Sights and Sounds from NCEA 2013 in Houston

As my time at the NCEA Convention is coming to an end, I see that I didn’t really get to post as much as I wanted to. I still want to share some of the sights and sounds of the convention however, so I’ve put together a few things in this final post.

First, I’ve attached a recording from the second Eucharistic liturgy of the conference. This is a performance of “Be Still, My Soul” by the Houston Catholic Schools Choir. It’s a tragedy that my recording is so poor, because the choir sung this beautifully as the prelude to mass, and it moved me greatly. Here are the words:

Be still, my soul; the Lord is on your side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to your God to order and provide;
In every change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; your best, your heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul; your God will undertake
To guide the future as in ages past.
Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and wind still know
The Christ who ruled them while he dwelt below.

Be still, my soul; the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

The liturgies are always a high point of NCEA conventions, and I was blessed to be able to attend mass celebrated by our very own Bishop Blase Cupich, who is the new chair of the NCEA board.

This convention was also special to me for two other reasons. First, I was able to be present at the banquet in which our second grade teacher Linda Eber received the 2013 Distinguished Teacher Award. It was a wonderful occasion and I felt privileged to witness Linda being honored for her years of dedication and service to Catholic school students.

Second, it was my first time presenting at a national convention, and I had a great time meeting people in person that I had previously only known online. People like Barb Gilman, Nancy Caramanico, Greg Dhuyvetter, Carmen Ribera, Jim Meredith, Matthew Warner, and Ryan Blackburn.

One of the highlights was sitting around a table with Barb, Nancy, and Greg, doing in person what we before could only do online: chat about Catholic education.

And of course, it was an unbelievable joy to present to a great audience of Catholic educators. My principal, Kathy Hicks, was in the audience, as well as Linda, Nancy, Barb’s principal and AuntTammie!

Here are links from our presentation, for those of you who would like to know what we talked about:

• Catholic Classrooms without Walls
• The To Teach as Jesus Did Project – be sure to check out the results of our interactive project in which over half of our audience participated!

And finally, here is a gallery of pictures I took this week:

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