While working as Mary Queen of Peace School’s substitute religion teacher last fall, Jodi Awbrey witnessed the wonderful fruits that come from immersing students in the coming Sunday’s Gospel during classtime.
Using the Scripture study technique known as “Lectio Divina,” Awbrey’s students would take a few minutes on Wednsday and Thursday to read the Gospel, both silently and aloud together as a class.
On Fridays, they would have a lively class discussion on that Gospel, identifying themes, key words, asking questions of their teacher and observing the Gospel’s application to their lives.
“By the time we got to (discussing the Gospel on) Friday, they had heard it twice already. It readied them for the weekend,” Awbrey said, recalling how her students would excitedly run up to her on Mondays to tell her if the previous day’s homily had touched on their own Gospel-related observations.
“It was absolutely beautiful! They were listening intently!” Awbrey said.
But “the most amazing thing,” Awbrey said, was when she started getting feedback from parents. The seventh graders would hear the Gospel being proclaimed and whisper to them, “Mom, I know this. I’ve heard this before. We talked about this in class.”
The seventh graders’ study of Scripture – especially of New and Old Testament passages related to the power of prayer – inspired Awbrey’s class to design a special Advent project.
In early December, they sent handwritten invitations to every school family inviting them to dedicate one or more rosaries as a Christmas gift for parishioners living in Mary Queen of Peace’s partner parish of St. Benoit, a Catholic community of 5,000 families located in Dessources, Haiti.
The students’ goal was to have 100 rosaries pledged by Dec. 25 as a spiritual gift for St. Benoit, but the prayer drive ended up netting pledges of 411 rosaries.
Students publicized the spiritual bouquet by making a Facebook video and keeping the campus updated through a colorful display covered in pledge slips.
When one school mother was playing the video at work, a non-Catholic friend spotted it, inquired about the project and promised to pray a rosary for St. Benoit, with the help of a rosary guide. Word also traveled to St. Aloysius Catholic School in Baton Rouge, which pledged 10 rosaries to the prayer effort.
“Each time we tallied up where we were, (the students’) eyes would get big. They were amazed at the generosity of our community!” Awbrey said.
Haiti has been on the radar of Mary Queen of Peace Church and School since 2011, the year the Mandeville parish began partnering with St. Benoit. Since then, parishioners have helped St. Benoit build up its school from about 50 children in the primary grades, to one that educates 500 students through high school. Items such as socks and school supplies are donated each year, and parish fundraisers supplement teachers’ salaries at St. Benoit and keep the school’s lunch program humming. Parishioners also sponsor the college tuitions of 11 promising graduates of St. Benoit who study in fields such as agronomy, mechanics and nursing at the University of Port-au-Prince, in Haiti’s capital.
“The hope is that they will bring their skills back to the (St. Benoit) community,” said Nancy Waguespack, Mary Queen of Peace School’s CRE.
Other successes of the nearly decade-old partnership include helping St. Benoit replace its church roof and build a parish-based water well, enabling residents to conveniently access water.
Also, although their work is done through the non-profit Food for the Poor and is not technically linked to the parish partnership, Mary Queen of Peace School siblings Mia and Ava Cresap have been making and selling elastic hair ties to raise funds for the construction of houses in Haiti.
Since 2018, the sisters, who learned of Haiti’s poor living conditions during a homily at Mass, have raised $21,770. The Cresaps report that they are nearing their goal of raising enough funds to erect three multi-generational homes in Haiti.
January 27, 2020