Each year, one of the initiatives of the Diocese of Venice Department of Education is the development of the devotional and prayer lives of its students through a Diocesan-wide devotional project.
For 2024-2025 the project is about Angels, which focuses on teaching the more than 6,520 Diocesan Catholic school students about Angels and their importance in Salvation History, all in a continued effort to help each student grow closer to Jesus Christ. The underlying theme for the devotional project is from the Litany of the Holy Guardian Angel: “Instruct me in the duties and truth of Salvation.”
The focus on the devotion to the Angels is supported by Bishop Frank J. Dewane, who has encouraged the devotional project since its inception in the 2020-2021 academic year.
Father John Belmonte, SJ, Diocesan Superintendent of Catholic Education, and Jennifer Falestiny, Diocesan Curriculum Director, conducted a Junior Catechist Training session on Nov 13, 2024, at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Venice. This brought together selected eighth grade leaders from each of the Diocese’s 12 elementary schools. These Junior Catechists will in turn go into the classroom to teach their younger schoolmates about the Angels, Guardian Angels and Archangels, and how to grow closer to the Lord.
“Angels experience a profound connection with God through an intimate, constant awareness of His presence, characterized by an overwhelming sense of awe, love, and absolute devotion,” Father Belmonte said. “We are all called to answer the invitation of the Lord in our hearts. The Angels are there to support us in this endeavor. In the coming months, these Junior Catechists will be spreading the message of this devotion across the Diocese.”
Falestiny explained that the whole basis for the devotional project can be found in Pslam 91:11: “For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.”
To emphasize this point, each student in Diocesan elementary schools will receive a pin. The pins are formed in the shape of a shield with a sword held by angel’s wings at the center. At the top reads, “Angel Guard.” Around the base of the shield, it reads: “Protect Me Guardian Angel with the Armor of God.”
Before the training began, Father Belmonte led the Junior Catechists in praying the Litany of the Holy Guardian Angel, something he encouraged the eighth-grade leaders to pray regularly.
The Junior Catechists training focused on the tools each will use to teach their classmates the fundamentals about Angels. Lessons are differentiated by grade level and based on the Bible and Catechism of the Catholic Church.
“Each of these lessons is customized to make Angels cool and interesting for everyone, even the eighth graders,” Falestiny said. The lesson begins by asking the fundamental question – ‘What are Angels?’ A kindergartener might only know them as little babies, the cherubs, but Angels come in all sizes, and everyone has their own Guardian Angel.”
Students in grades 3-5 will delve deeply into the theology and teaching on Angels, while the older students will go further, integrating the lesson with a STREAM (science, technology, religion, engineering, art, and math) project that will allow the students to visually represent the “Nine Choirs of Angels” (Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Archangels, Principalities, and Angels).
A key tool in the project is the book “How the Angels Got Their Wings,” by Anthony DeStefano. This is an illustrated, entertaining and biblically correct and theologically orthodox introduction to Angels, which Falestiny said will be read by the Junior Catechists in each classroom they visit.
Several teachers were present for the Junior Catechist Training and each school was also provided additional digital resources, including suggested devotional projects and lesson plans to reinforce what the Junior Catechists will teach.
As in previous years, the devotional project will include an art competition. Students will be encouraged to produce artwork based on our Catholic artistic tradition around the Angels. The Junior Catechists and art contest winners will gather in the spring for a Mass and reception.
This is the fifth year Diocesan Catholic schools have participated in a devotional project, with 2023-2024 focused on the Most Holy Rosary, 2022-2023 on the Most Holy Eucharist, 2021-2022 on the Saints and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Saints, and 2020-2021 on St. Joseph.
“We are all called to answer the invitation of the Lord in our hearts,” Father Belmonte told the Junior Catechists. “When Our Lord and Our Lady come and knock on the door to your heart, you should open the door. Your task as Junior Catechists is to knock on the doors of the hearts of your classmates, classroom-to-classroom, teaching them about Our Lady. This will help them answer the question: Are you committed to dedicating your life to God?”
The Junior Catechist Training was timed to coincide with the final apparition of Our Lady of Fatima. Our Lady of Fatima first appeared to three shepherd children – Venerable Lucia, and Ss. Jacinta and Francisco – on May 13, 1917, as a radiant light in a bush. Our Lady told the children to do penance and to make sacrifices to save sinners. Our Lady also stressed the importance of praying the Most Holy Rosary to bring peace to the world.
As part of that project, the students at each school, including St. Catherine, learned from trained eighth-grade Junior Catechists about the Most Holy Eucharist.
The 2022 Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Mass times for Parishes throughout the Diocese of Venice can be found at www.dioceseofvenice.org/news. The listings are in alphabetical order by the city the Parish is located. The complete listing will appear in the Dec. 23, 2022, e-edition of The Florida Catholic. For details on youth choirs or musical accompaniment, please contact the Parish via the phone number or website listed for further information.
St. Joseph Catholic School Jr. Catechists shared their faith Dec. 9, 2022, as they taught their younger classmates about the Holy Eucharist in Bradenton. The Jr. Catechists were promoting a Diocesan-wide devotional project “The Most Holy Eucharist: The Riches of His Glorious Inheritance.” The theme corresponds with the ongoing National Eucharistic Revival, led by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, as well as a promotion ahead of the Diocesan Eucharistic Congress and Youth Rally on March 24-25, 2023. 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.
The St. John Neumann Catholic High School YACHT Club welcomed the representatives from the Salesian high schools in Florida (Immaculata-LaSalle High School in Miami and Cristo Rey Tampa Salesian High School in Tampa) to the Naples campus on Dec. 10, 2022, for the annual Salesian DEC Retreat – Day Everyone Connects! The theme was Home for the Holidays! The YACHT Club (Youth And Christ Helping Together) is an instrumental component of the Neumann Campus Ministry Program. The mission of the club is to invite all students to the fullness of Christ’s love through service to others. Students plan and implement retreats, prayer services, liturgies, and more.
The 21st Annual Catholic Charities Christmas Appeal is continuing through January 2023. A donation to the Appeal strengthens Catholic Charities ability to provide much-needed support, for those recovering from Hurricane Ian, or who need any type of assistance in the region. This outreach is accomplished through more than 35 programs in locations throughout the 10-county Diocese. These programs annually support more than 100,000 individuals and families in ways both large and small. To support the Christmas Appeal, please visit 
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.
“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.”
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.
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.
