Last week we (7^th graders and support staff) spent three days (the whole short Easter Week) at Camp Kateri. The camp seems to just fit our school and the shift we continue to pursue. In my mind there are so many things we want to foster through this experience. One of our parents who signed on to help wrote this reflection after we returned. She encompassed the goals in words. I see in her words the fulfillment of what we desire for the children. We sometimes have a plan that doesn’t work like we hope. Here’s a plan at work. I prayed for open hearts for a good deal of time before this event, as only He can make it work. Thanks, Lord for all your work! Here’s the text of the message I received:
Wow. Thank you. Truly.
You and everyone who made this trip happen… I don’t even have the words.
I’ll be honest, the week before we left, I was dreading it. I was grumpy, questioning why I signed up, and didn’t even want to hear my child talk about it.
And then I went.
And wow.
It was beautiful in a way I didn’t expect. The kind of experience that stays with you…….
I wrote this reflection below on Saturday morning during a holy hour. I didn’t want to forget any of it.
Thank you for giving our children something this good, this joyful, and this rooted in what really matters.
Grateful for you,
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Three days away.
And it felt like stepping into something simpler.
Something truer.
Beauty. Wonder. Joy.
Not the kind you manufacture or schedule or scroll past
but the kind that just… finds you.
In the quiet. In the laughter. In the way the light hits a field at the end of the day.
Mud on shoes.
Dirt under fingernails.
Ladybugs landing on sleeves like tiny, living reminders that creation is still speaking if we slow down enough to notice.
Children.
So alive.
So free.
Fishing at the edge of the water with complete patience and complete excitement all at once.
Running to the volleyball net like it mattered more than anything.
Giggling late into the night over nothing and everything.
Archery.
The stillness before the release.
The focus. The confidence growing with every shot.
Building fires.
Small hands learning how to tend something that matters.
Watching sparks rise into the sky.
Nature journaling.
Slowing down enough to see.
To name.
To notice that God did not rush when He made any of this.
And the meals…
Dinners over a campfire, smoky and imperfect and somehow better than anything else.
Songs rising into the night air, voices unpolished but full.
The kind of singing that doesn’t perform, it just belongs.
Parents.
Teachers.
Students.
All of us together in it.
Not rushed. Not distracted. Just present.
And Jesus.
In the reverence of Mass.
In the stillness of Adoration.
In the silence that falls when a room full of middle schoolers finally becomes still enough to listen.
Really there.
Not distant. Not abstract.
But a real and living God…
encountered in the quiet of a chapel,
and somehow just as clearly in the woods, in the laughter, in the joy.
They kneel.
And they are quiet.
And you realize…
They are so good.
Not because they are perfect.
But because their hearts are open.
Because they respond.
Because they believe.
It was beautiful.
The kind of beautiful that doesn’t need to be dressed up.
The kind that leaves dirt on your clothes and peace in your soul.
Three days away…
and yet it felt like coming home.

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Upcoming Events

• Friday, April 17: 1st grade field trip; 6th-8th dodge ball tournament; First Penance 7 p.m.
• Saturday, April 18: First Holy Communion 10:00 a.m.
• Monday, April 20: 2nd grade pilgrimage
• Tuesday, April 21: Preschool/Kindergarten field trip; CSS food market; Band Concert, 7 p.m. at Pius
• Wednesday, April 22: Pius One-Act performing at St. Teresa's at 1 p.m.
• Thursday, April 23: Walk the Little Way 1 p.m.
• Friday, April 24: Early dismissal 1 p.m.; 4th grade server training 1-3 p.m.

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