Little Flower Parish at 204 1st St. N.W., Browning, MT 59417 US - We Have Been Found Worthy

Ash Wednesday

DE LA SALLE BLACKFEET SCHOOL PROJECT By Fr. Ed Kohler August 4, 2001 The purpose of this article is to introduce to you something marvelous happening in our diocese at Browning Montana. Little Flower Parish at Browning will, this fall, be host to a De La Salle Christian Brother Middle School. This historical event is a wonderful gift to us by God that will in the long run transform the faith and education level of our Catholic people. In fact the Brothers have chosen as the motto for our school "Building Faith in Education". The Lord Jesus has blessed me in many ways as a Catholic Priest. One of His greatest blessing has been to allow me accompany Our Blackfeet people on their spiritual journey with Jesus Christ. I know that many people know of the heartache and the hardship suffered by the Blackfeet people, but few know of the great love our people have for Jesus Christ. When I first came to the Blackfeet Reservation back in 1982 the Little Flower Parish here at Browning was exploding in renewal through the Cursillo movement. Those were exciting times for God's Catholic people united here on the reservation. It seemed like we had been chosen for a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit that spread like wild fire across our land. We say now that more than 2500 of our people have experienced a Cursillo. Many of our lives here have been transformed by that experience. Our Blackfeet Catholic people have honored this gift of the Holy Spirit by taking the Cursillo movement to nearly all the tribes in the western third of North America. Not only that, our people also developed a Christ centered event called "Pilgrimage" to work against drugs and alcohol. The Pilgrimage is a three-day event, using the Cursillo as a model, but structured around the Sacraments of the Church and the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Over 1500 of our people have made the three day weekend, and then they took the Pilgrimage to most all the tribes in the Western United States and Canada. As a priest it is a delight to see these blessings happen and to celebrate them around the altar of our God. I know our Lord Jesus has also delighted in our Blackfeet Catholic people and has blest them in various ways for bringing His name to so many Native American people at so many different places. In this context I believe that we have been found worthy to have the De La Salle Christian Brothers want to attempt a Catholic Middle School here on the Blackfeet Reservation. Starting a Catholic School these days is very uncommon. To have the De La Salle Christian Brothers come to do it is a miracle. The school will open this fall. We have with us two De La Salle Christian Brothers plus four LaSallian volunteers. Our school will open with a Fifth grade of about twenty students, adding a grade each year until grade eight. The name of the school will be the "De La Salle Blackfeet Middle School". Our dream is to ultimately have all twelve grades. My job will be to help the Brothers raise money for this school. Bishop Robert Morlino has been a great support in this endeavor. In my next article I will introduce the school and the Brothers to you in a more complete way. Please pray with us that the Lord Jesus Bless this school project with His will. Because this school is so new and fragile, pray too that He protect our school project from harm caused by the evil one, so that we can grow in a way that gives glory to Him. We want to use a Web Site to promote our school project. If you would like more information about the parish or the school project, please go to our web site at WWW.LittleFlowerParish.CatholicWeb.com. If you want us to send you more information or you want to help us financially you can write: Little Flower Parish, Box 529, Browning, MT. 59417. (Please feel free to copy these articles and share them with others)

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