Welcome to Saint Gabriel's Group

In lieu of recreating the wheel, I've chosen to copy Deanna's email to the group.  She precisely describes where we are headed with the group.

 

In this new year, we have some great surprises.  Jessica Morgan used the break to come up with some new ideas for our group.  First, we have a name - Saint Gabriel's Group.  The name is taken from the Annunciation in which St. Gabriel appears to St. Mary to ask her to be the Mother of God.  Of course, she said "Yes."  Like St. Mary, God has called each of us to motherhood, and we also have answered "Yes."  Jessica is working to develop this idea further, and to represent it visually.  This leads to a second development - Jessica is creating a blog for our group.  This is very, very exciting because it will give us the opportunity to meet other local Catholic mothers, to offer and receive encouragement and support, to learn more deeply the Faith we profess, and to share ideas for teaching the Faith and customs to our children.  The blog will be open to anyone, so that those women who cannot attend our weekly meetings can participate online in our book studies.  I will let you know when the site is launched and provide you with a link.  I thank Jessica for sharing her spiritual gifts with all of us.

Speaking of spiritual gifts, I want to encourage all of you to take advantage of the spiritual gifts inventory provided by the Parish.  I have already completed mine, and while I was not surprised by my gifts, I was surprised by what were not my gifts.  I will be sharing more of this at our first weekly meeting a week from tomorrow.  Every Wednesday, from January 25 through March 28, we will meet from 9:30 to 11:30 am at St. Joseph Parish to discuss The Ten Habits of Happy Mothers by Meg Meeker.  This book by a Catholic mother and doctor is encouraging, uplifting, helpful, and enjoyable.  We will cover one of the habits at each meeting for the next ten weeks.  Don't delay - get your book now, and read the First Habit for our first meeting.  We will pray the Rosary together at the start of the meeting, and then enjoy tea, coffee, and dessert while we talk about "our value as mothers."  I will be using material from the book and the spiritual gifts inventory to introduce the topic and provide some direction for our discussion.  If you need childcare, please contact me right away so that I can make those arrangements.  

I look forward to seeing you again.

In Christ,

Deanna

 

Please stay tuned for our first online discussion.  I believe the plan is for a summary of topics discussed at each weekly meeting to be posted here for further discussion.  As is the case with every weekly meeting we tend to leave with lingering questions.  Please use this outlet as our vehicle for further discussion. See you all on Wednesday!