ACTION ITEM For Iowa Homeschooling Families parents and supporters: Unfriendly rule changes are being considered by the State of Iowa

A homeschooling parent from our community informs me that:

“I wanted to make you aware of the situation with the Iowa Dept of Ed that’s trying to change rules for homeschooling, making it oppressive for us. It feels like [we’re being targeted for retaliation] prolly b/c Gov Reynolds went hard on the AEA & also with the passing of the Students First Act. Neither of these even affected us homeschoolers, but… homeschoolers [can tend to] make public schools look bad!

Please pray! Tomorrow is the day of hearings! We have contacted all reps & senators though I was told by them (who were completely unaware of this!) it’s not up as a bill or law just a sneaky rule change!”

Please pray!

Our State Representative, Luana Stoltenberg is on our side, had the following to say, and has provided these links, urging us to call and make our voices heard.

“I talked with several Representatives this morning about those rules for homeschoolers. I was told to write them through the link I sent you guys. Find everyone you can to write.
There are several meetings with the BOE because they are the ones that wrote the language on the rules. Thanks.”

So, if you feel so inclined, here is where to do that, at the bottom of this link:

https://rules.iowa.gov/Notice/Details/7587C

Homeschool Iowa has teamed up with the Homeschool Legal Defense Association with these suggestions:

Chapter 31 Rules

5:30pm, Friday 24 February-Stations of the Cross

Venerate. It’s Christ we adore; Christ and only Christ: ‘We adore you, and we bless you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.’
We also – each Sunday after Mass – adore prayerfully, with the intention of making reparations, the Holy Face of Jesus, brought before the faithful’s eyes, in an icon of the sacred impression made of his face, on the day of His passion and death.

25 February: The Second Sunday of Lent

Holy Family, Davenport: 9:30 Catechism in the Administration Center, 10:20 Confessions, 10:35 Rosary, 11:00 High Mass; after Mass, Holy Face devotion reparations, Fellowship Meal

St Patrick, Iowa City: 2:00 Rosary, 2:10 Confessions, 2:30 Low Mass with hymns

Religious Goods will be blessed after both Masses today

Jesus took Peter and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart: and He was transfigured before them. And His face did shine like the sun, and his garments became white as snow.

https://extraordinaryform.org/propers/Lent2nd.pdf

7:15am, 23 February – Ember Friday of Lent

Adoration and confessions to follow

https://extraordinaryform.org/propers/Lent1stFriday_0223.pdf

About Embertide:

Four times a year, the Church sets aside three days to focus on God through His marvelous creation. These quarterly periods take place around the beginnings of the four natural seasons.

Embertides are spent fasting and partially abstaining (voluntary since the new Code of Canon Law) in penance and with the intentions of thanking God for the gifts He gives us in nature and beseeching Him for the discipline to use them in moderation. The fasts, known as “Jejunia quatuor temporum,” or “the fast of the four seasons,” are rooted in Old Testament practices of fasting four times a year.

These four times are each kept on a successive Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday and are known as “Ember Days,” or Quatuor Tempora, in Latin. The first of these four times comes in Winter, after the the Feast of St. Lucy; the second comes in Spring, the week after Ash Wednesday; the third comes in Summer, after Pentecost Sunday; and the last comes in Autumn, after Holy Cross Day.

Ember Days are days favored for priestly ordinations, prayer for priests, first Communions, almsgiving and other penitential and charitable acts, and prayer for the souls in Purgatory. Note that medieval lore says that during Embertides, the souls in Purgatory are sometimes allowed to appear visibly to those on earth who pray for them. A good practice on these days is to light a candle on your family altar and pray for all of your loved ones who’ve died.

Source: https://www.fisheaters.com/emberdays.html