I am seeking objective input on the Symbolon Project from anyone who has used it.
Thank you in advance!
About Cay Gibson
Common Sense Book Study {Foreword}
Fr. Robert J. Hater in his awesome book Common Sense Catechesis gives catechists an instructional form to understand the “Lessons from the Past” as well as a “Road Map for the Future.”
I love that. While it’s good to know where we came from and how we got to where we are today, that’s just an echo of thoughts if the student is not given a map pointing him in the right direction. That’s so important.
Let’s get started with this book study, shall we?
The forward of Fr. Hater’s book is written by Sister Angela Ann Zukowski of the University of Dayton. She makes sure the reader is aware of the “shifts” in our society and culture. There have been political, psychology, sociology, methodology, and anthropology shifts. I’ll wait will you google some of those definitions. 😉
…..
Our whole world has changed. Is changing and “secularism, relativism, consumerism, and individualism” are making us (and especially our children) think and act differently. There’s no going back, folks. I’m sorry. Just as there is no going back to the caveman era or the stone ages, there is no going back for those of us living in the technological age. Aside from the second coming, we know too much. Man has always moved forward, never backward.
Mother the Church is wise beyond her years. While God does not change, the Church does. It is the human community on earth…ever nurturing, ever guiding.
The Popes have been guardians of the growth and changing nature of this human entity, constantly taking the rebellious, delinquent child by the neck and guiding us back, giving us a deliberate shake, and reminding us what the consequences of our actions are. And then, most importantly of all, forgiving us and embracing and welcoming us back home.
Like it or not, every home needs a disciplinarian. And every home needs a comforter. Such has always been the image of the family in the characters known as Father and Mother. This creates a balance. Life pleads for balance.
For years the family has been the unshakeable stronghold of the Church.
The domestic church linked to the ever greater Church. The “traditional Catholic family…offered balance, stability, and direction…” In many homes, it still does. I know these families. I see them in Church and CCD every week.
Yet cultural, political, environmental, global “shifts” have shifted our ways of thinking, our views, our opinions, our actions.
“The family is experiencing a profound cultural crisis, as are all communities and social bonds. In the case of the family, the weakening of these bonds is part…icularly serious because the family is the fundamental cell of society, where we learn to live with others despite our differences and to belong to one another; it is also the place where parents pass on the faith to their children. Marriage now tends to be viewed as a form of mere emotional satisfaction that can be constructed in any way or modified at will. But the indispensible contribution of marriage to society transcends the feelings and momentary needs of the couple.” — Pope Francis, from his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium
Mother Church sits there reminding us that we have been adopted by a King. We are children of God. We are loved. We have dignity. We are valuable. Procedure with caution. Listen to your Mother.
And the rebellious child spits at her and recklessly goes along with his free will, master of his senses. Many children today grow up without that fatherly influence. And without a father, there is no protection for the family.
The Church has always harbored the poor, the unwanted, the undesirables, the rejected, the homeless, the fatherless.
Numerous Popes have been the fatherly voice, fiercely reinforcing the mother’s counsel. Sometimes the Church is the only authoritative voice in a child’s life. Popes, like fathers, tend to be blunt and authoritative. With youth we don’t see the wisdom, not until we’re old and spent (miserably so)…and wisdom has found us. It’s all quit natural. And then we wish we had listened more to that old reckoning voice.
It might help to remember that the Church is over 2000 years old. That’s pretty old by anyone’s standards. And pretty wise.
The Church has outlived emperors and plagues and generals and presidents and kings and it will outlive each of us.
Perhaps we, people of the 21st century, would be wise in listening more closely to the trail of wisdom left by a Church founded by the Voice of God.
Perhaps that is what we need to tell the children who come through our religious education doors this school year. If they desire to be open-minded, begin by listening to the Voice of God that is older and wiser than their parents and grandparents.
The questions Sister Angela mentions are:
- Why is there such a loss of Catholic culture and identity today?
- Why is parish participation rapidly declining?
- Why are Catholic unable to clearly and convincingly explain their faith when confronted?
These are questions catechists in the schools needs to address and know.
Pope Francis challenges catechists: “The catechist, then, is a Christian who is mindful of God, who is guided by the memory of God in his or her entire life and who is able to awaken that memory in the hearts of others. That is not easy! It engages our entire existence! What is the Catechism itself, if not the memory of God, the memory his works in history and his drawing near to us in Christ present in his word, in the sacraments, in his Church, in his love?
“Dear catechists, I ask you: Are you in fact the memory of God?” (September 29, 2013)
In order to be the memory of God, wouldn’t it make sense to have a “historical catechetical perspective”? To “learn from the past in order to re-imagine the future”?
Fr. Hater, in this book, helps us to follow the Church’s vision and mission in evangelizing and disciplining the Church and why it will take new approaches and methodology for catechesis in today’s ever-changing world.
Common Sense Book Study
I read this book in less than a week. It’s that good. That easy. That sensible. That practical. That informative.
It’s simply full of good common sense.
It’s so good I’m getting my catechists started with it this school year.
