not spend long hours in prayer, but we can offer all our actions to God and He will give us the grace to do even better.

These days it is hard to win graces, but it is certainly not impossible. If we follow St Bernadette's advice, we will be able to offer up all our actions to God, ordinary or extraordinary, get more graces and maybe make it to Heaven one day.

(Grade 5,
Creative Writing,
2011 - Term 1, Week 2)

Our Lady of Lourdes

After the last two that have included wonderful, grace-packed events, we had another great week to be thankful for. Everyone has been steadily working at school, with no major happenings (good or bad) out of the ordinary to note, except for the highlights in our liturgical journey.

Whenever we celebrate the feastday of Our Lady of Lourdes, one word seems to resonate, even for many days after: PENANCE. This year's celebration was a good one, as we were able to discuss the whats, hows and whys of penance as the kids watched and re-watched a couple of versions of the story of Our Lady of Lourdes (as she appeared to St Bernadette Soubirous in France in 1858) through the week. Curlytop (turning 5 this year), in particular, asked several times what penance meant and what we had to do it for. This was the perfect opportunity to talk to the kids about how important it is to "do good" and offer up sacrifices in propitiation for our sins and the sins of others - the heart of Our Lady's message in Lourdes, as in all of her other apparitions around the world on different occasions. One brilliant thing about this particular exchange was that it happened in the car - where all the kids HAD to be listening!

Apart from the movies, other activities undertaken to focus the week on Our Lady of Lourdes included constructing little "hand grottos" made out of laminated pictures and recycled plastic bottles which made them quite effective as candle holders. We started the craft activity on Wednesday, being our non-school day; and they were all done by Friday, Our Lady of Lourdes' actual feastday. Although we wanted to use them for candlelit singing of Ave Maria on Friday evening at our backyard grotto, we could not fit it in, as we opted to go to Mass, followed by holy hour with our Eucharistic Lord (exposed) and beautifully concluded with Benediction.

In addition, we were invited to attend an extension of the celebration at the St Stephen's Cathedral (City) the next morning (Saturday), which consisted of the recitation of the Holy Rosary, Holy Mass and a procession. The two boys were asked to be at the lead, so they were so excited to be able to use their grotto candle holders.

What a beautiful end to a productive week, indeed. After Candlemass and St Blaise's feastday last week, and this week a memorable celebration for Our Lady of Lourdes, we eagerly await more special days in the liturgical calendar to enrich our faith and family life throughout the year!! Laus Deo.

Regina sine labe originali concepta, ora pro nobis!