Gulf Pine Catholic

Gulf Pine Catholic • October 19, 2018 10 Spotlight on Schools St. Vincent de Paul Elementary School, Long Beach Our Furry Blessings BY DANNICA GILMORE Blessing of the animals was a very special day for the whole school. It was held at the school on Carline Circle October 4. The first thing I saw when I arrived was a ton of dogs. But I did see one animal that stood out of the crowd, a rainbow bone conductor snake. When the light shone on its scales, it reflected a beauti- ful rainbow. We celebrated this special day because it was the feast day of St. Francis and Mrs. Church wants all of us to know that blessing of the animals is a very special day that we celebrate together as a school fam- ily, and it shows how much we love all of God’s cre- ations, big or small, human or animal. Hope Ponte with her pet cat Lily Husband with her pet fish Dannica Gilmore with her pet parakeet Emily Reinike with her pet dragon “The Snake” Student Retreat BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON On Friday, September 28, St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School held a student retreat. Its purpose was to think about the things we can do for God and to learn how to be Intentional Disciples. Mrs. Church said that she wanted us to reflect on what it means to be a disciple. The theme of our retreat was POWER . We used the word power as a mnemonic to help us remember what we need to do to be disciples. Pray from the heart; Obey the Holy Spirit; Worship with the Church; Explain our faith to others; and Read the bible. Some of the things that kids liked most about the retreat was watching the Matthew Kelly video in the beginning and see- ing the POWER project come together. Students working on a piece of a project Students adding their class’ part of the big POWER project Left, Aubrey Canzoneri, Ethan Cuevas, Collin Wahl with their POWER project Mrs. Church explains to the gathered students (grades 1-6) that Jesus gives us power to follow Him and be his disciple and we use our POWER (prayer, obeying the Holy Spirit, worshiping in church, explaining our faith to others, and reading the bible) we really are Disciples of Jesus.