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Cistercian Serves at the Bella House

February 20, 2019 | Community Service, Media

On February 16, several Cistercian students from Forms V, VI and VII went with Fr. John to serve at the Bella House, a charity offering a home to pregnant women in need. After meeting some of the organizers and moms living in the house, the Cistercian students set about disassembling, assembling and moving furniture, organizing donations recently given to the Bella House, and cleaning out a storage shed. The boys worked quickly and managed to finish everything on the morning’s to-do list. Coming so soon after the March for Life, it was good to support women as they courageously choose life in difficult circumstances. Students interested in joining next time can check MobileServe for further opportunities for community service!

 

Hawk Happenings

Quiz Bowl

Cistercian’s Middle School Quiz Bowl team traveled to Chicago for the National Quiz Bowl Championship and finished tied for 13 out of 160 teams. Congratulations Hawks!

Athletic Awards

Our Upper School Athletics Awards Ceremony honored this year’s many achievements in sports. Kudos especially to all of our senior athletes, the five Hawk Award recipients who lettered in three (or more) varsity sports, and to this year’s Tom Hillary Award recipient.

Texas History Trip

Form III had a blast on their Texas History trip, a true Cistercian rite of passage! Huge thanks to the dads and faculty who made it all happen.

Experience Cistercian

Publications

Thy Kingdom Come

The more I reflect on the petitions of the Our Father, the more I’m convinced that I have no idea what I’m praying when I mumble those words multiple times every day.

The current object of my loving mystification is “Thy kingdom come.” In an effort to be slightly less intimidated by this vast and marvelous petition, I will arrange my musings as responses to the time-honored journalistic questions.

Lessons learned in a monastery

One of the most important rooms in a monastery, after the church, is the chapter room. This is the place where monks meet to do various things as a community: hear an exhortation from their abbot; listen to a spiritual reading (often a chapter from “The Rule of St. Benedict”); deliberate and vote on the important material and spiritual questions that arise in a monastery, such as who should be the abbot, whether to welcome a young monk as a permanent member of the community through solemn profession, and how best to structure their lives to promote God’s purpose.

Calling upon the hallowed name of the Lord

Jesus poses a problem when He instructs us to pray to the Father with the words “hallowed be Thy name” (Matthew 6:9). Many Psalms exhort the faithful to praise or call upon the name of the LORD (Psalm 113:1; 116:13; 148:13), and others assert that “Our help is in the name of the LORD” (Psalm 124:8). But how can human beings hallow — that is, make holy — the name of the LORD (in Hebrew, YHWH), Who is already, always, and automatically holy, utterly beyond our ability to add to or subtract from, to influence or change?