SJV Middle School Ministry

09/12/2023

08/14/2022

It's kind of an embarrassing thing to admit at this point in my life, but when I first heard the story of St. Maximilian Kolbe, I wasn't that impressed. It didn't seem to really match with his wild popularity.

What I heard was basically this: St. Maximilian Kolbe freely died in a concentration camp so that a father with a wife and kids could live. It's heroic. Absolutely. But in a lot of ways it is a type of heroism that happens every day. Everyday men and women are risking their lives or laying down their lives so that others may live. I don't want to diminish the heroism, but I didn't quite understand what made St. Maximilian's choice stand out so much.

Now I get it.

Of course, St. Maximilian Kolbe is a saint not just because he offered his life, but rather because he was already a saint, he offered his life.

From my understanding, the concentration camp was designed to strip you of everything: food, comfort, sleep, trust in your fellow men. It's accumulative effect was to make people become solely focused on their own survival. It regularly turned prisoners from good men into traitors and criminals.

Think only of what happens to you when you get a little less sleep, have a little headache, get stuck in traffic, etc. How quickly we can drop all semblance of virtue.

With everything taken away from him, St. Maximilian Kolbe, through the grace of God and devotion to the Immaculata, remained a man for others. He remained others centric, because he was God centered. It's really hard to comprehend how heroic it is to have the freedom and the charity to choose to die for another man, after months of suffering in a concentration camp. It is so radical, it points to only one logical solution: grace; Christ alive within St. Maximilian.

St. Maximilian Kolbe is the saint who bore witness that "light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." May we, through grace, be unconquerable light as well.

05/25/2022

A lot has changed at St. John Vianney in the last few years. We have many new faces while some have moved on. Through this effort, we hope to survey the parish to identify the state of our community in 2022 to better serve you, hear your feedback, and connect with your households. We need the participation of all households associated with our parish, including those who have previously been registered!

Five minutes is all it takes to fill out the online census: https://stjohnvianneyhou.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/90/responses/new

10/18/2021

07/21/2021

Get involved in SJV Youth Ministry! Join us Thursday for community and faith night.
Find out more about our program at https://www.stjohnvianney.org/faith-formation/youth-formation/youth-ministry/

06/17/2021

We are all sinners, but never give up the path that leads you closer to Jesus.

Persevere.

08/04/2020

Blessed of St. John Vianney! Pray for our parish patron and vocations! We hope you can join us for Mass or prayer in our chapel now through the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary 🙏

07/29/2020

If you haven't been to church in awhile we want to personally invite you to attend again at St. John Vianney! The church capacity is over 1000 and even on Sundays it doesn't go above 300 in attendance, you basically get a whole pew to yourself and half of them are off limits to seating for social distancing, other obvious safety protocols are in place like hand sanitizer and masks, contact us if you have *any* questions and we hope to see you soon! 😀🙏

04/10/2020

04/02/2020

Sean is going to be leading our Junior High Session this Thursday at 5:00pm via zoom. Here is the invite to join! Matt will also be there to meet all of our Junior High teens.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/986716522?pwd=NVhLSXIxOHc5V2h5cG9SZFdmREVyUT09

Meeting ID: 986 716 522
Password: 072362

Here is the YouCat PDF
https://www.cdowcym.org/documents/resources/YOUCAT.pdf

We do plan on these meetings being a weekly occurrence for the time being!

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