Each year, one of the annual initiatives of the Diocese of Venice Department of Education is the development of the devotional lives of our students through a Diocesan-wide devotional project.
The 2022-2023 devotional project is “The Most Holy Eucharist: The Riches of His Glorious Inheritance.” Father John Belmonte, SJ, Diocesan Superintendent of Catholic Education, said the theme was approved and encouraged by Bishop Frank J. Dewane as it supports the ongoing National Eucharistic Revival, led by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, as well as the Diocesan Eucharistic Congress and Youth Rally on March 24-25, 2023. The devotional project during the 2021-2022 academic year was the Saints and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Saints, and during the 2020-2021 academic year it was St. Joseph.
To get the devotional project off the ground, a training session took place Nov. 4, 2022, at St. Martha Catholic School in Sarasota. The training included two eighth graders (a boy and girl) from each school who will act as Junior Catechists for this project. Just as they did in previous years, these student leaders will catechize their classmates with a classroom lesson and go classroom to classroom, teaching about our Catholic devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist.
“At our training day, we highlighted the importance of leadership in the faith, evangelization and discipleship,” Father Belmonte said. “We met for Benediction and Adoration, a training session with the students led by our Diocesan Curriculum Director, Jennifer Falestiny. I led the parents who brought their children to the meeting in a presentation on devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist.”
Father Belmonte started the training session for the Junior Catechists with the words of St. John Vianney, “There is nothing so great as the Eucharist. If God had something more precious, He would have given it to us.”
“The 15-week project is intended to bring to our students a deeper awareness and more ardent love of our Lord’s Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist,” Father Belmonte said.
The junior catechists were trained and received a Catholic Altar kit complete with miniature chalice, paten, cruets, ciborium, as well as all the elements for learning about the Mass. These eighth-grade leaders will visit classrooms at their schools to teach their classmates about the Most Holy Eucharist. They will teach on how to visit the Blessed Sacrament, encourage their classmates to learn about Eucharistic miracles and track their visits to the Blessed Sacrament.
High school students will be learning about the 15 Eucharistic miracles during their theology classes.
As part of the devotional project, Bishop Dewane gave each school a Lego Mass set, pocket prayer cards and informational cards relating to visiting the Blessed Sacrament.
“Our efforts are part of the National Eucharistic Revival initiated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to rejuvenate belief in the Real Presence among U.S. Catholics,” Bishop Dewane said.
The Catechism teaches us that the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life” (CCC 1324). It is the sanctifying grace which is the point of everything in our Catholic religion. “By learning about the Most Holy Eucharist and teaching how to visit our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, our junior Catechists will help their classmates to participate in the very life of God. St. John Vianney would be very pleased indeed,” Father Belmonte said.
In addition to the student-led classroom lessons, there will be weekly teacher-led classroom activities.
Outside of Mass times, students are encouraged to visit Our Lord in the Tabernacle. With each visit during the 15 weeks, students are asked to say the Devotional Prayer to the Most Holy Eucharist which was provided in a pocket-sized card.
In addition to the classroom aspects, this devotional project has several other components.
There is also a Digital Blessed Sacrament Visit Tracker, a website where teachers can help students keep count of each visit to Our Lord (at Mass, during Adoration, in the school or Parish Chapel) from Nov. 15, 2022, to April 10, 2023. The school with the most visits will be recognized at the end of the devotional project.
Each school also received a Catholic Altar Learning Set for a differentiated STREAM project. In December, the schools will learn about CAD/CAM 3D modeling challenge for students.
Finally, there is an art competition. As in previous years, students will be encouraged to produce art work based on our Catholic artistic tradition around the Most Holy Eucharist.
“With Bishop Dewane, it is my hope that our emphasis on devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist and the study of these various Eucharistic miracles will bring us closer to Our Lord as we visit Him truly present in the Blessed Sacrament,” Father Belmonte said. “May He inspire all of us to emulate the love He has for us to others in our schools and in the world.”
For more information about this Diocesan devotional project, please visit www.dovblessedsacrament.com.
Pope Pius XI instituted this feast in 1925 with his encyclical Quas primas (“In the first”) to respond to growing secularism and atheism. He recognized that attempting to “thrust Jesus Christ and His holy law” out of public life would result in continuing discord among people and nations. This solemnity reminds us that while governments come and go, Christ reigns as King forever.
First up, Cardinal Mooney Catholic High School Sophomore Nico Bencomo fired a -1 (71) to tie for 2nd in Florida High School 1A Golf State Championship, Nov. 12, 2022, at Mission Inn Resort and Country Club in Howey-in-the-Hills. Bencomo led Mooney to a team bronze medal.
At Mooney, five student-athletes made their announcements. They include: Jordyn Byrd, University of Texas (volleyball, the 6-foot-5 senior outside hitter is part of the 1,000 Kills Club and was the 2021-2022 Gatorade Florida Volleyball Player of the Year); Michaela Mattes, University of Florida (swimming, ranked as the No. 5 recruit in the country and No.1 out of Florida according to College 
At Bishop Verot, six students signed their letter of intent. They are: Victoria Ash, Stetson University (softball); Camryn Feast, Florida Gulf Coast University (softball), Andrew Hanlon, Brown University (baseball); Aidan Knaak, Clemson University (baseball); Sarah Yamrick, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania (softball); and Gigi Malik, University of Piedmont (lacrosse).
At St. John Neumann in Naples, Carter White and Tyler Kozera both signed to play baseball at the University of Central Florida.
