St. Albert the Great Newman Parish
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  • Parish
    • Contact Us
    • Parish Staff
    • Pastoral Leadership
    • Our Mission
    • Strategic Plan
    • Gift Shop
  • Sacraments
  • Ministries
    • Liturgical Ministry
    • Outreach Ministries
    • Sponsors & Mentors
  • Faith Formation
    • Religious Education 1-5
    • Confirmation
    • Life teen Youth MInistry
    • Adult Faith Formation
  • Campus Ministry
  • Donate

Students Share About Retreat

2/26/2017

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Dear Newman Community,
 
Last weekend Sal took a group of students to Bonita Park Retreat Center in the Ruidoso area for an adventure style, ropes course based retreat we called Camp Amistad. Here is a bit of the experience as told by a few of our students who were able to participate:
 
Carlos Trujillo: Camp Amistad was great. It was nice to get away from school and take in the beauty and fresh air of southern New Mexico's mountainous region (it reminded me a lot of home, which was a welcome surprise). The group building activities were really fun...we definitely found ourselves laughing a lot. This was a great retreat to reflect on our individual walk with God, as well as reflect on the significance of community and companionship. It was good time, I'm glad I went! 
 
Clara Roberts: Camp Amistad was an opportunity for me to deepen my relationships with Christ and with the Newman community. The cooperation and support shown by everyone throughout the retreat was beautiful and I am blessed to have been a part of it. My highlight was probably the zipline and the leap of faith, because I never would have imagined doing those things before this weekend. But through God's grace and the love of everyone around me, I was able to find the courage to trust in Him and not worry about what might happen.
 
Renee Baca: My biggest takeaway from this retreat is that trusting is a choice. We make countless choices each day that contain some amount of trust we place in them in hopes of a greater good. But even when we doubt ourselves and everything around us, God trusts us. He continues to give us life and a mission each day because He believes we can accomplish and overcome them even when we think it is impossible. It brings comfort and peace to know that the most perfect being trusts me, with all my imperfections and mistakes. And, since I now know He trusts me, I am able to freely choose every morning to put all my trust in Him no matter what that day may bring.
 
Peace,
Mona
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Thankful for Our Busy-ness

2/19/2017

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Greetings!

As the calendar inches closer to the Lenten Season, campus ministry, is running on all cylinders! This weekend a group of students are up in Ruidoso for Camp Amistad, our annual winter mini-retreat. This retreat offers a great opportunity for students to get away from the stress of studies to blow off steam with some team building activities, prayer and reflection in the beautiful Sacramento Mountains. A new initiative, Men’s and Women’s groups began meeting on Tuesday and our Campus Outreach team is working on energizing tabling. Tabling serves as a great initial opportunity to interact with students and share not only our events and programs, but also the energy and enthusiasm of the NMSU Catholic community.

When we gather for these events, and the all the other events throughout the semester, I am keenly aware that we are truly blessed with some amazing students who put so much of their time and energy into these activities. They are faith filled and work tirelessly to balance their studies and part time jobs as they put their faith into action. Please continue to keep them and their efforts in your prayers!

Peace, 
​Sal

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Welcoming the Stranger

2/12/2017

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Dear Newman Community,

Last week we had the privilege to host “Welcoming the Stranger: A Community Prayer Service,” at the invitation of Bishop Cantu and other local interfaith leaders. The gathering included a press conference for the interfaith leaders to share their joint statement and a prayer service with wisdom selections from the Jewish, Lutheran, Islamic and Catholic traditions. There were over 100 people in attendance, of varying age and religion. Despite our differences, it seemed to me that we have so much in common. That through our different faith traditions runs the common thread of hospitality and welcome to the stranger, the alien, the forsaken.

From the joint statement: We come from different religious communities, each with a heritage of offering help and support to the stranger and to people in need. The figure of Abraham/Ibrahim receives accolades in each of our traditions for his unabashed welcome of people who came to the family tent. One explanation surmised that the tent must have been open to all sides so that he could best serve the visitors who came his way.

Proclamations about welcoming the stranger are expressed 36 times in the Hebrew Bible and constitute central principles in the New Testament and in the Qur'an. The stranger might have been someone from another town or a person from many hundreds of miles away in a different country. In either case, hospitality was a sign of faithfulness to God and service to our fellow human beings.

Read the full statement and view more photos on our website and Facebook page.

Peace,
​Mona
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Photos by J. D. McNamara
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Fr. Ray's Big News

2/5/2017

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Greetings!
Is it an understatement to say that Fr. Ray shared some pretty big news last weekend? While the news may have been unexpected, Fr. Ray invited us take a peek into the process that has lead him to this life altering decision. One of the first words he mentioned was discernment, and the fact that it did not end for him when he became a priest, but rather intensified. His discernment, his ‘listening to God’s still, small voice’ has lead him to joining the Augustinians.

As many students have commented, Fr. Ray’s decision is bittersweet. They speak for many of us as they note that they are saddened by his leaving our faith community, but are happy for him and inspired by his willingness to listen and follow God’s continuing call. And they are spot on, Fr. Ray’s discernment is notable as it also inspires all of us to discernment. Discernment requires one to be attentive to God’s voice and direction as we choose how to act, who to be, and what to do. We trust that God is constantly calling us, that we can hear his calling, and that we should take action in response to his calling.

​No matter our state in life, from school aged youth, retiree, college student, middle ​​aged parent, to young professional, we all engage in discernment. We are all called​to discernment, as we all have many choices to make every day. Some are minor and routine, others are larger ‘life’ choices.
Discernment Prayer
God our Father,
You have a plan for each of us,
you hold out to us a future
​full of hope.
Give us the wisdom of your Spirit,
so that we can see
the shape of your plan
in the gifts you have given us.
And in the circumstances
of our daily lives,
give us the freedom of your Spirit,
to seek you with all our hearts,
and to choose Your Will
above all else.
We make this prayer
though Christ our Lord.
Amen.
As St. Ignatius put it: “our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to God’s deepening life in me.”

Peace,
​Sal
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    Authors

    Sharing the 'Good News' of Campus Ministry!
    ​
    ​Contributors:
    -Mona Alvarez Chip,
    Director of Campus Ministry
    ​
    -Justine Del Castillo,
    Student Campus Minister

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St. Albert the Great Newman Parish
2615 S. Solano Dr
Las Cruces, NM 88005
​575-522-6202

Mass Schedule
Monday - Friday:  5:30 pm
Saturday:  5:30 pm
Sunday:  8:30 am, 11 am, 6:30 pm 

Confessions​: Saturday 4 pm