I think an online book study is probably the easiest, most common sense way for us all to discuss this book, share ideas and thoughts regarding the past while supplying a roadmap to the future, and starting off a great catechetical year of learning.
This topic concerns all catechists and Catholic parents. The world has changed. The Church has changed.
God has not.
What have we lost? What have we gained? How has that changed our identity as Catholic people? What is our responsibility to our children? Why don’t people care anymore?
Order the book here: Common Sense Catechesis by Fr. Robert J. Hater
Each week we’ll read and discuss a chapter and I will have a chapter summary posted here to help you see the important points Fr. Robert J. Hater makes in his book. Questions (as a post-Vatican II youth being raised by pre-Vatican II parents) I’ve wondered about. Areas I’ve surfed aimlessly. Concerns I’ve struggled with. A faith that I continue to love.
Join book study discussion here: CRET: Catholic Religious Education Teachers (comments in the combox here are always welcome for discussion)
Additional Related Article:
On Catechesis: Love and Common Sense by Jennifer Fitz
Concise Book Review by Sean Ater
Evangelizing Teens
Jared Dees at The Religion Teacher tells us simply how to evangelize teens.
“Teenagers today are struggling. They are wounded. Some have big wounds caused by abuse, both physical and emotional. They have big, challenging issues with sexual abuse, physical abuse, drugs, and alcohol. So many of them–even the popular kids–feel like outcasts. They feel unwelcome and not accepted for who they are. This isn’t a Catholic problem or a Christian problem, it is a human problem. Kids need healing.”
Until we give people (especially teens) the healing they are seeking, all other attempts to evangelize falls on rocky soil.
The ground must be tilled, built up, fertilized, watered and tended. Tended well.
In five years of DRE-ship, I’ve felt, more than I’ve seen, the hurt in the teens who are reluctantly dropped off in our church religious education building. The pressure is upon DREs and catechetical teachers alike to “teach” the faith to these teens. How does one “teach” a child who no longer “feels”?
The elementary groups are easy enough. We sing, we craft, we play, we act, we listen. They are happy. Then the hormonal teen years hit. Memorization/Q and A means nothing to hurting teens.
This is what Pope Francis and the creators (Pastors John Baker and Rick Warren) of Celebrate Recovery (Catholic connections are available nationwide) know very well. The program’s recovery principles are a Christ-based approach to the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous whose original 12-steps will be familiar to those who practice the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises.
The memorization of the Baltimore Catechism must be done in the elementary years.
For junior high/high school students, something new needs to be prayed upon.
To take liberal use of Jared Dees’ article:
“God loves them but they don’t know it yet. We can’t teach it. We can’t even preach it. We have to show it. We have to show them that they are loved and they are lovable through our own love for them. It’s hard to do. It takes courage. We have to listen and feel their pain. We have to empathize and feel compassion. We can’t run or hide from these conversations. We can’t avoid it. If we do, we validate their fears. We have to enter into their wounds and share with them the fact that we are wounded too. We aren’t immune to pain or the fear of rejection even today. As Christians we certainly don’t avoid the pain. This is the path to healing. The reassurance that they are not alone.”
Then the kicker…
“Most people don’t realize it, but this is the first and most essential step to doing evangelization. It doesn’t seem like evangelization because we’re not really talking about God or Jesus or the Church quite yet. We’re just listening and offering to be there for them.”
My concern is that we, representatives of the Catholic community, are having to be there and listen to them in place of/in spite of the family members who should be the first examples of Christian life to the children. And, in a number of cases, the hurt is coming from within those family units.
Teens are not in-tune enough to the dynamics of life to understand that they should “never let a Catholic spoil their Catholicism.” (ht to Catholic Channel)
For that matter, many adults haven’t reach that peace level in their relationship with Jesus Christ to understand it either.
And we are the adults teaching the youth in an approach and lifestyle that should be led by example and by the hand of God.
It’s definitely something to think about as we plan for this new school year.
Seeking a Relationship
In Melanie Bettinelli’s new posting series Seeking Curriculum for First Communion Preparation and Religious Education? she addresses (what I believe) to be the ultimate problem in our Catholic religious education programs:
“I don’t think books are the mainstay of my religious education program. And actually, to drive this point home, I want to eschew the phrase ‘religious education’ because I think what I do is much more formation than education. What we are doing is living a Catholic life. Our faith is not merely an academic subject to be studied like math or history or literature, it’s a relationship to be lived in our daily life.”
I write more as a Catholic wife/mother than I do as a Catholic D.R.E.
Books are necessary tools. Books are wonderful. Books give us information, wisdom, truth, thoughts, ideas, and a peek inside the minds of great men, women, and saints. They are necessary.
But religious training in a faith we hold near and dear is more about formation than education.
Children will not desire to learn more about something they do not love.
Children will not care about something they do not live.
And, while religion might indeed be something we can teach the youth, a life of faith ultimately begins with a relationship between a child and his Creator.
It must!
Yet so many children enter our hallways and classrooms without that primal introduction and relationship already established.
