Special Thanksgiving Prayer Service Held at Notre Dame Church

The second-graders told the story of Jesus and the 10 Lepers during their annual Thanksgiving Prayer Service on Wednesday morning in front of family and peers.

The half-hour service began with a song, followed by several prayers read by the young students. The students then put on the show of the Gospel.

“This is a second-grade tradition that they do the story of Jack the Leper, it’s the Gospel for today and it helps bring it to life for them,” said Principal Caryn Durkin. “It is very special every year.”

The story of Jesus and the 10 Lepers goes that a man named Jack has the disease leprosy, which was considered not only a physically unclean disease, but spiritually unclean and lepers could not participate in worship. Along the way to Jerusalem, Jesus encounters nine others who have leprosy and heals them all, but only Jack comes back to thank Jesus fur curing him.

“We tell this story every year at this time and of course as we think about it the lesson that [we learn] is how often it is that we fail [to stop and thank God for his goodness],” said Father Bill Slater.

The lesson also teaches to be more aware of the things we take for granted.

“Tomorrow as we come together with family and friends… [we should] make a little progress in being a bit more thankful every day and not just on Thanksgiving,” Father Slater said. “Think, ‘Are there things I just haven’t said thank you for?’”

The second-graders then helped in the reading of a “Thank You” prayer to the Lord, followed by the collective “Our Father” prayer and exchanging of peace with others.  

“Part of the beauty of being a [kindergarten to eighth-grade] school is that the big ones can look back and remember, ‘Oh my gosh, I was a townsperson, or I was a leper,’ and they have such a nice interaction with the younger children,” Durkin said.

The service concluded with the singing of the song “America the Beautiful,” before the children posed for pictures and returned back to school.

“This has been an extremely generous community,” Durkin said. “We loaded boxes and boxes into the cars of the people who work at the St. Bridget’s Food Pantry; we gave them $1,000 in gift cards for groceries. Families are so very generous here and these are blessed and fortunate children and it’s very nice that their parents see that, that’s the important thing.”