Quck view of Sacramental preparation for 2010

I wanted to share some information on the upcoming sacraments that the children will be having soon in 2010. This may be helpful if you see family and friends over the holidays and wish to invite them.

2nd Grade. 1st Confession. (Wednesday) 3/3/2010 One or both parents
Parents invited to go to confession.

2nd Grade. 1st Eucharist. (Sunday) 4/11/2010 Parents, family & friends.

5th & 6th Grade. Confirmation. (Thursday) 3/18/2010 Parents, family & friends.
Bishop will preside.

It is possible we will be needing additional parental assistance just after the first of the year in preparation for these sacraments. I will not know until the teachers tell me what they would like. I will try to get this organized after the holidays and will contact everyone by email when that occurs.

Bill Rentschler
CCD Coordinator
morningstar.edu@gmail.com

St Michael CCD Christmas Program 2009

Such a great Christmas program last night. A thank to all of the parents and family of our students for attending. I can hardly wait for the "new school" to be built so we can accommodate the larger crowds. The students in each of the grades did such a great job singing and the costumes looked great. I enjoy the enthusiasm that the students project. The whole program was Christ centered which is the way it should be.

Obviously, much of the work and credit needs to go to Margaret Tomek for all that she did in preparing the children. They love to work with her and we are thankful for her presence here at St Michaels. We should thank as well the teachers and assistants for interupting their class schedules for the practices, for Agnes Mendenhal, Kathy Rentschler and Carl Marks for the work they do. A special thank you to the parents who provided the great selection of cookies as a treat following the program. I hope everyone has a blessed, Christ filled Christmas. We will see your children when CCD resumes on January 6 of next year.

Bill Rentschler
CCD Coordinator

CCD Update October 2009

St Michael CCD program continues to run smoothly. The students have done an exceptional job with their attention and prayerfulness during Mass. Fr Bernardo has joined Fr Borowiak and Fr Rutten in presenting the Masses and confessions this year. Many weeks two priests are able to hear confessions which makes things go so much more quickly. The students in general are able to attend confession approximatly once every month. We had a fire drill at the church on the first Wednesday of October and all of the students in the basement were evacuated outside in an orderly fashion in less than one minute. "Good job" everyone.

Margaret Tomek and Agnes Mendenhal continue to work with the music. I am so impressed with the enthusiasm the students have. The third Wednesday of each month one of the classes presents the music at the CCD Mass. October 21 will be the 7th grade presentation. Those music Masses will resume in January as Nov /Dec are reserved for the Christmas practice and presentation. Parents should note that the music practiced at CCD is the music presented at the Youth Masses on the weekend.

Prayer booklets were sent home with the children and parents are encouraged to practice the prayers appropriate for their ages.

Please take time at home to pray with your child and answer questions they may have. If you feel uncomfortable doing that consider signing up for an RCIA refresher course or attend an adult religious education class. May God be with you all.

Summer CCD preparations

I have been working on the upcoming years calendar and it is nearing completion. I have also set up an e-mail account for us to use in the ccd program. I used one of the titles for Mary and set it up as morningstar.edu@gmail.com. Parents, teachers, assistants or others can contact the ccd program using this address. I will also be sharing a password to I believe only the teachers that will have additional contact information for the parents of the children in their class. This will allow them to easily communicate to any individual or to the whole group of parents of their students. This truely is a work in progress and we can evaluate it as the year progresses. The teacher positions have been filling and are almost complete. If any of you feel you know someone in the parish that would make a good teacher or assistant, talk to them or at least pass their name on to me. God bless you.

Potluck for teachers and assistants.

We had our potluck on Wednesday. Very enjoyable to socialize and hopefully everyone was able to voice their opinions on the year. Father announced that we would be getting an assistant pastor in mid June. I will prepare to order workbooks for next year soon.

O.K. here goes the first post. I am wanting to set this up to allow communication between CCD coordinator and teachers, assistants and parents of students. Would like to evaluate how this looks as well as any perceived privacy issues.