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Countdown to ACE Marathon 2012

on Wednesday, 07 September 2011.

The history of this fundraising extravaganza



The ACE Marathon began in 2002 when a small group of ACE teachers decided they were crazy enough and dedicated enough to run 26.2 miles to raise money for one of ACE’s neediest schools, St. Malachy, in South Central Los Angeles. Over the course of the year, this small yet committed group raised enough money to keep the doors of St. Malachy open--and a new ACE tradition was born.

Since that start in LA over nine years ago, the ACE Marathon has made stops in New Orleans, Austin, Tampa Bay, Birmingham, Ft. Worth, Pensacola, and Phoenix, and has raised nearly $300,000 for ACE schools along the way. Last year alone, runners in the Phoenix marathon raised over $27,000 for St.Therese Catholic School as well as the various schools at which the ACE runners teach. As you can see from the picture above, they were none the worse for wear!

Want to learn more? Visit the marathon website.

Regional Roundup: The Advocates Year Begins

on Wednesday, 07 September 2011.

A preview of what some Advocates regions will be up to this year

Columbus: Understanding the value of partnering with other strong service programs, Columbus will co-sponsor a Hesburgh Lecture series on parental choice with the ND club this year as well as hold a Service Learning Celebration in conjunction with Diocese of Columbus. The group will meet quarterly for Mass and once to discuss a spiritual book.

Dallas: This busy group has already done its Welcome Wagon for the new ACE teachers in the area, providing goods and groceries to the ACE house. In the year ahead, they plan to hold two fundraisers— a game watch and an Irish Trivia event. And to get the word out, they will sponsor an Advocates booth at the University of Dallas Ministry conference, and host a Theology on Tap night during which they will lead a panel discussion on Catholic schools.

Indianapolis: The Indy Advocates will continue with their highly successful Mass/Community-building/Service events, in which they gather four times during the year at 4 different Catholic schools and fulfill all 3 pillars of the movement. The group plans to hold a retreat in the spring.

New Orleans: As a start-up region, New Orleans' inaugural event will be a get-the-word-out effort: a Mass at St. Joan of Arc church followed by a fellowship dinner in the school hall. Later in the year, they plan to hold two seasonal retreats and to help establish a library, including the leveling of books, at a local school.

Portland: In addition to a monthly happy hour for socializing, networking, and getting the word out about upcoming events, the Portland region will hold two movie nights this year with a local priest leading a theological exegesis in connection to the movie. They will also host a Disc-golf tournament benefiting a local school.

Richmond: This fall, members of this new region will be volunteering at a local school's Oktoberfest. And next spring, they plan to have an intra-regional Advocates weekend retreat.

Tucson: This group will continue with their Community Nights, which they began last year to increase enrollment and parish life at Santa Cruz Catholic Church. The bi-monthly gatherings begin with prayer, then offer free classes including Adult English, Computer Skills, Parent Support, Tutoring, Child Care, and wrap up with a shared meal. Tucson Advocates also meet weekly for prayer, inviting area seminarians to join them.

10 Things You Can Do for Catholic Schools Today

on Wednesday, 07 September 2011.

5 Things to Get You Started

  1. Commit to praying once a day for Catholic schools and the children they serve

  2. Join ACE Advocates for Catholic Schools

  3. Consider your gifts—arts, business, reading, talking, monetary, technology, culinary—and put them to work for Catholic schools

  4. Keep updated on Catholic school news and resources on this website

  5. Send a note of encouragement to a teacher in your local Catholic school

And 5 More for Good Measure:

  1. Bake cookies and bring them to your local school for staff and faculty to enjoy

  2. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper about the value of Catholic schools.

  3. Get the word out about Catholic schools from the comfort of home: use tools like Facebook and Twitter

  4. Plan a BAB (“bring a book”) Game Watch and collection for Catholic school lovers

  5. Create a website where schools in your diocese can publicize their fundraisers and community events

The Digging IEI's Researchers Do

on Wednesday, 07 September 2011.

What the Center for Research on Educational Opportunity is up to

 

In a nutshell, scholars at the IEI's Center for Research on Educational Opportunity (CREO)* are studying schools and student learning. In one study, called the Catholic Schools Effectiveness Project, they are looking at how students, schools, and communities contribute to learning in Catholic schools.  Another bank of research, called the What Makes Schools Work Project, is seeking the ever-elusive answer to how schools, teaching, and student achievement are related. Researchers are also assessing ACE's teacher training program. Learn more about CREO's research here.

*This mouthful of a moniker was first coined in a groundbreaking Civil Rights study (often called the Coleman Report) in the 1960s. In it, Dr. James Coleman considered whether students have the same opportunity to succeed in school regardless of race, religion, and national origin. His answer? No. Read about this report and a 40-year follow up study here.

Finding Peace within Chaos

on Thursday, 11 August 2011.

