Sunday, April 27, 2008

H20 Project - Lent 2008

Congratulations to Eileen for her work with the H20 project and to Our Lady Academy, Bay St. Louis, MS! Eileen reports that Our Lady Academy raised $745.53 during the H2O project for Lent this year. The money will go this year to the Sister Water Project, a group of Franciscan nuns working with providing water in South America and Africa.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Bye Bye Commissions, Hello JPIC

At the October 2007 meeting of the National Fraternity Council, there was a decision to accept the recommendations of the ad hoc committee on the Commissions to restructure the Apostolic Commissions to one Justice and Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) Committee.

The following is from the Proposal of the ad hoc committee on the Commissions, as revised and approved on October 5, 2007:
  • “The structure of the Apostolic Commissions will cease in its current form. In its place will be a Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) team (up to 4 persons) with a keen awareness of Articles 14-19 of the SFO Rule and of the social issues before the USCCB.”

JPIC team members will be appointed by the National Executive Council. Regional fraternities are to collaborate with the JPIC team and information will be disseminated to the local fraternities by the Region.

For more information, to go to the Winter 2007 issue of TAU, pages 10-13, here. Also go to the Spring 2008 issue, page 23, here.

Monthly Meeting - March 11, 2008

Our monthly meeting was held on Tuesday, March 11, 2008, at 10:30, Little Francis House, Pearlington, Mississippi. We began with prayer from the Ritual, and our guests were welcomed.

We prayed the Liturgy of the Hours Morning Prayer and then joined hands to offer our petitions and prayers to God, for our friends and family and for ourselves.

Our homework to prepare for ongoing formation was to read chapter 9 in both books. John presented the teaching, which focused on our Franciscan way with Francis and Clare in Rainbow Too and Rule 13.

Brother Juniper spoke to us about the death of Lazarus. The Jews believe that up until the third day, the soul is still there. Christ was away four days and that was so he could prove that nothing is impossible with God. God can raise even the dead.

After formation we recessed for lunch and then reconvened for our business meeting.

Our minutes and treasurer's report were presented and approved along with the blog and website report.

Bobbye, Carol, John and Ouida attended the quarterly regional meeting in Baton Rouge on March 8th. Ouida gave a written report which is posted on Pearls On The River blog. Brother Juniper gave additional information on the spiritual assistant’s program.

Eileen has taken the H2O Project to the Catholic schools in Hancock County again for Lent.

Bobbye told us about our $210 gift to St. Vincent de Paul and how it was used to assistant a young mother and her one-year old child who had been living in her car for about two weeks. This young woman was working and had saved $350 but lacked sufficient funds to move into a trailer. Because of our donation, St. Vincent de Paul was able to assist her so that she and her child were no longer forced to live in the car.

We closed our meeting in prayer.