Blessed Sacrament Families,
Throughout our lives, from our youngest years to our present age, we travel along the spectrum of emotions. Research shares with us that all emotions stem from six core feelings: joy, love, fear, anger, sadness, and surprise. When we experience a wedding engagement or the birth of a child, we experience excitement and happiness, while nervousness and loneliness may occur when we experience various hardships such as death or tragedy.
One must only turn on the news, open social media, or gather around the dinner table to hear the troubles in our world. On the global level, we are dealing with war, hunger, and disease. Nationally, we are politically polarized more than any other time in our nation’s history. Locally, we encounter economic uncertainty and violence. In our homes and school, we may be challenged with a student who lacks the motivation to work, a teenager who spends too much time on their device, an elderly parent, family dynamics, or busy schedules that prevent family dinners and time for prayer.
In my heart, I believe the circumstances above, along with others that we might not be able to share, are based on the feeling of frustration. Frustration is defined as “an emotional response to obstacles, setbacks, or unmet expectations.” When we face challenges that seem too difficult to overcome, encountering repeated failures, or feeling unable to achieve a goal despite our efforts to do so, this frustration can manifest in various ways including physical symptoms, emotional signs, behavioral reactions, social effects, and an impact on our mental health.
We can easily pray that God will address the issues at hand or rationalize them as part of God’s bigger picture. Unfortunately, when we do not see a change in circumstances or the changes we have prayed for, the frustration only builds like a volcano waiting to erupt or an earthquake relieving stress along a fault line. There is even a danger because at times it feels like God has abandoned us.
As Catholics, we fundamentally believe that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving and He can fix any problem – big or small – by simply commanding it. We must also accept, however, that while waiting for Divine Intervention is an option, being active participants in bringing about positive change in the world is at our fingertips.
I have selected DO SOMETHING as our spiritual theme for our new school year. Ultimately, the call to action within the Blessed Sacrament Catholic School community is an opportunity to respond to the Divine mandate of living out the Good News of the Gospel. By embracing this call and working together to address the challenges facing society and our campus, we can play a vital role in bringing about transformation and healing in our world.
As a campus, we are also embarking on the journey to create a new strategic plan and beginning the TCCBED reaccreditation process. We can either choose to be complacent and accept the status quo or DO SOMETHING! As St. Paul told the Ephesians, “For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)
Let us begin the work at hand and DO SOMETHING allowing us to Have Courage, Move Forward, and Make Noise!
In service to the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament,
Michael Fierro
Principal