Bro. Jack Ventura, SM, Director of Mission Integration and the Ministry Lead for the Marianist Family Encounters Project at CMCP, Hollywood, FL, sends us this update.
When the Mission Integration Team met for its annual planning session in June 2024, we spoke about how we can address the faith development of our diverse student and faculty community. About 1/3 of our student population is not Catholic and comes from a variety of different faiths: Jewish, Islam, Evangelical Christians, Orthodox Christians, Baptist, and various other traditional Protestant Christians. Based on this discussion, we decided to host an Interfaith Thanksgiving Prayer Service for our educational community.
On Tuesday, November 26, our community gathered during an assembly schedule to participate in this unique and very moving prayer experience. The service was led by Fr. Bob Bouffier (Catholic Priest and our School Chaplain), Rev. Grant Wiseman (Episcopal Priest and husband of the Chair of our Foreign Languages Department), Rabbi Arielle Shimko (friend of
Bro. Jack Ventura’s family), and Pastor Michael Anderson (Baptist Minister and Pastor for our football coach, Dameon Jones).
Our school choir opened our prayer with a gathering song, and we listened to readings from the Hebrew Scriptures, Christian Scriptures, Catholic and Episcopal theologians, and poets. After each reading, each minister gave a short reflection on their reading and the meaning of Thanksgiving in each of their faith traditions. We were also privileged to have one of the students read the Shema in Hebrew. From all the comments we received from students, faculty & staff, and our guest ministers, I know this prayer experience will become a new tradition for our educational community at CMCP.
Left to Right: Pastor Michael Anderson (New Jerusalem Baptist Church), Fr. Robert Bouffier, S.M. (Campus Chaplain- CMCP), Rabbi Arielle Shimko (Miami Jewish Health), Dr. Judith Mucheck (Head of School – CMCP), Rev. Grant Wiseman (St. Mark's Episcopal Church)
This is a very practical fulfillment of Goal Three! The reality is not all our students are Catholic, but all have faith tradition that can be strengthened. Thanks for sharing this.