Gift of Gratitude
Dear Mater Dei Community,
Blessings to you this Lenten season! Remember our Lent from last year? As we recall the suffering endured from the lockdowns and deprivation of the sacraments and Holy Mass, we are reminded of how quickly the things we take for granted can be withdrawn from us. This teaches us to be always grateful for gifts of the Lord, lest they be taken away.
In this months newsletter, we reflect on the graciousness of our Mater Dei students and the greater Catholic community in our Diocese. We are also happy to share our new student promo video. May God bless you this holy season with a sense of gratitude and deep spiritual renewal.
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Ad Jesum Per Mariam
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Day-to-Day at Mater Dei
For our February service project, we assisted Queen of Peace Catholic School in Cloquet with deep cleaning projects to prepare their campus for upcoming open house events. We began the day with Mass, together with the Pre-K through 8th grade Queen of Peace students. We then split up into groups to tackle the various projects. Students painted desks, sanitized lockers and furniture, mopped, vacuumed, shoveled and cut walkways through snowbanks, and polished the church pews with Murphy’s oil. Queen of Peace pastor, Fr. Justin Fish, is also our 9th grade Sacred Scripture instructor at Mater Dei. It was a blessed opportunity to show our gratitude to him and his parish community for their support of Mater Dei.
The purpose of our monthly service project at Mater Dei is to form our students with a heart for service. This will hopefully overflow into their daily lives, allowing them to recognize and seek out opportunities to serve Christ through serving their neighbor. It brought us great joy to see this happening with one of our students, Anthony, who recently offered his help to the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus to fix their bike. In his free time at home, Anthony replaced the rear tire and tube, painted the rack holder and frame in the rusted spots, adjusted the front and rear brake pads, and cleaned the chain and sprockets. The bike is as good as new! The Handmaids were so grateful for his gift. Thank you Anthony, for being an inspiration and example of Christ’s love.
Franciscan Friars Field Trip
We were blessed to take a school-day field trip to attend a mission with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal at St. Martin’s Parish in Tower. It was a powerful morning for the students with Mass, Adoration, Confession, powerful talks on the Eucharist, and a healing service. Afterwards, we were graciously hosted for lunch by Fr. Nick Nelson and St. Martin’s Parish in order to spend a little more time with the Friars. The students are so grateful for the experience of this grace-filled day. We are humbled by the love and support we received from Fr. Nelson and his parishioners.
Mater Dei Student Video
We had fun producing our new promo video for Mater Dei “from a student perspective”. Due to the fact that our hybrid education program is a new concept, there are sometimes misconceptions about Mater Dei. In order to describe what a typical school day looks like for our students, we went to the students themselves. We are hopeful this short three-minute video will help prospective students and parents in their decision to make the switch to Mater Dei for the upcoming school year. Registration is now open for next year for 9th, 10th and 11th grade. Please spread the word! Our open house event will take place on Thursday, March 11th at our education center. The flyer may be viewed HERE.