St. Joseph's Parish

Katie's Corner

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Prayers

  • Written by Katie Edwards

 Teaching ourselves and our children to pray everyday is vital for our spiritual life.  Since our spiritual self is not separate from our physical self, it is also vital for our everyday life.
Prayer is literally, conversation with God.  In prayer, we are asking God to help others (which we are obligated to do) for ourselves or situations, (petition).  Prayers of praise are means of giving God the glory that is His due. Prayers of Thanksgiving for the many blessings we receive are like the one leper out of the ten who returns to say thank you to Jesus. (Sometimes our hardships are blessings in disguise because of how they change us for the better).  And, last but not least, prayers to ask for forgiveness for ourselves and others are prayers of contrition.

Since prayer is a conversation with God, it involves not just us doing all the talking with our grocery list of needs, but it also involves listening.  I can’t tell you how many times over the years, I have asked God’s help in straightening someone out only to realize I needed some straightening myself, that my own attitude or behavior was exacerbating a situation.  

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Highlights from Katie Edwards

  • Written by Katie Edwards

I have been asked to write a little something for our St. Joseph’s Website on a regular basis.  The main idea is to help parents evangelize their children in the faith.  These will be practical suggestions as I am a practical person.  I have been teaching Religious Education for somewhere around 25+ years.  I have taught at the pre-school and kindergarten, 7th grade, and high school levels. 

I was fortunate to have twelve years of Catholic education.  My blue collar parents raising eight kids made quite a sacrifice to send us to Catholic Schools in LaCrosse.  When I was old enough I had to help pay for my own tuition.  I am very grateful to my parents.  I was also fortunate enough to go through my education at a time when basics were still being taught.  The 1970’s and 1980’s religious education and a large part of the 90’s was a lot of fluff and no stuff.  Consequently, many young adults today know very little about their faith and believe it doesn’t matter which denomination as long as you believe in God.  This means they don’t know how to explain the faith to their own off-spring.  Also, as a religious education teacher, I found the curriculum so shallow, that I had to beef it up or ignore it all together and build a curriculum.  Of course, this didn’t kill me as I learned a lot along the way.

Read more: Highlights from Katie Edwards