Instead, they are led into our hallways and classrooms for one hour a week (a day if in Catholic schools) and handed a book.
Most of the time there is a teacher and a book standing in the way of the Teacher and the Book.
Perhaps if we could only make ourselves step out of the way and allow the child to meet and get to know this Creator on a personal level; we’d have more success with our religious education training.
I’m anxious to hear what more Melanie tells us in her series: Seeking Curriculum for First Communion and Religious Education.
First Part: Bible Stories
This Business of Dealing with Souls
Two years ago a young guy walked into my office and marched up to my desk with a face that tried to be serious but failed. A grin hovered at the corners of his face. He made a request to receive the sacraments of the church and confirm in the Catholic faith. I didn’t know him from Adam. I only recognized him from assisting at Mass with our youth group every weekend. I didn’t know who he was or even that he had never received all the sacraments (he was so faithfully at Mass every Sunday) but there he was, with a big request. Within two years I came to know who this young teenager was. He was one of God’s chosen ones. 
Cody always told me that God had big plans for him…or, let me get that right…that he (Cody) had big plans for God. I don’t know if Cody even realized how immense those plans were or how many people can testify today how well Cody accomplished them in such a short amount of time. Last night, Cody’s mission was to go back to his heavenly Father. I’ve never written or shared about a student online. As directors, youth ministers, and catechists of religious education we see children come and go, grow and leave our church programs. It’s a maze of energy found in church only after school on Wednesday evenings. Various impressions are made. We meet with parents and grandparents. We get to know siblings. Many times the younger people in the hallway blur together into a lot of paperwork and names on roll call sheets.
Our “jobs” in religious ed are never about paper work and the litany of names that comes with it. A fellow catechist told me my first year to never forget that we were in the “business of dealing with souls.” I have never forgotten. Cody’s death reminds me, utterly anew, what a tremendous opportunity we have to work this ministry and how truly necessary it is to remember this while serving them. It’s about souls and hearts. Lots of them. Cody reminded me of this every time he walked into our building. He stood out because he was Cody. Cody met everyone with a ready smile, a helping hand, a kind wave, and bear-size hugs. He stood out because he made each and every person feel as though they stood out too. That’s who he was.
He was one of those kids that adults never forget. He didn’t always have a ride to mass or class but he always found one…or walked himself there. He always rallied the others. Always. He was one of those kids who accepted everyone as they were and was ever welcoming. Even if someone hurt him, you wouldn’t have known he thought any less of that person. He would have come up right alongside that person and helped them finish the race anyway. That was Cody. He was everyone’s friend, everyone’s best friend. Ever welcoming…
From what I knew, his Catholic grandmother was his connection to the Church. Something in her had inspired Cody to search for God there. That’s where he came into contact with church sponsors who, in turn, supported him, guided him, and led him to the CCD office to learn more about the faith and to receive the sacraments. No one brought him to church or religious education classes. Cody brought himself. He desired to know, love, and serve God that much.
Cody loved his faith more than anything and strove daily to be a better Christian than the day before. The car accident happened while on his way to a church youth function in the town he had moved to.
Cody never took for granted that he nor anyone else had to get to heaven on their own. He knew it was his mission, the mission of us all, to help someone on their journey. Often we seek to find fault with the church because we want to shoot the arrow of blame onto someone else whose job it is to instruct the faithful when, in fact, the real blame lies within ourselves. Each one of us is responsible. Cody knew that. How do we handle these people…young and old…when they walk through our office doors and into our classrooms with a serious request yet lacking the ground work that others have?
There were 10 lepers. Only one returned and gave thanks.
Those of us who knew him (even if it was for only one night a week for two years inside the aging walls of a religious education building) are the ones who were blessed, healed, and anointed beyond measure. Cody taught us far more than we taught him.
Cody truly believed that God had great things in store for him. He took the path to God very seriously. He led the way. He rallied the weak and the nervous. He was never loud or arrogant. Cody always wanted to be side-by-side with his friends and fellow Christians. Never ahead of them. Cody would have lagged to the back of the line had it meant helping someone else catch-up; or waiting for someone to catch up. But God wanted Cody to lead the way this time. I kind of wonder what Cody’s opinion is of that.
I can see him cocking his ahead slightly to the side and saying, “Aw, Ms. Cay, God just needed me up here.” There wouldn’t have been any other explanation. He just knew what was needed and he became that. All that. He was a rare soul. He gave back far more than he received. He always seemed to know that was his calling.
Today after Mass, the youth group stayed in church to pray a rosary for Cody and his grieving family. Our city’s fire chief stood up and spoke briefly to everyone there. He reminded us of the person Cody had been to all of us and how we, as people in the family of God, had all done our job in guiding Cody to where God wanted him to be today. And now Cody is at the end of that journey towards God, the journey we are all traveling day by day, week by week, year by year.
Cody is right where God wants him.
Are we where God wants us to be?
Have we arrived?
Are we answering the call?
With a smile?
Are we joyful in working this vineyard?
Are we diligent in this business of dealing with these souls?
More than anything else, Cody wanted to see the face of his Savoir.
