Congratulations, Jimmy Lau!
The Vocations Office for the Archdiocese of Chicago has begun an award to acknowledge high school aged young men who have demonstrated outstanding leadership and ministry in the Church. The Carlos Acutis award is given annually at Mundelein Seminary.
We are proud to announce that Holy Family’s initial recipient of this award is Jimmy Lau. Jimmy attends Barrington High School. He plays volleyball as well as violin in the school orchestra. Jimmy’s extensive involvement at Holy Family includes being a Peer Minister, guiding younger teens in the Confirmation preparation process. He is a Proclaimer and a Eucharistic Minister. He has been a Kairos Retreat Leader and has been very involved in our Fanning the Flame program for high school juniors and seniors. He also leads two different programs for Christian teens at Barrington High School, encouraging athletes to reflect on and incorporate faith into sports. Perhaps most importantly, Jimmy is one of three Teen Ambassadors here at Holy Family actively building up participation in Family & Teen Faith as well as the overall mission of our parish. As you can imagine, Jimmy is a very active young man and we are very proud of him. Please join me in congratulating Jimmy and his parents, Mark and Erica Lau, on receiving this award.
Some Intentional Be More During Mass This Weekend
Inspired by the Gospel story of the gardener caring for the fig tree to make it GROW, during all Masses we are sharing more details about our Be More: Movement of Growthand particularly one of two pillars enabling this growth—Conversations in the Spirit.
Deacon Dennis Brown will preach about the story of the fig tree this weekend and then be joined by either Roshny Archer or Chester Trocha who are the co-leaders of the Leadership Committee for our Movement of Growth initiative. This committee is composed of mostly parishioners with some staff members. They have joined me in meeting and preparing this Movement of Growth for almost a year now.
Roshny, Chester and Dennis will give more details about this very important formation step and describe six objectives that will give the Conversations in the Spirit consistent focus for a wide variety of issues and goals. These objectives will be listed on cards that you will find in the pews, but my hope is that the final destination of the COMPLETED cards will be either in the collection boxes in the Narthex or the parish office.
The cards will give you the option to focus on and choose one or several objectives that you would like to begin discussing using the Conversations in the Spirit format. There is also a QR Code on the cards that you can access to share your information and choices with us.
Please know that I, and the members of the Movement of Growth Leadership Team, will respect the feedback that the Holy Spirit will give through these Conversations in the Spirit by analyzing and evaluating the comments and concerns that you will surface. As you may surmise, not every single suggestion or comment surfaced in these Conversations will be turned into an action item but we will truly be looking for the comments and suggestions that are most prominent and indicative of the direction and movement for our future here at Holy Family.
Much more will follow about this movement into our future.