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Crystal - St. Raphael

Country: United States
State or province: Minnesota

Team Leader
Sharon Hedman
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Recent Blog Posts

• Christmas Village 12/7/24

• Chrstkindlmarkt 11/30/24

• Drive Thru Prayer 11-2-24

• St Raphael Parish Festival 8/2 & 8/3/2024

• Crystal Frolic 2024(7/27/24)

St Raphael Parish Festival 8/2 & 8/3/2024

August 5, 2024

We had  a hot and steamy weekend for our festival with more of a crowd on Saturday than Friday.  At our booth was our popular Kids Bible Trivia and a special (bilocating?) guest, St Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

SPSE Team PhotoPastor Fr Hagen and St TeresaSaturday crowd 2024

 

Later, Teresa T. , who made our St Mother Teresa of Calcutta displays, retrieved our parish relic of St Teresa for display for a short time.  Teresa (in the middle) is shown with team members Jack and Mary and the relic.SPSE Team Photo

We gave out close to 100 of various medals. Sharon had recently filled our container for chains and it was almost empty again.  In addition to the medals, we gave out two Spanish Bibles, three Spanish Catechisms, one Spanish children Bible,  one English Bible and a few other books that had been donated.

There were three memorable encounters.  Cathy was trying to help a Protestant gentleman who told Cathy he is gathering information for a book he is writing.  He wants to as much as possible accurately portray Catholic beliefs especially that of Purgatory.  Sharon stopped by the booth to retrieve to something and pulled out our collection of SPSE brochures which we did not have space to display.  The gentleman flipped through the brochures and took several.  Sharon told him to come back, if possible, for our next Drive Through Prayer where she usually has a collection of used Catholic books for give away.

Phil and Sharon spoke to a gentleman who is an alumnus of our school.  Phil asked where he currently attends church.  He lives out of the area and gave the name of what sounded to be a non-denominational church.  Sharon said while she doesn't know if his church has communion, his church does not have the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus in communion as the Catholic Church does.  As Sharon flipped through the SPSE brochures and pulled out a few for him to read, Phil gave a longer explanation of Holy Eucharist and encouraged him to read the brochures.

Mary helped a woman and her mother-in-law.  The mother-in-law is visiting from Ecuador and does not speak any English.  They happily took  a Spanish Bible and a Spanish catechism. One of women will soon be part of a Spanish Bible study.  (Sharon, the writer of this post, can't remember which woman she was told is doing the Bible study).  It is quite possible these two women stopped at our booth last year as Sharon remembers a similar encounter and instead of a Bible, several Spanish brochures were taken.