Say Cheese!!

Attention all St. Dominic Parishioners!!!  If you haven’t signed up for the parish pictorial directory, then make sure to visit one of the tables in the narthexes after Mass this weekend.  If you received Fr. Dave’s robo-call this afternoon, then that means you still need to sign up.  What a fantastic gift this would make for Mother’s Day – a family portrait to last for generations!!!

These portrait directory books are a God-Send for priests because they help us remember your names!!  People often remark how good Fr. Curt Frederick was/is with remembering names.  I asked him once, his response: “I look at the pictorial directory constantly!!”  There, the secret is out!

Please take advantage of this wonderful opportunity!!

Say Cheese!

Fr. Sean O

History is Made!

The 8th grade St. Dominic Boys Basketball team won the 54th annual Padre Serra Basketball Tournament with a win over Racine St. Catherine’s 41-38.  It was an amazing, tense, hard-fought game between both teams.  This is the first time that St. Dominic’s has won the Padre Serra Basketball Tournament.  What a joy to hang the Padre Serra Championship banner in our brand new St. Dominic Athletic Facility!!  Great season to the boys and girls 8th grade teams! 

The girls clinched 3rd place in the Padre Serra Basketball team with their win early this afternoon over Our Lady of Grace from Racine.  Having both 8th grade teams in the Final Four of the Padre Serra was outstanding!!

God Bless You All for a Great Season!!!

Padre Serra

A big congratulations to the Boys and Girls 8th grade basketball teams in the Padre Serra!  The girls will play tomorrow, Sunday, March 18 at noon in the consolation game.  The boys team also plays tomorrow at 4pm in the championship game.  The games are at Mt. Mary College and are a blast to watch!  Please come and cheer on the Knights!!!

Padre Serra Hoops

It was a great weekend for 8th grade basketball at the annual Padre Serra Basketball Tournament at Mt. Mary College.  Our 8th Grade Boys defeated Port Washington on Saturday morning and will play against Holy Apostles – New Berlin this Friday at 8:30pm.  The girls beat St. Joseph’s – Kenosha on Saturday night and will play against Holy Apostles/St. Gregory the Great – combined team on Thursday at 8:46pm.  If both teams win, then they will be in the Final Four and only two wins away from being tournament champions!  Go Teams!!

Morning Offering

Learning and memorizing prayers should be a part of every Catholic’s life.  Whether you attended a Catholic grade school or high school (which I didn’t), it’s never too late to start making a practice of memorizing a different prayer once a month or maybe, once every other month. 

Prayers are like old friends that come back to us when we find ourselves in need of comfort and peace.  Knowing the Angelus and praying it everyday at noon for instance, allows us to remember the Incarnation of Christ and Our Blessed Mother’s great Fiat (Let it be done to me!). 

Our school children learn a new prayer each month and while some of them can be a bit advanced for our little ones (Kindergarten and 1st graders), I’m hoping that by the time they hear these prayers for the next 8+ years, they will start to register them and become more familiar with the words.

The prayer the school children are learning this month is The Morning Offering.  This perfect prayer for the beginning of a new day has been on my lips for a long time and I never tire of using it each morning.  It’s pretty simple to learn and I encourage all of you to adopt it as one of your own morning devotions!

Morning Offering:

O Jesus,
through the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
I offer You my prayers, works,
joys and sufferings
of this day for all the intentions
of Your Sacred Heart,
in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
throughout the world,
in reparation for my sins,
for the intentions of all my relatives and friends,
and in particular
for the intentions of the Holy Father.Amen.

Learning New Prayers

Each month, I enter the school administrative offices and partake in something that is every kid’s dream.  I get to speak on the school loudspeaker and introduce a new prayer for the school children!  You never know the kind of power you have until your voice is projecting into every classroom and nook of the school!  It’s really cool. 

The prayers for each month vary in their themes and wording.  The school children really seem to enjoy some of the more traditional prayers such as the “Angel of God” prayer and the “Hail, Holy Queen” prayer.  Today, I introduced the “Christmas Anticipation Prayer” which is something new to me, but has roots in our faith.  This prayer is meant to be prayed 15 times a day (yes, 15 times a day) from November 30 – The Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle until Christmas.  It really is a beautiful prayer as we vigilantly await the coming of Christ!

Fr. Sean Leading the Monthly School Prayer

I have to thank two wonderful parishioners of St. Dominic for helping make this monthly school prayer really get off the ground: Patricia Jessup and Mary Jo Maslowski.  They have been so great in making this a success at our fine school.  In addition, Joyce Sauer, who runs the computer lab, is our resident photographer and always seems to find me when I’m teaching the children.  God Bless You, Patricia, Mary Jo, and Joyce!

 

 

 

Christmas Anticipation Prayer

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment
in which the Son of God was born
of the most pure Virgin Mary,
at midnight,
in Bethlehem,
in the piercing cold.
In that hour vouchsafe, I beseech Thee, O my God,
to hear my prayer and grant my desires,

[State your intention(s) here...]

through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ,
and of His blessed Mother.

Amen.

(Beginning on St. Andrew the Apostle’s feast day, November 30th, the following prayer is traditionally prayed 15 times a day until Christmas. This is a very meditative prayer that helps us increase our awareness of the real focus of Christmas and helps us prepare ourselves spiritually for His coming.)