While we mourn the loss of our beloved Father Jim Fugle, who was raised in Varysburg and attended our St. Joseph’s worship site, we also feel an abundance of gratitude and inspiration for his legacy of actively forming disciples of Jesus that he leaves us as a goal.
We dedicated our formation activities to him at our October family gathering.
MASS: We had outstanding attendance and participation at the 4:30 mass with about 20 youth. We know it may be inconvenient for you to commit to attending these mass times that are not your normal weekly family tradition, but it absolutely lifts the spirit of our whole SsJA faith community when we join together with all our youth in prayer, song, and participation at mass. Our next one is at 8 a.m. November 14th, so expect a call or text from me as I do a random draw for our next mass participants. (Names of youth who participated at this past one will be held aside until all have helped in some capacity.) We always have the kids create the prayers of the faithful for the family mass at our previous session.
“FAITH BALL”: This is one of Father Jim’s games he shared with us. We’ve used it at confirmation retreat and modified it for our youth. We have a list of Catholic faith questions, categorized by difficulty for a “single”, “double”, “triple”, and “home run”. Parents stayed and played as well because we all need to keep learning and re-learning on our life-long faith journey! Father George and our catechists also helped when we needed to “phone a friend” for help. Our teams were the Saints vs the Angels. It was a tie game after the first inning – when food was hot and ready! I’ll post the questions below for you to try. See what you can answer! (We did not use all of them.)
FAITH BALL QUESTIONS
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FOOD and BONFIRE:
All you can eat hot dogs, snacks, apples, hot cider and cocoa, treats and home-made butternut squash. Thanks to all who helped prepare, serve, and tidy up! Our bonfire roared nice and warm on this chilly night due to one of our trees by the parking lot that had died and had to be cut down.
GIANT GLOW-IN-THE-DARK-ROSARY: October is the “month of the rosary”, so we planned to pray this meditative devotion together as a family faith formation learning activity. Our parish community had just learned that Father Jim had passed away, so we dedicated our recitation of the rosary for him. We invited parishioners via our Facebook page and some of Jim’s family members and friends were able to join us. Everyone who knew him said he would have loved it, and would have been there if he could and certainly his presence was felt in the spirit of the evening. Candle luminaries stood in for the cross, the Our Fathers, and the Apostles’ Creed / Hail Holy Queen. As we prayed the Hail Marys, each of us placed a glow-stick necklace in the decades of the rosary. Father George led us in this beautiful devotion, with adults and children each leading a Hail Mary as we reflected on the Glorious mysteries. If you are new to the rosary, you might listen/watch this youtube version. Praying the rosary takes about 20 minutes.
Child’s video lesson from “Brother Francis” on FORMED link follows. You can watch this once you sign up for our free parish FORMED subscription. Sign up as a parishioner of SS Joachim and Anne-Attica, NY
I’ll also post a step-by-step below. Be aware each parish has their own tradition of follow up prayers after the rosary. For example, they might ask the patron saint of the parish to pray for us. You’ll notice this in the youtube version. If you attend our parish rosary recitations, for example before Saturday 4:30 mass, you may hear prayers at the end you are unfamiliar with or have not memorized. That’s OK, there are printed guides to follow at the back of the church, or simply listen and learn as you follow along.
How to Pray the Rosary 2 columns
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Praise and Glory to you God, for bringing Father Jim to lead and guide us, to be a light for us to follow to you, Lord. We thank you for the time we were given to know and learn from him, your faithful servant. We thank you for his gift of guiding our youth towards you, using his gift of creativity, guiding their spiritual growth, and for inspiring us to do the same for others, as we go "make disciples", glorifying you Lord, as much as we are able, by our life.
