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St. Augustine's School Prayer

Our Father in Heaven,

Look over and bless St. Augustine’s while we are working and playing.

Help us to respect and care for each other as you taught us to.

Give us the opportunity to do our best for you each day.

We look forward to being able to share our lives with our friends and families.

Keep us safe and give us the courage to be

people who want to know you more.

Amen.

I invite all families to pray this prayer at home, maybe one morning each week.

Prayer of the Week

Hail Holy Queen

Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,

our life, our sweetness and our hope.

To you do we cry, poor banished children of Eve.

To you do we send up our sighs,

mourning and weeping in this valley of tears

Turn then, most gracious advocate,

your eyes of mercy toward us,

and after this exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb,Jesus.

O clement,

O loving,

O sweet Virgin Mary.

Amen.

Prayer for the Year of St. Joseph

To you,

O blessed Joseph,

do we come in our afflictions,

and having implored the help of your most holy Spouse,

we confidently invoke your patronage also.

Through that charity which bound you to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God and through the paternal love with which you embraced the Child Jesus,

we humbly beg you graciously to regard the inheritance which Jesus Christ has purchased by his Blood,

and with your power and strength to aid us in our necessities.

O most watchful guardian of the Holy Family, defend the chosen children of Jesus Christ;

O most loving father, ward off from us every contagion of error and corrupting influence;

O our most mighty protector, be kind to us and from heaven assist us in our struggle with the power of darkness.

As once you rescued the Child Jesus from deadly peril,

so now protect God’s Holy Church from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity; shield, too, each one of us by your constant protection,

so that, supported by your example and your aid, we may be able to live piously,

to die in holiness, and to obtain eternal happiness in heaven.

Amen.

Scripture of the Week

Jn 6:1-15

A reading from the holy Gospel according to John

Jesus went off to the other side of the Sea of Galilee – or of Tiberias – and a large crowd followed him, impressed by the signs he gave by curing the sick. Jesus climbed the hillside, and sat down there with his disciples. It was shortly before the Jewish feast of Passover.

Looking up, Jesus saw the crowds approaching and said to Philip, ‘Where can we buy some bread for these people to eat?’ He only said this to test Philip; he himself knew exactly what he was going to do. Philip answered, ‘Two hundred denarii would only buy enough to give them a small piece each.’ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said, ‘There is a small boy here with five barley loaves and two fish; but what is that between so many?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Make the people sit down.’ There was plenty of grass there, and as many as five thousand men sat down. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks and gave them out to all who were sitting ready; he then did the same with the fish, giving out as much as was wanted. When they had eaten enough he said to the disciples, ‘Pick up the pieces left over, so that nothing gets wasted.’ So they picked them up, and filled twelve hampers with scraps left over from the meal of five barley loaves. The people, seeing this sign that he had given, said, ‘This really is the prophet who is to come into the world.’ Jesus, who could see they were about to come and take him by force and make him king, escaped back to the hills by himself.

Reflection

By Lisa-Marie Calderone-Stewart

Who has the courage to bring forth those five barley loaves and two fish? A young person! It is a young person who makes the decision to share personal food with a crowd of people. That young person gives us an example of how we should be. That one young person makes a difference.

Have you ever been in that situation? Have you ever done something that served as an example to adults as well as to other young people? If so, what did you do? What happened?

So often we want to make a difference, but we feel as if we cannot. ‘I am only one person. How can I make a difference?’ is what we often ask ourselves. But most major changes in the world happen because one or two people have the courage to try something new.

Have you ever tried something new? Have you ever had a dream about doing something different or starting a movement that might bring about a major change in people’s behaviour or attitude? If so, what is it? If not, what do you wish you could accomplish?

If you had been the only person in a hungry crowd who would admit to having brought any food along, would you have offered it to Jesus so it might be shared with more than five thousand people? Why or why not?

Lots of times we try something new and it fails. At that point we have two choices. We can either give up or we can try again in a way that applies our learning from the first failed attempt. Sooner or later we will make a discovery: we will discover the right way to do something new, or we will discover that we’ve put enough time and energy into a difficult quest and it’s time to change gears and focus on something else.

Have you ever failed at some attempt, then learned enough to try and try again until you finally succeeded? If so, what happened? Have you ever failed at some attempt, tried again a few times, and finally decided that it was time to stop trying and to move on with something else? If so, what happened?