Mrs. Cruz’s Christmas Letter 2018
Dear Families and Friends of Holy Innocents School,
Praised be Jesus Christ! “Today a light will shine upon us, for the Lord is born for us; and he will be called Wondrous God, Prince of Peace, and Father of future ages: and his reign will be without end.” (Is. 9:1, 5 and Lk. 1:33) With these words the Sacred Liturgy announces the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ on Christmas Day. We hope this Christmas season finds you and your family well. We unite with all Christians in welcoming into our hearts the Creator of all things true, good, and beautiful.
What a tremendous privilege it has been to partner with you in the Catholic formation of our children. It has been such a joy to experience them growing in virtue and understanding. This time of year, we like to take the opportunity to look back on the many ways Holy Innocents has been blessed: by the Lord, by our faculty and staff, by our students and families, and by our donors and supporters. We also continue to look forward in anticipation of great things to come.
When I think about the past five months at Holy Innocents, the image that comes to mind is a beautiful garden. Christ is permeating all parts of our school. Our classrooms are alive with prayer, reading of great literature, Socratic discussions, poetry recitation, rendering of maps, classical music, and much more. We were blessed this year to welcome to our staff new Latin, Music, Art, and Physical Education teachers. This is the first year of our Schola Cantorum. With the partnership of the St. Sebastian Sports Project, our athletic program has grown to incorporate extracurricular sports for all grades. Our students have been on field trips to Mission San Juan Capistrano, Discovery Cube Orange County, Lynwood Performing Arts Center to watch the Nutcracker, Whale Watching, and to Nokia Theater for Christian Service for Life. We have plans to visit the Getty Villa, Medieval Times, St. Andrew’s Abbey, and many more enriching places.
Our faculty common spaces are filled with discussion about how our children are growing in faith and virtue. With the guidance of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, our teachers are receiving professional development in the Catholic classical liberal arts tradition. Our teachers have attended the National Catholic Classical Schools Conference in Washington D.C., the Spirit and Craft of Teaching in Nashville, and the School Leaders Forum in Denver. They are providing a beautiful environment and education with Christ as its foundation.
We re-established our PTO board and have had an increased amount of parent leadership and involvement. The fathers’ prayer group G.I. Joe’s (Gentlemen Inspired by Joseph) meets monthly for prayer, work, and formation.
Our generous benefactors have provided tuition assistance and the purchasing of good literature for our Catholic classical liberal arts curriculum.
The amazing things we are accomplishing at Holy Innocents School require contributions from so many people: our dedicated faculty and staff, our hard-working students, our supportive
parents, and our generous friends and benefactors. We work hard to keep Holy Innocents tuition low enough to make the school accessible, but we even go beyond that, offering need-based aid to 64% of our current families in order to ensure that cost won’t deprive their children of the many opportunities afforded them by a Holy Innocents education.
We need your help to continue this important work to which the Lord has called us. Please consider making a generous gift to Holy Innocents this year in order to help us ensure the strength of our school as we continue to grow. (For your convenience, donations can also be made online at lbcatholicschool.com.) We ask you to prayerfully consider what you can do to help us accomplish our mission this year. We pray for you this Christmas season and ask you to continue praying for our mission at Holy Innocents and for everyone in our extended school community.
Sincerely in Christ,
Mrs. Cyril Cruz
Principal