Happy Father's Day! What are you doing this summer?

What are you doing this summer?  Consider putting some of these opportunities on your calendar!

Training for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd

The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is a Montessori-based religious education program that addresses the religious potential of children ages 3-6 (Level 1).  It is in its 11th year at our parish.  Please consider joining us in this beautiful ministry!  Part 1 of a 2-part catechist training course takes place July 7-12, 2014 (part 2 to take place July 2015) in Clinton, MA.  The cost of Part 1 of the course is $200.  For more information, please contact Kateryna Cuddeback at 617-504-3028 or kcuddeb [at] gmail.com

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Are your relatives calling you?  They want to know what the summer plans are. 

Well before you give away all your dates to in-laws, make sure you mark your calendars!

SECOND ANNUAL SAINT AGNES CAMPOUT

July 18-20, 2014

Greenfield State Park, NH
"Day Campers" invited to join us on Saturday, July 19th*

Details:

1. If you know you are coming (or when you decide you are coming), please use this form, so we can keep track of how many people and WHO we are expecting to meet at the park! Ultimately, I will need everyone to fill out this form, so I have names and numbers in case of any emergency. So go ahead and fill it out ASAP.


2. The dates for this camping trip are July 18-20. We will plan to camp at Greenfield State Park in Greenfield, NH - about an hour-and-a-half drive from Arlington. This park has come highly recommended as a fun and easy park for family camping. The park features camping (with toilets/showers), hiking, swimming, fishing, kayaking, canoeing, and a camp store.

3. Make your reservations now! To get more information on the park, see: http://www.nhstateparks.org/explore/state-parks/greenfield-state-park.aspx

Reservations are through Reserve America, and can be found here.  We will try to cluster our group around campsite #44 on the small loop near Beaver Pond.  A map is here.

• There are no cabins. You can bring a tent, rent a tent from REI, borrow a tent from a friend, or drive an RV (if you have one). Cost for a campsite per night is $25 + a small processing fee. This is for two adults and their dependent children. If you plan on bringing a pet, please read the park's pet policy VERY CAREFULLY and be sure to reserve a site which allows pets... since most sites prohibit pets.
• Greenfield State Park Ranger "Harry" was extremely generous to answer my many questions over the phone. He is friendly and helpful, and I can't wait to stay at his park!  Ranger Harry recommends the "Small Loop," sites 26-64 for families with small children, because it is a loop with little traffic and close walking distances.  For the most fun together, try to cluster our reservations around campsite #44.
• This is our second ever Saint Agnes Family Group camping trip. It is meant to build community and friendships that will serve as an organic support network for people in our parish, as well as encourage you to give back to the community in the way you feel called.
  Together, we will take on the great adventure of family camping! While we are really excited about this, we are using the good old KISS rule - Keep it Simple, Stupid. Therefore, we will distribute information about the campground, and a rough schedule of breakfast / activities / dinner / Sunday Masses, etc. However, each family will be primarily responsible for their own specific plans and accommodations. If you don't want to stay both nights - that's cool - come when you can. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE for your own camping trip, camping gear, CAMPING FOOD, camping survival (hehe). We will not be caravanning or providing transportation. We will meet you there!

I will be happy to answer questions, post camping tips, attempt to anticipate concerns, etc. Feel free to contact me with questions at saintagnesfamilies [at] gmail.com. See you there!

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As you make arrangements for the summer, make sure you check out our own awesome parish resource - Fidelity House!

Fidelity House offers many community summer youth programs including day camps, a summer preschool program, sports camps, and Full Day Programs!  They also have adult leagues, and a certified preschool and Pre-K that have open enrollment and start in the fall!

For more information, visit www.FidelityHouse.org

YOU are our parish! How can you help?

Are you looking for ways to become more involved in our parish this summer?  There is truly a place for each and every talent in our community.  Below is listed several very specific volunteer needs, however the list doesn't stop there.  If you would like to help at our parish, if you have a passion or a talent you would like to share, but aren't sure how - JUST ASK!  We will point you in the right direction to put these wonderful God-given gifts to work.

In the meantime, if you can help with any of the needs below, please email the Outreach Coordinator, Marianne.Hudelson [at] gmail.com.  Thank you very much!

SUMMER 2014 VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES:

1. Respect Life Rose Drive - June 14-15, all Masses

2. Parish Ice Cream Social - June 27, 6:30 pm

*Volunteers needed for set up, serving, and clean up

3. Join a 5-person committee to keep the Giving Tree around this Christmas

4. Give an elderly parishioner a ride to your regular Sunday Mass

Can you help?  Fill out an easy form, HERE.

Also check out:

• Links at the top right-hand page for: Saint Agnes Parish, Saint Agnes Music Ministry, Fidelity House, Saint Agnes School, and Arlington Catholic High School.
• Ongoing ministries that need help include: Boston Sock Exchange, Driving Parishioners to Mass, and Sunday Coffee Hour
• See our Parish Pamphlet, to help you learn about all of our parish's different ministries.