Incarnation Parish and Catholic school in Sarasota both had damage and water intrusion during Ian and the winds from Nicole penetrated the tarps. Parish and school staff reported new water intrusion and teams were quick to come out to mitigate any further damage.
The 2022 St. Michael Parish Family Day on Nov. 12, 2022, in Wauchula, welcomed more than 130 families (over 250 participants to include parents and their children) for a beautiful day filled with guest speakers about parenting, a young adult guest speaker, and children learning about the Eucharist and how to have a stronger relationship with Jesus. There were family games and raffles. The day ended with a Eucharistic Procession and Holy Mass, and dinner. The day focused on prayer for the conversion of all, that they may seek God in the Eucharist to guide them as a united family.
Luke P. Rubino, a senior at Naples High School and St. Ann Catholic School Class of 2019, achieved Eagle Rank from the Boy Scouts of America-Southwest Florida Council/Alligator District with Troop 165, now affiliated with St. Ann Parish in Naples. Luke was also awarded the Good Citizenship Award presented by the Marine Corps League (E.T. Brisson Detachment #063) of Naples on Nov. 13, 2022, in the Parish Hall.
Father Luis Pacheco, Pastor of St. Paul Parish in Arcadia, recently welcomed and blessed a new group of altar servers. The blessing took place Nov. 13, 2022, for the boys and girls who completed a training program. These servers will now be able to serve at Masses each week.
The Bishop Verot Catholic High School robotics program hosted two local robotics teams to work on their designs and programming in Fort Myers on Nov. 5, 2022. The “Java the Hutt” team was incredibly helpful, as they brought their robot and helped the Verot teams get their bots built and programmed to move. The students learned about the latest version of a competition robot. The Cypress Lake team shared ideas and were instrumental in getting a playing field constructed, while advising about which materials to purchase and use to help construct future Verot robots. Events like this are vital to the growth of robotics in Southwest Florida.
St. Martha Catholic School National Junior Honor Society hosted a Thanksgiving Festival for students in kindergarten through second grade in Sarasota on Nov. 14, 2022. The students decorated their own cookies, colored placemats, created turkeys, wrote what they are thankful for, played Thanksgiving Bingo and completed Thanksgiving Math.
The most recent delivery of backpacks full of supplies came from Immaculate Conception Catholic School and Immaculata Catholic High School in Somerville, New Jersey. Officials from the schools, whose own communities were impacted by Hurricane Ida in 2021, saw a request for assistance through social media and offered to help.
Fifteen boxes of backpacks, each with school supplies and a handmade card, were shipped to Young at St. Martha. The cost for shipping was generously underwritten by an alum of Immaculata.
The items sent from Catholic schools across the country, including care packages, notes of encouragement, and school supplies, are going a long way to assist students and families who are struggling.
The generosity first came from Catholic schools in the Diocese of Venice, in areas less hard hit by Ian. The initial focus was on immediate needs of the local community, and once addressed, and the extent of the devastation in Fort Myers and Cape Coral became clear, the outreach pivoted to helping the Catholic schools in Lee County.
The 40 Days for Life fall campaign concluded on Nov. 6, 2022, with local efforts taking place in Sarasota and Fort Myers. The campaign began Sept. 28 but was delayed locally due to the arrival and impacts of Hurricane Ian.
During a closing vigil Jericho Walk on Nov. 5, Owens led a group of about 30 prayer warriors to rally and continue the fight to end abortion beyond the 40 days. The group circled the abortion facility, led by a banner which read “Viva Christo Rey – By Thy Power May Peace Come,” seven times. At the conclusion a horn blasted as everyone shouted in prayer, just as God told the Israelites in Joshua 6: 4-5, “On the seventh day march around the city seven times, and have the priests blow the horns. When they give a long blast on the ram’s horns and you hear the sound of the horn, all the people shall shout aloud. The wall of the city will collapse, and the people shall attack straight ahead.”
To remember those events, the Catholic-Jewish Dialogue of Collier County hosted its annual “Kristallnacht: The Night of Broken Glass” Nov. 5, 2022, at Temple Shalom in Naples. The event was co-sponsored by the Diocese of Venice and Jewish Federation of Greater Naples, GenShoah of SWFL, and the Holocaust Museum and Janet G. and Harvey D. Cohen Education Center.
“Each one of us has a responsibility to take action when we see anti-Semitism,” Bishop Dewane continued. “It isn’t just for the Dialogue group to resolve. It isn’t just for a Parish or synagogue. It’s for all of us to come together when we see the negativity that can rears its head, just as it did so many years ago when Kristallnacht foreshadowed what the world never thought could happen (the Holocaust) – and it did happen. You and I have responsibilities to speak out and to speak up.”
A winter resident from New Jersey and seasonal member of St. Patrick Parish in Sarasota, Owens participated several times in the 40 Days for Life fall campaign in Sarasota. The Diocesan Respect Life Office has been coordinating the campaign since the first national fall campaign in 2007.
On Nov. 4, 2022, the celebration opened with a Mass celebrated by Bishop Frank J. Dewane as students sat with their grandparents in Our Lady of the Angels School Chapel. Afterwards, everyone went to the Student Life Center for a luncheon.
“The Holy Father calls you to teach family roots, where it is they come from,” Bishop Dewane said. “Have boldness, take action in the role of holiness. Give that example by being the light of Christ, as we are all called to be. By your granddaughter or grandson being here at St. John Neuman, I say to all of you – congratulations for the role you have performed.”
