St. Anthony Indian Mission
Before Easter we had the pleasure of our bishop visiting to celebrate Confirmation. On the day we were joined by Navajo youngsters from our sister parish of St. Patrick’s. It was a great celebration with 24 young people being confirmed. A touching moment was when a mother and her daughter were confirmed together by our bishop. St. Anthony’s students proved to be genteel hosts to our visitors and together they charmed our bishop. We are forming some wonderful young people into great citizens.
Immediately following the excitement of Confirmation, we had another First for St. Anthony’s. Our graduating class headed to Indiana for an experience at Notre Dame University. The students and parents had been fund raising for the trip. An ever-popular raffle was held with donated prizes and Sunday “cake walk”. (Our students excel at selling raffle tickets!) With only six families involved, I was surprised that they raised over $2,000.
The objective was not sightseeing but to encourage Native American students to think about college education, explore opportunities, see the benefits as well as meeting up with students at the university. Sucessful? Well, all of the students have been re-thinking possibilities open to them and at least one has already set in motion applications which I pray will lead to a university degree in a few years. Needless to say when I asked one of them what was his strongest recollection of the trip the answer was “the football field”!
Hot on their return, our 8th graders, led our May service of crowning the statue of our Lady. From start to finish it was conducted by the students in traditional Zuni attire in a truly respectful and sincere devotional exercise.