Mom's Night In on Thursday

Here's a friendly reminder that Mom's-Night-In is tonight: THURSDAY, June 12th

We will get together for a stress-free evening, and play some get-to-know-you games (think: Apples to Apples) . I would rather not publish

the hostesses address, so please email me at saintagnesfamilies [at] gmail.com if you plan to come. Please bring a snack or drink to share!

 We will kick it off at 7:00 pm.

Catholic Reading Wednesday

With many thanks to our wonderful and insightful curator, Karen Celano, you can delve into a faith-related news article each Wednesday! Karen writes:

This week, one of the world’s most famous atheists, Richard Dawkins, made minor headlines by suggesting that reading fairy tales to children is dangerous because it may encourage a pernicious belief in the supernatural. While Dawkins’ words were not, in reality, as stark as the headlines made it seem, his skepticism of the value of fairy tales is indicative of a broader cultural disdain for religious faith in favor of the hard “facts” of science and technology. In fact, philosopher and atheist Peter Boghossian recently went so far as to say that religious faith is an‘epistemological virus’ that needs to be ‘contained and eradicated’ from the human race.

The fact that religious faith and fairy tales are connected in Dawkins’ mind is no coincidence. Nor is it a coincidence that the fathers of speculative fantasy fiction – J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis – were both believing Christians. In his famous essay, “On Fairy Stories,” Tolkien writes that fairy tales were an early introduction for him to the concept of sacramentality: they revealed to him “the potency of words, and the wonder of things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine.” He also speaks of how fairy stories, by introducing the reader to a different world with rules different from our own, enable us to reassess our world in a new way – similar to the ways in which religious faith reminds us that God’s rules are not ours, and that we must constantly question our world in light of God’s kingdom. In a similar vein, C.S. Lewis testifies to the sacramental power of stories, writing that myth “takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the ‘veil of familiarity’.” And both Tolkien and Lewis attest to themoral value of fairy stories in posing moral dilemmas of good and evil and demanding listeners to think morally. This moral element of fantasy lends them a truth-value that takes them beyond the factual knowledge that science can provide. As Lewis wrote, “Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

Tolkien and Lewis focus on the moral and proto-religious nature of fairy stories, but even Albert Einstein reputedly recognized their value in stimulating a scientifically-minded curiosity and imagination. Thus, he is remembered to have responded to a mother who wanted to know what reading material to give her son whom she wanted to be a scientist: "Fairy tales and more fairy tales." Scientists above all should know the value of creative thinking in scientific development – especially when the ideas produced through imaginative thought seem improbable according to current scientific understandings. In a recent Scientific American article, "The Case Against Copernicus," the author speaks of the scientific community’s opposition to Copernicus’ theory that the earth revolved around the sun. Far from devolving into battle between science on the side of Copernicus and blind faith against him, the case against Copernicus was spearheaded by skeptical, slow-adapting scientists. Copernicus, for his part – with no scientific evidence to back him – argued that his theory was possible on the basis of God’s omnipotence. Although eventually science proved Copernicus correct, without his far-reaching creativity of thought he would not have been capable of thinking “outside the box” of scientific orthodoxy – and helping us to learn more about the world. Perhaps, without the “epistemological virus” of his faith, Copernicus would not have come up with his model of heliocentrism.

Our culture, while not generally holding as extreme a view as Dawkins or Boghossian, is subtly and perhaps unconsciously acquiescing with their anti-faith ideology, as certain new curricula in elementary, middle, and high schools are encouraging students to read more “non-fiction,” “informational” texts while de-emphasizing “classic” and fictional literature. This is done, we are told, for the sake of teaching children how to be “critical thinkers” for a new technological age. At the same time, however, fantasy literature and entertainment for both youth and adults are abounding, indicating a yearning in our society for the very experiences Tolkien and Lewis attested to: a desire to experience the world in a new, creative way that challenges how we conceive of reality. Tolkien and Lewis would not be surprised: they would see this yearning as part and parcel of man’s innate desire for God. We yearn for creativity because we are built in the image of God the Creator. Dawkins and Boghossian would do well to remember that even science would not exist without the curiosity and imagination that fairy tales – and religious faith – inculcate in our minds and hearts. Critical thinking isn’t enough. Sometimes we must take a leap of faith.

Saint Agnes Parish Bible Camp - REGISTRATIONS DUE FRIDAY

Welcome! Saint Agnes Outreach will host an initial, 4-day trial-Vacation Bible School this summer from June 24-27, 9:30 am - 12 noon. The end of the week will conclude with an ice cream social for the parish on Friday evening at 6:30 pm. We will admit 40 children, ages 4-8 years old, on a first-come basis.  You can find registration forms in the back of church, or on the Outreach website, www.SaintAgnesParish.blogspot.com.  If you would like to contribute to this great project for our parish, please email Marianne Hudelson (Marianne.Hudelson [at] gmail.com). Thank you!

If you would like to sign up for Bible Camp, please click and print the form below.  No electronic submissions will be accepted, but you can mail a printed version in the parish center, as per the directions on the sheet.