Welcome to Oblate Academy!

Introducing our children to stories and experiences that model the virtues are important for their development in cultivating a virtuous and purposeful life.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us:
A virtue is a firm attitude to do what is right. Its direct opposite is a vice. A vice is a habit to do what is wrong. Prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance are called the human or cardinal virtues because they forge our human character. These four habits assist us in developing a pure heart that is open to God’s will.

“The moral virtues grow through education, deliberate acts and perseverance in struggle. Divine grace (God’s special help that strengthens us) purifies and elevates the virtues in our lives.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church #1839

I hope you will enjoy the straightforward and easily understandable explanations and resources we have prepared to help you teach and model the virtues.

Fr. David P. Uribe, OMI

This Month’s Virtue is: Respect

“Children, obey your parents {in the Lord}, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother.” This is the first commandment with a promise, “that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life on earth.” (Ephesians 6:1-3).

Teaching Tips:

  • Explain to your child the meaning of respect, which means to give something or someone particular attention and consideration. To respect someone means you recognize he or she is important and deserves to be treated well. God calls us to respect one another.
  • Teach your child to show respect for elders, parents, teachers, priests, and other leaders in our community. They can practice respect by using manners to show kindness and consideration for others: by saying please and thank you, by asking for things politely, by addressing others as sir and ma’am, and by responding to comments or requests with a kind “yes, sir” or “yes, ma’am.”
  • Explain to your child that respect is a habit which is central to human happiness. People treated with respect daily are more helpful and happy to be around you. Your respect shows that you value them and their contribution.
  • Teach your child that acting respectfully can stay with them for a lifetime. For example, being quiet when someone else is speaking is a sign of respect. Not interrupting and waiting for a pause in conversation before interjecting are signs of respect. The greatest respect we can show someone is listening while they speak. During mass, sitting quietly, listening attentively, not playing or moving around are all signs of respect.
  • Physical belongings also need our respect. Taking care of possessions, putting them away properly, ensuring they are not lost or left behind, is another way of showing respect. If we truly believe that every gift we have comes from God, then we should respect all that we have, including our things.
  • Explain to your child that we pray for others as well as ourselves. We ask God to guide us to make good choices, and we show respect for others by praying for them too. Praying for others is respectful, even if they have wronged us. We can ask God to help us find a way to forgive them. Prayers that help others who are hurting and in need of God exhibit the virtue of respect for others, not only ourselves.
  • Use the Respectful Environment worksheet and ask your child to draw examples of how they can show respect at home, church, and school. Next to each drawing, have your child list 2-4 ways they can show respect at each.

Activity Sheets:

Welcome to Oblate Academy!

Exposing our children to stories of the Saints is important for their faith development. The Saints are heroes of the faith! We are called to be like them and to live for Jesus.

I hope you will enjoy the story of St. Jeanne Jugan and have the same hunger for learning about God’s will that she did!

Much like St. Jeanne Jugan, my brother Missionary Oblates spend their lives in faithful service to our Lord Jesus Christ, ministering to the poorest and most abandoned throughout the world. 

Saint of the Month for March:
St. Jeanne Jugan

“In every way I have shown you that by hard work of that sort we must help the weak, and keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus who himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (Acts 20:35)

St. Jeanne Jugan was born October 25, 1792, in the French region of Brittany, during the political and religious upheaval of the French Revolution. She was the sixth child of Joseph and Marie Jugan. When she was only four years old, her father, a fisherman, was lost at sea. Her mother struggled to support the family. Despite the anti-Catholic persecutions of the day, her mother secretly provided the children with religious instruction. Jeanne could barely read or write but worked as a shepherdess from a young age, learning to spin wool and knit.

At the age of 16, St. Jeanne Jugan became a kitchen maid for the Viscountess de la Choue, a devout Catholic, and accompanied the Viscountess when she visited the sick and the poor. As a young woman, St. Jeanne received many offers of marriage. She declined them all, certain that God had other plans for her life, although its purpose was not yet revealed to her.

When she was 25, St. Jeanne Jugan became an Associate of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, which was founded by John Eudes. She worked for six years as a nurse in the town hospital, then for 12 years as the servant of a fellow member of the Eudist Third Order, where she taught catechism to the children of the town and took care of the poor and other unfortunates.

In 1837, Jeanne rented part of a small cottage with Francoise Aubert and Virgine Tredaniel. Together they formed a Catholic community of prayer, devoting themselves to teaching catechism and assisting the poor.

In 1839, St. Jeanne met Anne Chuvin, an elderly woman who was blind and partially paralyzed, with no place to live. St. Jeanne carried her home to her apartment and began taking care of her. She gave Anne her bed and Jeanne began sleeping in the attic. Soon, Jeanne took in more women in need, and by 1841 she had rented a room to house and care for a dozen elderly people. The following year she acquired an unused convent building to house 40 of them.

From this act of charity and with the approval of her colleagues, Jeanne then focused her attention on the mission of assisting abandoned and elderly women. This began the religious congregation called the “Little Sisters of the Poor.” Jeanne wrote a simple Rule of Life for this new community of women. They went door to door daily requesting food, clothing, and money for those in their care. This became her life’s work and mission, which she continued for the next four decades.

The communities of Little Sisters spread throughout France, then expanded to England in 1851. From 1866 to 1871, five communities were founded across the United States. By 1879, the community had grown to 2,400 Little Sisters across Europe and to North America. On March 1, 1879, Pope Leo XIII approved the Constitutions for the Little Sisters of the Poor for an initial period of seven years.

St. Jeanne Jugan died in 1879 at the age of 86. Also known as Sister Mary of the Cross, she is buried in the graveyard of the General Motherhouse at Saint-Pern. She was beatified in Rome by Pope John Paul II on October 3, 1982, and canonized on October 11, 2009, by Pope Benedict XVI. He said, “In the Beatitudes, Jeanne Jugan found the source of the spirit of hospitality and fraternal love, founded on unlimited trust in Providence, which illuminated her whole life.”

St. Jeanne Jugan Prayer for Students

St. Jeanne Jugan, please be my friend.
Help me to be like you every day, to practice charity
with others and to share the gifts God has given me.
Pray for me so I might serve the poor and others in their time of need.
St. Jeanne Jugan, pray for us!

Download the activity sheet and please send me your prayer requests and petitions in the form below!