As we enter into the blessed season of Advent, it is a time for each of us to prepare our hearts for an encounter with Our Lord. It is best if we don’t approach Christmas as a celebration of a moment in distant history, but rather invite Jesus to come anew into our hearts and root out all that separates us from our Creator. The very heart of the Church, and therefore our school, is to bring people to a deep encounter with Jesus Christ.
I am inspired by the many ways I see our students drawing closer to Him. One Wednesday night per month the campus ministry program offers “Restore.” During Restore the Blessed Sacrament is exposed, a student shares a brief testimony, there are singers and musicians who sing praise and worship songs, priests hear confessions, and we offer prayer teams praying with individual students. In November, we had 250 students in attendance! They literally had to pull chairs into the hallway to handle the overflow students (our chapel only seats roughly 130 kids). What a great way to prepare their hearts for the Lord!
That next weekend, we had our annual FALL Retreat (FALL is an acronym for Faith, Action, Light and Love) with over 140 students attending the overnight retreat. The retreat always includes speakers, activities, small group discussion and Mass each day, but it never fails that the high point of the weekend is the holy “hour” (more like 2-3 hours!) with confessions, prayer teams, adoration and beautiful music. Our students encounter Jesus Christ in a profound way that causes them to feel contrition for their sins and convicts them to grow as disciples.
On the Tuesday morning before Thanksgiving we had “Pack the Chap”. This is a tradition that is likely more than ten years old, and is code for “come attend the 7:20 am Mass in the Pius Chapel.” I have attended most of these over the years, and have always been pleased with the turnout. This year, however, we literally had students (and teachers!) standing in the back of the chapel because we ran out of seats. The Lord is drawing our students nearer to Him, and so many are answering His call!
These are just a few of the stories I could share about how the Holy Spirit is making Himself known and present in the halls of Pius X. I am grateful to the many people who are serving as such beautiful instruments of His love in drawing our students to the Lord. I am humbled, too, by the many, MANY people who are supporting our school so that we can continue to offer an excellent, Christ-centered, authentically Catholic education to these young disciples. Please continue to lift our school in prayer, and know that we are constantly praying for all of you in our Pius X Family.
God bless,
Tom Korta
