Our all school theme for Lent this year is Live Jesus. Here are some of the many ways that Visitation Upper School students and faculty are making this theme come alive:
Empty Bowls Lenten Soup Dinner: March 9, 5:30pm
Come and join us for a simple Lenten soup dinner and help raise money for Catholic Relief Services. The soup will be donated and served by Visitation's Student Council in our Dining Room. You may purchase a handmade bowl for $10, made by our own Visitation artists. THEN, at 7:00 p.m., join us for a Mid-Winter Choir Concert featuring the Eighth Grade Choir, Saint Thomas Academy Men's Choir, Bel Canto, Chamber Choir, and VISTA Choir. You will be entertained by music from around our world including Africa, Haiti, Japan, China, and Estonia. We hope that you will join us for this simple event that will raise money and will also take you on a global journey.
Lenten Reconciliation
Lenten Reconciliation will be offered on Wednesday, March 17, during the sixth through twelfth grade Religion Classes, according to the Late Start schedule. Priests from local parishes and area Catholic schools have generously offered their time and will be available in the Chapel area for individual Confessions.
Year of the Priest
Pope Benedict XVI has declared the Year of the Priests to be celebrated from June 2009-June 2010. This entire year of the 400th anniversary of the Visitation Order has provided continuing education in the writings and history of St. Francis de Sales, who was the Bishop of Geneva and co-founder of the Visitation Order.
Throughout the month of March, the Upper School will offer prayer specifically for our local bishops and priests; during Lenten Wednesday Rosaries, prayers in the daily bulletin, and in The First Friday Mass and Eucharistic Adoration on March 5 we will be reminded to give thanks for the priests who serve us, support their needs, and pray for future vocations to the priesthood and Religious life.
Justice Week: March 1-5
Justice Week is sponsored by the Voices for Justice consortium of student-led clubs: Environmental Club, Global Action, LIFE Club, PeaceJam, STAND, and VisCorps.
Our theme this year is “Justice Within, Justice Without.” Each club will be promoting a local action Visitation students can do right now that will have an impact on the larger and global community.
The clubs sponsoring Justice Week chose their theme to honor the sisters in their 400th year who have always done ”little things with great love” (St. Jane de Chantal). We want to stress that it is the little things we do that have big impact and we do not have to wait to work for justice and peace…we can do it right now!
These are some of the little works of justice that clubs will be promoting next week:
- Less paper use—creative reuse of paper
- Supporting Visitation School through the purchases we already make (box tops, kemps caps, Merrie Market, which is this weekend—good timing, GoodSearch tool bar, etc). Click here for more actions that support Vis.
- Being helpful to one another.
- Intentionally making Vis a more welcoming place for students who may feel out of place here.
- Penny Wars for Africa!
- Standing up for human rights in our volunteer and service work.
- Many more...
The morning prayer, during the week of March 1-5, also had a Lenten Justice theme and was led by students from these clubs.
At the convocation on Wednesday, March 3, the Voices for Justice clubs (Environmental Club, Global Action, LIFE Club, PeaceJam, STAND, VisCorps) illustrated how these small actions really do have a larger, and often, global impact!