Most of us are still plowing…apologizing…treading…fussing…staggering…muddling…racing…crawling down that path towards that end.
Cody has arrived.
I’m still going to miss that boy. And I’m going to think of him every time a soul walks in my office and asks to learn more about this vineyard that Cody loved so very much.
{Please keep Cody and his family in your prayers during this sacred time. Thank you!}
Being a Liturgical Year Geek ~ Planning Tips
I’m a liturgical year geek…we’ll just blame it on that.
{Page by Scott Richert}
December 1st falling on the first Sunday of Advent, thus lighting the way for a new Church year, makes me happy.
I like when ALL of Advent falls in December. It’s a month I can put aside our autumn orange, yellow, and brown foliage and welcome everything white and blue and purple and pink.
There’s no intermingling of the two. I love that. My plans love that.
It’s a small obsession of mine. I’m geeky that way. 😉
Catholic Icing has a delicious Advent Christmas Planner. Maybe there’s still time. Definitely.
Especially if we cast into the cold the perfectionist tendencies found in all of us.
Jennifer Gregory Miller has begun writing on the Liturgical Year at Catholic Culture. She shares at her blog:
“The plan is to write a weekly column with reflections on living the Liturgical Year. I will feature some of the rich materials on Catholic Culture, but besides talking about liturgy and customs and traditions, I also would like to discuss some authors and books, and perhaps some Catholic cultural history, particularly relating to the Liturgical Movement. I won’t limit myself now, because the Liturgical Year interweaves every part of our lives, and I love to witness and discuss the beauty.”
I have written at Amazing Catechists how I use the feasts and fasting of the Church’s liturgical year (and an encyclical by Pope Pius XI) to weave beauty and meaning into my home church parish’s religious education formation program.
I have a heartfelt belief that this is important to do so. My heart weeps for the children who do not receive the beauty of the liturgical year within their homes: never seeing an Advent wreath, never lighting candles, never hearing of humble beginnings, never knowing true heroism outside of what the media sells them, never knowing that pink, purple, green, and white mean anything other than colors in a crayon box. So I intentionally expose it to them each week. We change altar clothes in our classrooms. We light Advent wreaths too. We do an Advent match-up of traditions. We present heroic Church members and guess who they are by their 3 clues. We bless our classrooms every January. We bless our throats every February. We feast at St. Joseph’s Altar every March. We walk the holy way with Christ every Lent. We listen to the words of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John on a weekly basis. I’ve shared a bit of what we heroically do—in one hour a week—here: 10 Ways to Share a Breathing, Bleeding, Being Faith.
We can’t do much in one hour a week. We can only expose, invite, include them to what is golden. We make an offering of what we do and entrust the children to prayer and the Holy Spirit the rest of the week.
Jennifer is by far superior than I to write on this magnificent subject so I am thrilled to see her following the Holy Spirit’s prompting and sharing the riches of the liturgical year with us. I anticipate a richly rewarding learning experience by her hand-led tutoring. I’d be pleased if other catechists joined me in supporting Jennifer in this endeavor. I’m starting off with subscribing and getting this free eBook download: Liturgical Year 2013-2014
It’s a win-win situation. Best way ever to start the Church’s New Year!
Quietly Tending Our Own Part of the Kingdom
Paula Deen and the Supreme Court blatantly remind us today that people love a public crucifixion as much as they adore building people up. With the threat of racial slurs, in the face of character defeat, and the heat of debate and false definitions upon us, a great many of us simply want to throw up our hands in defeat and sigh. The rest of the world tells us to stand up and shout: loud, Loud, LOUDER, LOUDEST!
Shout! For our rights. For our society. For our children. For our religion. Etc. When…really…isn’t everyone just getting so loud, so terribly loud, that no one can hear and no one really wants to listen to anyone anymore?
The man alone on the mountain top is looking exceptionally wise to me. It’s just between him and God.
Another Catholic wife/mom posted this on Facebook:
“Seems like a great day for the beginning of a Facebook vacation. Blog feed will still go up, but I’m going to duck out and gratefully focus on home and husband:-)”
I thought, how perfectly timely. To go into our own little spot in this world and make our own little contribution to the world. What a novel idea. How so? Aren’t we called to go beyond our comfort zone and reach out to those who do not know Christ. Yes…if we are able. I believe though, especially with social media constantly entertaining us 24/7, that we are too much out of our comfort zone and less time is spent with God within our comfort zone. We cannot be everything for everyone nor do I think we are called to be so. A friend recently shared (I’m forgetting which friend but I know they’re forgiving that way 🙂 ) a Wendell Berry quote from The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays:
“There can be no such thing as a ‘global village.’ No matter how much one may love the world as a whole, one can live fully in it only by living responsibly in some small part of it. Where we live and who we live there with define the terms of our relationship to the world and to humanity. We thus come again to the paradox that one can become whole only by the responsible acceptance of one’s partiality.” (pg.117-118, The Body and the Earth) ―
That is simply all I can do, “define (and come to) terms (with my) relationship to the world and to humanity.” All any of us can do. Live where we are in the present moment. It’s the story of each of us throwing one little starfish back into the ocean even when faced with thousands of lost starfish upon the seashore. It’s what Mother Teresa did. She cared for which ever soul was placed in her care at that moment in time. She did not look beyond them or behind them. Another quote I thought worth copying is taken from my June Magnificat:
“We live in an age that is preoccupied with social questions, and Catholics are being challenged to justify their faith by its concrete success in dealing with these questions. …As the Second Vatican Council has vigorously reasserted, the real mission of the Church is to bring the world back to God, to make it conscious of him as the supreme, adorable reality and its own highest good. On the other hand it is perfectly true that in proportion to the successful accomplishment of that mission, justice and peace will reign among men, and even sufficient material prosperity, following our Lord’s promise to those who seek first the Kingdom of God. Furthermore, these things will in fact only come about if the Church’s primary task is achieved, if it succeeds in reawakening the world to the full awareness of God.”
