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Schools participate in Respect Life Month activities, prayers

By KATIE LEFEBVRE, Globe staff reporter
(Email Katie)

Respect Life Month, October, helps spread awareness about respecting all life. Catholic schools in the Diocese of Sioux City have been learning about and praying for all life, from womb to tomb.

Pillar of respect
Students at Sacred Heart School in Boone are focusing on the pillar of respect this month. They began the month with a healing Mass.

“The students also participated in an art project called Practice Peace,” said Doris Riesselman, fourth grade teacher at Sacred Heart. “We made small banners that are displayed in the school.”

The students have been collecting pennies for a project called the Least Coin, which supports an organization called Church Women United. The funds will go to under privileged children throughout the world.
An all-school rosary is planned for this month to focus on prayers for life.

“There are so many messages out through the media and throughout our world that are really attacking the value of life,” said Riesselman. “As a Catholic school we need to make the students aware of our value and the value of other people. Too often they get messages through movies or games that our life is nothing. I think it is important to send the message that our lives are worth more than that.”

Riesselman noted that one thing she is doing in her classroom this year is having the students pray for each other.

“I assign the students another person to pray for,” she said. “The idea that they are praying for someone among us is something I want to stress.”

Prayers for life
Students at St. Mary’s in Remsen and Spalding Catholic in Granville have been praying the 40 Days for Life prayer each day before the beginning of school. Both schools have also participated in 40 Days for Life at Planned Parenthood in Sioux City.

“On one of the days the students were ecstatic because there were two turn arounds,” said Mary Arens, spiritual life director at St. Mary’s and Spalding.

Pro-life T-shirts were distributed at both schools – marking the seventh year at St. Mary’s and the first year at Spalding for the shirts. A record number of T-shirts were purchased this year.

Students at both schools also collected items to support the baby shower at 40 Days for Life.

“In both schools I am an advocate that education has to come first,” said Arens. “All four levels of school have gone through the educational process of what an abortion is. All life is sacred and to be respected.”

On Oct. 22 a Right-to-life prayer service was held at in St. Mary’s Church in Remsen and took the tone of a funeral Mass. A small casket draped in a black funeral pall was placed at the front, in the center aisle, as is normal for a funeral Mass. Father Bill McCarthy, celebrant for the service, wore black vestments.

At the end of the service, the funeral procession made their way to the church basement amid the tolling of a lone church bell. The Christian Leadership Team had prepared a powerpoint presentation for the students. The prayer service ended with the solemn presentation of the 2009 Right-to-Life T-shirts to each student.

“If we are going to respect life in other avenues, it has start with the unborn, those that are the most defenseless,” said Arens. “I always stress to the students that we are to be very positive and approach it in a peaceful and prayerful manner.”

The Right-to-life Mass was held on Oct. 23, with students T-K through grade 12 wearing their new prolife shirts. The belief that life is sacred from the womb to the tomb was evident by the special guests – a mother-to-be, two new mothers and residents from Happy Siesta Health Care Center. The Mass concluded with the kindergarten children giving a rose to each guest.

The Right-to-life prayer service at Spalding was held Oct. 28.

Respecting all life
The students from St. Patrick’s in Sheldon have had a busy October with Respect Life Month. The school activities and prayers this month centered around all facets of life including the unborn, newborns, children, preteens, adults, elderly, the physically and mentally disabled, and the dying.

“We also remind our students to respect those around us whom are different from us in race, culture and religion,” said Heather Davis, a teacher at St. Pat’s.

Their theme this year was “Every Child Brings Us God’s Smile.” In each classroom was a bulletin board displaying the theme and pictures of each of the students. Each child was also asked to fill out a star student sheet to celebrate himself or herself. These sheets emphasized what makes each person special and unique.

The students also wrote Respect Life recipes and said a decade of the rosary after Mass every Friday in honor of all life.

The students in kindergarten through fourth grade watched a presentation of the Kids on the Block put on by staff from the Village Northwest. This presentation focused on a variety of disabilities that kids might have or encounter in their lives.

The students in grades 5-8 went to the Village Northwest to tour the facilities and to participate in Empathy Stations. These stations simulate what it would be like to live with a brain injury.

Students participated in several tasks including dressing and undressing themselves with thick gloves on their hands and sticking their hands in cold water as they solved a math problem with glasses on that had been smeared with Vaseline.

St. John the Baptist students in Bancroft have said rosaries for life during Respect Life Month.
Other schools in the diocese have held prayers services and Masses and participated in activities making them aware of respecting all life.