Rock, Not Sand
Young people have to choose Jesus...Parents show them how
This week has been a week of Sacraments at the Church of the Holy Rosary! On Wednesday, our 8th graders received the Sacrament of Confirmation, bestowed upon them by Bishop Spalding. On Saturday, we celebrated a First Communion Mass for our 2nd graders! Easter is a beautiful season as we continue to celebrate the Resurrection of Our Lord — what a grace to mark it by receiving these Sacraments of Initiation.
During Holy Week and the Octave of Easter, both secular and Catholic news sources reported on a large number of young adults entering the Catholic Church. Last fall, Bishop Robert Barron dedicated a podcast episode to this same phenomenon. These conversions echo our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles: “They presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid hands on them. The word of God continued to spread, and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly.”
This reminds us that raising our children in the faith takes effort and consistency. Receiving First Communion and then Confirmation completes the Sacraments of Initiation, but each person must ultimately assent to a relationship with Christ. The faculty at Holy Rosary Academy choose to be here because of the Catholic culture in which our children are formed. Our mission statement ends with “prayer, virtue, and the pursuit of academic excellence.” Through this formation, we give our students the tools to grow in their faith — while also understanding that the choice is theirs. This is tough for us parents.
In Chapter III of Pope St. John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Dies Domini, the Holy Father writes, “As the day of Resurrection, Sunday is not only the remembrance of a past event: it is a celebration of the living presence of the Risen Lord in the midst of his own people.” Wherever our travels take us on a weekend, we can seek out a Catholic Church and come together as the faithful. We are reminded that “with the offering of the Sunday Eucharist, the Church crowns the witness which her children strive to offer every day of the week by proclaiming the Gospel and practicing charity in the world of work and in all the many tasks of life.”
As we form our children to embrace the Eucharist each Sunday, we trust that when they leave our homes — for high school, college, or beyond — their foundation will be rock, not sand. They will carry with them the words Christ spoke in the Gospel of John: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.”