~ Fr. Anselm Moynihan, O.P. (An Irish Dominican priest and founding editor of Doctrine and Life) This quote made me consider what the task at hand was:
- For Me: to live responsibly and seek first the Kingdom of God
- For my children and grandchildren: to reawaken the world to the full awareness of God
- For the students in my religious education program: to reawaken them to a full awareness of God
So I am first to seek the Kingdom of God and then to (or perhaps while I’m seeking it) reawaken it to the rest of the world. How? How do we do this in the face of so much shouting and attention and media jargon? That’s where the introvert in me steps back, lest I overwhelm myself and become OCD.
I can wring my hands, sweat, panic, and worry about the world my grandchildren and great grandchildren are being born into. I can write eloquent posts and write obedient stats about family and faith. Or I can simply turn my back on this black box that brings so much gossip, exposure, and stress into so many homes and “gratefully focus” on home and family.
It’s hard enough to look into my own children’s and grandchildren’s eyes and attempt to reawaken anything the world has already taken from them or destroyed. It’s harder still to look into my own eyes in the mirror and think there is anyway on God’s green earth I can attempt to “reawaken” anyone with my demeanor. But through God all things are possible.
I am reminded to look at my own parents who recently celebrated 51 years of marriage, though I am sadly aware that many who read this might not have this example to look at. So, to those of you, I invite you to look at the example of my own parents. My parents raised my brother and I in a time (the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s) that the world was going to pot (literally). Fifty-one years later our family is still here and still intact. The Cold War, the Sexual Revolution, and everything else in the past 5 decades had nothing on them. Nothing was stronger than the mindset of these two who valued faith and family over everything. My greatest gifts are my faith and my family; I am forever indebted to my parents for instilling both of these in the fiber of my being despite the odds.
I’m thinking of those souls on Black Tuesday in October 1929. The stock market crashed and people lost fortunes and some drastically took their lives. There were record suicides and I’m sure all they saw was a black horizon and a bleak future. They could not have foreseen the brilliant future that awaited America’s Wall Street; both a blessing and a curse but still, Golden Years were on the horizon. We had to undergo a terrible war first, then Golden Years. Today finds us in the mist of a disgraced Wall Street but this one is different from the one in 1929.
See the ebb and flow of politics and culture and society?
Nothing lasts forever except God’s kingdom and what we do here on earth is part of our offering to that kingdom.
Clearly, I think the Ten Commandments instruct us how to live responsibly, and the Beatitudes teach us how to seek the Kingdom of God. If we follow those spiritual codes, everything else falls into place and we can reawaken the world to the fullness that is God. But, first, I need to fall back into the safety net God has made for me; what God desires for me; what His will is for me; where the burden is light for me. Sounds rather selfish and self-gratifying, doesn’t it? But, truly, if I believe He loves me and died for me, then I have to stop and see myself in the way He sees me; in the way He made me; in the way He loves me. He wants me to rest in Him before I can do anything else for anyone else.
Then all we really need to do is start within our own families. Start within our own little hemisphere. Our own small part of the world.
That Facebook vacation is sounding better and better. 🙂 Maybe that should be our second thing to do.
Thirdly, find a mentor who will guide you in handling social ills and social justice jointly. Even if it’s merely reading about someone who has served humanity with the face of Christ. Saintly examples are the best; think Mother Teresa. Yet, even her level of austerity can scare us away. I’ve been reading about the life and times of Dorothy Day (All the Way to Heaven) as well as her thoughts and opinions and experiences, written in her own hand (The Duty of Delight). She was never concerned or insistent that her daughter leave home and family to do something bigger in this world for more people. Her concerns were constantly for her daughter’s health and well-being, as well as her son-in-law’s and the grandchildren, and that her daughter know that her place was there with her husband. The burdens Dorothy placed upon herself were never burdens she placed upon her daughter.
How do we live this vision? Where is our physical, practical, do-able To-Do List?
I cannot speak for everyone because we are all in different callings, different vocations, different positions, different places in our lives.
