Feast of the Solemnity of St. Benedict, July 11, 2021
To: Our Scholastican Family (School Personnel, Parents and Students, and Alumnae / Alumni)
From: The Office of the Directress
PEACE and JOY!
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
This year the Feast of the Solemnity of St. Benedict falls on a Sunday. Sisters, nuns, and monks may celebrate this feast today. But Sunday Masses outside of Benedictine convents and monasteries will celebrate the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Our school personnel who have been reporting since mid-May and mid-June will celebrate the feast of St. Benedict on Monday, July 12 with a Holy Mass attended by the Sisters and representatives of each unit in the school chapel at 8:30 a.m. The rest will attend Mass in different school hubs assigned to them. Thus all our school personnel are attending the Eucharistic celebration in school.
We are inviting our students, parents, and alumni to attend the Mass livestreamed in our FB page—Ssa Pampanga.
Why celebrate St. Benedict today? St. Benedict gives us HOPE for his times were very much like ours. Political, economic, and moral upheaval! After withdrawing from his usual surroundings for about three years, the Lord prepared him for his great task. Benedict merely wanted a group that would live the Gospel. And so his monks lived a very ordinary life, tilling the soil, and devoting time for prayer and study. His was a life of listening and responding to the Word. ORA ET LABORA.
Today, more than ever, we need to live by the Gospel values and put Christ as the center of our lives. To St. Benedict, nothing was to be preferred to the love of God. And knowing how fragile we are, St. Benedict tells us in his Rule, never to despair of God’s mercy.
We have chosen as the focus of this school year’s vision and mission, CHRIST-CENTEREDNESS AND HOSPITALITY. We invite you all to consciously make Christ our model for living. We need to incarnate Christ in our world today. We need to live out our love for all. Our world in its search for meaning has been misled into thinking and believing that with money and power, we can be happy.
Our faith, however, tells us that it is in dying to self that others may live that makes us truly happy. And this is the meaning of HOSPITALITY. Let us welcome one another as Christ. Let us not choose to love only those who are nice to us and like us and those who can help us. Let us instead put no limits or boundaries to our loving. Jesus invites us to see Him and love Him in the poor, in the least, the powerless. And this people are not necessarily far from us. They could be the neighbor we choose to ignore or the kasambahay in our homes. They could be the children whose voice may not be heard. Or the newcomer in school whom we scrutinize from head to foot before she can belong. Let us accept and respect each person as we are all sons and daughters of God.
Let our love be concrete. Let it be shown in action. As we celebrate 500 YEARS OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE PHILIPPINES, let us thank God for the gift of FAITH. And let us make it our mission to share this gift with others. We have been gifted to give. Let us give Christ to others and welcome all as Christ.
Let us ask St. Benedict to teach us the way of humility and obedience. He listened with the ear of his heart. And he chose to live out what he heard. We are God’s creatures and our happiness lies in Him alone. God knows what is best for us, hence the listening to God in and around us and doing what the Lord has inspired us to be and do. Let us make Him the CENTER of our lives and recognize and welcome Him (HOSPITALITY) in every person.
Lovingly,
Sister Lydia Villegas, OSB
That in all things God may be glorified!