A Reflection from Fr. Lou DelFra, CSC

We all like to think of Jesus as a man of peace.  That’s one of our main categories for picturing Jesus – a man of peace. He preached peace. And we also imagine that his interior life was very peaceful, very centered. And surely this is true.

Yet, if we look closely at the Gospels, it is impossible not to notice that Jesus’ daily life was anything but peaceful. Just the opposite – it was a life of CHAOS and COMMOTION!  In fact, the chaos that surrounded Jesus often overwhelmed him.

We hear in one story that after Jesus began healing people, so many sick people came to see him, and try to touch him, that four guys actually had to lower a paralyzed man through the roof. And by the end of the day, Jesus was overwhelmed with the demands made on him, and the Gospel of Mark says, he had to sneak away to a quiet place.

Another time, so many people came to hear Jesus that he had to get into a boat and teach the crowds from off-shore because, the Gospel tells us, he was afraid of being crushed. That’s hardly the story of a person who lived a peaceful daily life. This was a man who understood the phrase – “I’m being pulled in a hundred different directions. ” The demands of daily life often overwhelmed Jesus.

And yet, we also know that Jesus was a man of deep, and centered, peace. So the question becomes: how does he pull it off?!! How does Jesus stay centered, and interiorly peaceful, in the midst of a very hectic and demanding daily life?  If we could answer that, we would have some really helpful insights into how to live our own lives, which are also very demanding.

Well, there are all kinds of answers we could come up with.  I came up with four based on the Gospels, and these are in no way exhaustive.

1. Jesus often withdraws to pray.  How many times in the Gospel do we read, “And Jesus withdrew to a solitary place to pray"?

  • Before he gave the Sermon on the Mount
  • Before he selected the 12 apostles
  • At the Transfiguration
  • In the Garden at Gethsemane

Time and again we read it, almost a throwaway line: “And Jesus withdrew to a solitary place.”  It raises the question for us: how often do we take time to be in silence, alone with God? To pray. To re-energize, to re-focus, to re-gain our peace. We’ve got to be able to do that from time to time, if we’re going to keep our centeredness and our peace.

2.  Jesus surrounds himself with friends who supported him in his mission. We know at one point, Jesus is so overwhelmed that he complains out loud: “There are so many people, like sheep without a shepherd. Pray to the Master of the Harvest that he will provide more laborers to tend to them.” That’s Hebrew for: I only have two hands here!  And the next passage tells us, he went and chose the 12 apostles.

So Jesus made sure not to take on the world alone. Jesus so clearly in the Gospels often regains his centeredness by sharing a meal with his friends, by surrounding himself with others who are dedicated to the same mission.

This is an important lesson in leading peaceful lives, interiorly. And it is a hard lesson for us Americans. Because we are individualistic, and like to get things done on our own. And we’re often too proud or stubborn to ask for help. But its no coincidence that we’re also often fried – our nerves are shot, we’re constantly tired, we quickly lose patience with others. Jesus lived a life at least as hectic as ours, maybe more. But he did not live it alone; he lived it with a group of friends who shared in his labors.

3. If we read the Gospels closely, we’ll see that Jesus, though he’s constantly working for the mission, doesn’t spend a ton of time focusing on what the mission is costing him. Rather, when he thinks about his work, he thinks about the good it is doing for others. He thinks about it in terms of service to others.

If we spend too much time thinking about how much energy we’re expending on behalf of others, we start to wonder why others aren’t more thankful, or why others aren’t working as hard as us (remember the story of Martha and Mary). Jesus doesn’t spend a lot of time on this. Rather, he stays focused on the good he is doing for others. And this seems to increase his energy, not drain it. 

Not thinking too much about the cost, but about our service to others: it’s not an act of self-deception, it’s an act of inner peace.

4. To the extent that Jesus does focus on himself, it is almost always in realizing his life is in the hands of His Father:

  • “I have come to do the will of my Father.”
  • “My Father and I are one.”
  • “I speak not my words, but the words my Father has given me.”

We never get to hear how Jesus prayed when he was alone on the mountainside. But we do get to see what happens afterwards. No matter if he experiences the adulation of the crowd, or the criticism of the Pharisees; the success of someone accepting his teaching, or the disappointment of someone walking away--a leper, a blind person, an adulterer, an authority--whatever and whomever he encounters, positive or negative, he seems absolutely convinced that this moment is unfolding in the hands of his Father, and his Father’s plan for his life.

Jesus models us for a way of life that always realizes that, whatever we are being asked to do, it is all unfolding in God’s Providence, and never apart from that Providence. And this brings with it the gift of peace.

This is how a person in the middle of a daily and unrelenting whirlwind stays centered and at peace:

  1. Taking time to pray
  2. Not taking on the world alone, but with friends in faith
  3. Focusing on the good we are doing for others, rather than the cost
  4. Realizing that our lives are unfolding always in the hands of God