Possibly, I can share with you where I plan to start and you can create your own list from there: I can begin tonight by praying for my unborn grandbaby and inviting his mommy to eat here instead of worrying about fixing supper. I can bake my husband’s birthday cake, the blackberry cobbler he desires rather than the chocolate one I would have desired. I can take my seven-month-old grandbaby outside in his little blue pool and laugh with him and the aunties and blow bubbles, then tuck him tight into a dry beach towel and dress him lovingly into a sweet “Daddy’s Big Guy” onesie (even though he’s still very little) and rock him with a lullaby to a land where there are no ugly debates or a loss of faith. I can, like the wife/mother above, take a Facebook vacation and gratefully focus on home and husband. I can sit at my computer or go to the church office and finish typing lesson plans for our religious education program. I can sponsor a child into our religious education program or sponsor a child on his/her Confirmation retreat. I can teach well the students who appear at my classroom door, this year. I can love my family.
I need do no more than that. Everything today is bigger and louder, striving, I guess, to be bigger and louder than God. We need to bow to the fact that nothing is bigger or louder than God. It starts with admitting and accepting that small enough is good enough. We need not fret or stress or worry about next week’s agenda nor next month’s. Certainly not next year’s. God does not ask that of us. He only asks what we can do today.
God’s got this! We don’t. And we are reminded daily that we don’t. Still…
We are Christians. We follow the code, the fiber, the being, the message, the word of a man named Jesus Christ. We continue to follow Him and be joyful Christians, no matter who or what defines us. We can still speak the truth even if no one listens to us, even if no one believes us, even if no one answers us. The world is seeing too many Christians weeping and wailing, wringing their hands and fretting, losing their peace, falling into despair.
What kind of message are we sending to the world when we do this?
Where are the martyrs who met the lions with singing in the arena?
The lions look much different today. Don’t they?
And our singing has turned to shouting. Hasn’t it?
10 Ways to Share a Breathing, Bleeding, Being Faith
In my last column I promised to explore “… how to take this living, bleeding, breathing message outside our classrooms and into the world.”
The Gospel message as well as this how to drive this Year of Faith home to our students and, in turn, their parents. Some of the ideas were tried this past year, others are on the calendar for this new liturgical year.
The first one is one of those common sense, right-under-your-nose approaches:
- 1) Read the Gospel
Our Bishop encouraged us to begin each class hour with the Gospel reading. It was a no-brainer really. We made sure there were stacks of Bibles in each classroom. What excited the teachers the most were the children as young as third grade pulling us into the classroom before class started to show us their Bibles open at the Scripture verse written on the blackboard and ready to read. They learned quickly how to locate the Gospel readings. It often became a competition to see who could find it first.
After class, teachers began to arrive in my office lamenting that they had spent the entire hour discussing the Gospel reading. Was that a bad thing?
No I didn’t consider it’s wasted time at all.
Catholic children reading and discussing the Gospel? Sounded like I good beginning to me.
Afterall, our Bishop had suggested it, encouraged it, insisted on it.
An added plus was their confidence level in using their Bibles and being able to locate Scripture in it. We know how great the Bible skills of other religions are. The Catholic Church gave us the Bible; Catholic children need to reclaim that ownership and know how to use it.
The usage of the Bible and the connection to the Gospel reading was in place quite effortlessly.
- 2) Liturgical Year
Next was something I had come across my first year of directorship at our church:
In Quas Primas, an Encyclical on the Feast of Christ the King written in 1925, Pope Pius XI instructed us to focus on the new liturgical year as a teaching tool to touch both the mind and heart of our youth. In part:
(21) “For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church (emphasis mine). Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year—in fact, forever. The church’s teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man’s nature. Man is composed of body and soul, and he needs these external festivities so that the sacred rites, in all their beauty and variety, may stimulate him to drink more deeply of the fountain of God’s teaching, that he may make it a part of himself, and use it with profit for his spiritual life.”
The liturgical year as a teaching tool! Such a simple, effortless idea!
We had our classroom altars in place. Green, purple, and white clothes are supplied for the children to change out as the feast days changed. I also sectioned several specific feast into annual observances for our students and their parents.
September is always the focus of our Blessed Mother whose “Yes!” brought our Savior into the world. We begin our school year with an Open House and a Cookie Rosary.
In October we have a Parade of Saints and a display of Relics. Classrooms vote for their classroom saint and doors are decorated as learning tools. Something planned for St. Francis’ feast day either with a blessing of pets or simply by placing stuffed animals in every classroom is fun. This year we will have a creation skit where, as the creation story is read, our fifth graders will appear holding various items: a basket of dirt, a goldfish in a bowl, a bouquet of wildflowers, a rabbit in a cage, new kittens, and the list goes on.
Meditations are always successful and Mother Church encourages us to remember the dead…always…and to pray for them. This has become a morbid, almost anti-Christian observation when, in truth, it is Christian in every way and our children are not being prepared for it. They are told to live for the here and now, tomorrow will take care of itself. Life is too short to think of death, and so we don’t. In recent years the Church is seeing where we are failing in giving our attention to the dead and it might be a good idea to reclaim the devotion for the poor souls. Because of this, this year we will remember our deceased loved ones with a special altar and meditation during November: the month of All Souls. More on that later.
In December we have an Advent Presentation and Retreat.
In January we focus on the Epiphany with the three wise men visiting the classrooms and writing with blessed chalk over the doorposts 20 + C + M + B + 12 and the lower grades rehearse a baptism in the Atrium complete with the children role playing the parents, godparents, priests, etc.. Some also reenact the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River using jump ropes and reading Scripture.
February is reserved for a Lenten Presentation (often a Silhouette Stations of the Cross) as well as classes going one class to the prayer garden to walk the stations in prayer as well as some Lenten treat such as making pretzels.
March is when we honor St. Joseph with our St. Joseph Altar.
April is glorious in Easter and the Resurrection and 1st Communion and Confirmation preparation. There’s never enough days to cover it all.
- 3) Field Trips
Everybody loves a field trip, especially little people who have been in a classroom all day long. ‘Field trips’ are scheduled into our year to visit the church, the adoration chapel, and the prayer garden. Teachers have told me that students appear at class asking, “Where are we going today?” It’s a chance for movement, a chance to explore, and a chance to realize that this whole church complex is for them and their spiritual needs. It should be their second home.
- 4) Ministries
This is something new we’re trying this year. The concept is a simple one of discuss, pray, minister, and focus. We cannot sit at a table and talk about the works of mercy and doing for others without physcially passing the bread as well.
Each grade is assigned a ‘ministry’ for the year:
K & 1st graders: Nursing Home Ministry
2nd & 3d graders: Needy Family Ministry
4th & 5th graders: Foreign Child Ministry
6th, 7th, & 8th graders: Pro-Life Ministry
9th, 10th, & 11th graders: Seminarian Ministry
From time to time the class will discuss their ministry and ways of helping them.
At every class they will pray for their ministry intention.
They will collect for their ministry throughout the year. Nursing Home ministry will do craft items to send to nursing home residents. Needy Family Ministry will collect moneies and can goods to distribute and clothes if necessary. Foreign Child Ministry will participate in a shoebox project where they collect such things as hygiene items like tooth paste, toothbrushes, soap, etc. as well as rosaries, scapulars, and prayer cards to send to a foreign child. They also spiritually adopt a foreign child to pray for and write letters to. The pro-life group will be given baby bottles which they return when filled with money. The money will be used to purchase something for our crisis pregnancy center. This group also spiritually adopts a mother and her baby to pray for during the nine months of school. The seminarian ministry is a chance for our confirmation candidates to remember to pray for and learn about vocations. We try to have a seminarian come to our classes and speak to them each year. This includes collecting letters, prayers and a spiritual bouquet to send to our church’s seminarian throughout the year.
The focus part of this is on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy so that by the time they confirm they are familiar with what we are calld to do as Christians and, instead of just talking the talk, they have walked the walk.
- 5) Catechism
I received the Church’s new Catechism from our pastor when I was in college and working the evening shift in the church office. It terrified me. I didn’t even open the book until I was in my thirties. Didn’t study it until I was in my forties. How’s that for a slow learner. 😉
Then at a workshop about a year ago, I overheard a teacher of some-30-years whose responsibility it is to catch-up the children who are behind in religious ed, haven’t made the sacraments, or who have never been to religious ed. She commented that after 30 years she has always gone back to the St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism. I remember her lifting her hands and telling the nun before her, “What else can we do in only an hour a week? We have to go back to the basics. That’s all we have time for.”
Go back to the basics. Her words have stayed with me through the planning of every lesson and every activity. Stick to the basics: Scripture/Catechism/Liturgical Year
Done!
I knew that children would never get the big book but there was an older children’s version which has been revised and updated and there is the new YouCat which is endorsed by Pope Benedict XVI and, when I presented it to our pastor, his response was, “If it’s good enough for the pope, it’s good enough for me.”
So I have broken down this year as such:
- K—Bible Stories and prayer
- 1st–Parables and prayer
- 2nd-Mass and 7 Sacraments (1st Communion Baltimore Catechism)
- 3rd-5th-Pink covered St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism
- 6th-8th-Gray covered St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism
- 9th-11th–YouCat and Beginning Apologetics book
By getting the children familiar and comfortable with the Catechism during their early years and in this early form, we are hopefull preparing them to embrace the Catechism of the Catholic Church in its fullness. At least we have taken the first step.
Also, going “back to the basics” allows us to fully explore and embrace the Liturgical Year and all the beauty and wisdom the Catholic Church offers. Pope Pius XI (see above quote) and I both feel this is a necessary teaching tool during the early years.
- 6) Saintly Visits
This was a huge success at our recent VBS this past summer (everyone wanted to be a saint!)so I am in hopes of including it in our yearly program as well. This year we hope to have the “Saint of the Week” dressed in costume and walking the hallways before and after classtime. The children must try to guess who the saint is and the teacher will be given a brief bio of the saint to read after prayer time.
At the teacher’s meeting I also give each teacher a personal prayer card with their patron saint for the year. This is their “mentor saint” for them to turn to throughout the year. I encourage them to do likewise with their students. They also vote for a classroom saint and decorate their classroom door with information about their saint. Then we have a contest and every classroom door wins a prize: The Most Informative, The Most Holy, The Most Spiritual, The Most Inspiring, etc. The kids love this!
As I mentioned above for October, the children also participate in a Parade of Saints. One child from each class is chosen to represent the classroom saint. At the hall presentation with parents, each little saint must have three clues to tell the audience ending with “Who am I?” If no one guesses the saint, they reveal who they are. It is important that each saint hold the symbol he/she is known to carry in religious art.
- 7) Art work: icons, statues, paintings, mosaics, stained glass windows
I’m thinking this subject is too rich to confine within this space. Many times artwork speaks to children (and adults) far more than lengthy lectures and/or boring textbooks. This is how the early church taught the people. On second thought…I will write this up in a column all its on.
- 8) Lectio Divina/Meditation
Such a beautiful, ancient form of prayer and children love this, they actually get this form of prayer because it goes back to a reverant, meditative form that we have all but given up in today’s world of noise. Lectio Divina brings them before the voice of God (Scripture) and allows Him to speak to them. Lectio Divina takes away all other noise and people. It is prayer only between the child and God.
We all need to try this form of prayer. Here is how it is done: How to Practice Lectio Divina
- 9) Nature
Some people’s eyes roll when they hear nature and spirituality used in the same sentence. They almost always assume we’re going into some hippy-New Age theory. But I defend it. God created nature. He did not create iPods and xboxes and iphones and computers. In this day of overwired children and adults (myself included) we can still find God most often in the stillness of a lake, the peak of a mounntain top, the delicate texture of a flower, the first autumn breeze, and the gentle hum of a creek.
It is known that our children are having nature withdrawal and severe nature deficits. They are out-of-touch with God’s creation while fully embracing what is man-made.
I encourge our teachers to take the children outside on pretty days. Let them pluck grass while listening to the lesson. Let them lie on their backs and stare at the clouds while absorbing the lesson.
Have an outside mediation with the children. Let the little children listen and listen well while feeling the grass blades prick behind their ears, the train whistle blow lonely in the distance, the smell of autumn flick the air, and a short meditation of the beauty that is God’s still their ears.
If your church has a prayer garden, now is the time to embrace it. Plan a “field trip” out to the prayer garden. Let the children explore. Discuss each statue, each area, each devotion found in the prayer garden. Don’t over talk; let the children ask the questions. You give the answers. Encourage the children to bring their parents.
- 10) Atrium/Learning Space
This is the area where hands-on learning comes in for younger grades and those with learning disabilities. It is a Montessori teaching approach with a huge Catholic twist. This year I sectioned out at least 3 separate learning sessions where the teacher will take their class in our Atrium (learning space) for the entire hour class.
This also demands its very own column.
What are your plans this new school year? I encourage ideas in the combox and look forward to hearing from you all. 🙂
Happy Learning and God’s Blessings Always!
Loving ~ Learning ~ Living Our Faith
It is the beginning of the new school year and on its albs comes the new church year.
They come down our hallways and into our classrooms having spent the whole day inside a box. Most of them come forced to our classrooms. They are restless, fidgety, bored.
Every year I give our teachers plans for religious education in the classroom. I encourage movement and hands-on and trips outside the classroom. Something…anything…to cut through the boredom, their restlessness, their fidgetiness.
I hear those passionate with conviction, desiring to enarmor and impart knowledge. They are wise to desire this transfusion of faith and Word passed from Christ to the Apostles onto the Church Fathers and now to this next generation of Catholic children who are living in a mad, mobile, wired, stressful, furious world.
I realize the church’s mission is to educate. We must never forget that our religious education programs are to educate, to impart knowledge. I focus on this each year, a learning theme for each class, all the while inviting teachers to take the lesson and let it dance and breathe away outside the classroom.
And that has been a challenge.
I realize we only have one hour a week to connect.
That’s pretty discouraging, isn’t it?
I mean, how does one connect, inspire, and educate in only one hour a week???
It isn’t possible. Or is it?
It is a mission broader than anything we do all week because, honestly, learning about God and His church and its message is more than educating in a classroom. It’s about a relationship that prays, a message that bleeds, a life that loves, an empty tomb that reveals, and a person who teaches all this. All outside a classroom.
I believe, in order to take our religious education lessons outside the classroom, it helps if we focus on the three “L’s” of our faith this upcoming Year of Faith: Love, Lesson, and Live
Our children have to love the faith before they will learn the faith in order that they can live the faith.
This upcoming Year of Faith invites us to have Faith outside ourselves, outside our books, outside our classrooms. To explore our faith anew. I hatched it open almost a year ago in this column and have thought and prayed and harbored some ideas through the past year which are on the drafting board for this Year of Faith.
In my next column I will explore how to take this living, bleeding, breathing message outside our classrooms and into the world.
Because that is what we are called to do with the Gospel message.
{Praying for each of you as you begin this new year of loving, learning, and living our faith.}