Amazing Catechists

Teaching and learning the faith together

The Freedom to……………….Shoes: Reject The Comfort of Sin

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St. Teresa of Avila once stated, “We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials.”

Shoes, Comfort, Sin, and Appearances

I recently saw a woman wobbling down the street and having great difficulty walking. The other woman she was with kept pointing to this woman’s shoes and shaking her head. Ultimately, the stumbling woman simply took off her shoes and began to walk barefoot.   From what I could decipher from a distance, it appears that the woman had been sacrificing comfort for appearances. While the shoes looked great and clearly fit the rest of her outfit, they did not fit her feet and proved more trouble than they were worth.

This recent Lent provided me with many opportunities to think about comfort, sin, and appearances.

Comfort is a Relative Thing

According to St. Paul, “For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine; but according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables.”  (2 Tim 4:1-4)

Our world tells us that we can never have too much comfort.  After all, what rational person would ever reject a more comfortable chair in favor of an uncomfortable one? Comfort is often equated in this world with money, such that most see having a lot of money as the way to find greater comfort.  In the sense, many of us would question the sanity of someone like St. Francis of Assisi, who turned his back on a great fortune to live a life of poverty and want.  Having too much money or too much comfort will not get anyone in this society any sympathy.

However, comfort is a relative thing.  We probably all need at least some of it to function on a long-term basis.  On the other hand, too much comfort may do us as much, if not more, harm than good. Comfort tends to slip us into the mentality of forgetting God and His blessings. Comfort tends to make us complacent and lukewarm in our faith. Comfort even fools us into believing that our happiness is wholly our own doing.

Comfort is a vicious cycle into self-obsession.  The more comfortable we feel, the more selfish and self-absorbed we tend to become.  Content in our own convenient abundance, we tend to forget the need and suffering of others.

We need only look at Christ to remember that comfort and Christianity are often polar opposites in this world.  Our Lord was born into and regularly faced poverty, rejection, and inconvenience. If we aspire to follow Christ, we must likewise aspire to, and even embrace, discomfort as the price.

Tolerance for Sin as Compromise for Comfort

Fulton Sheen said, “Tolerance applies only to persons, never to truth…or principles. About these things, we must be intolerant.”

Psychologists tell us that people tend to seek stability and consistency in their lives while instinctively pulling away from discomfort and chaos.  It would be wonderful if this all meant that everyone lined up in neat lines marching toward heaven and salvation and away from the chaos of sin. However, human nature is an arrogant fool. Sadly, we find that this world increasingly views sin as sanity and rejection of sin as chaos. Charity and mercy call on us to be tolerant of the sinner, but intolerant of the sin—most especially our own.

Increasingly surrounded and enticed by sin, we often find it much more comfortable to accept, rationalize, and even embrace sin as the path of least upheaval and greater acceptance by this world.  We wear the distorted shoes of sin so often that we soon see our limp as the accepted way to walk.

Reject the Appearances and Moral Fashions of this World

This society immerses itself in the notion of tolerance as a universal good without accepting the reality that not all tolerance is a good thing.  What would happen if we tolerated murder, rape, and other violent crimes?  Is it even rational to be a Catholic who supports abortion? Obsessed with appearances and superficial morality, we too often stumble along in shoes of sin we got in the habit of wearing.

We cannot be tolerant of sin in our lives. We must foster a personality and nature that rejects the sin that will surely come across our way with each passing day.  Being weak and inconsistent human beings, we will often fall in some way during this year. Rather than spend all of our time and efforts avoiding the falls, we must dedicate a good portion of our preparation and fortitude to constructively dealing with the falls that will surely come.

Conclusion

As members of this society and world, we can all fall for the lure of acceptance, popularity, and group pressure. If we get too used to wearing the warped shoes of sin, we will eventually become so accustomed to their fit that all confession, contrition, or remorse will seem useless and unnecessary.

Lukewarm compromise and those who sold out their morals become increasingly tepid in our faith. The greatest evil and lie is feeling hopeless under the weight of our sins. Divine Mercy reminds us that Christ will always reach out to us if we reach out to him. We reach out to Our Lord by frequent confession and Communion, prayer, and good works for others.

Stop stumbling along in the distorted shoes of sin just for acceptance or the sake of appearances.  Do not seek the comfort and convenience of this world over the struggles of following Christ. Embrace the discomfort of your sin as the sign that you have not compromised your faith and values.  Likewise, embrace Divine Mercy as Our Lord’s promise to reach out to you as long as you find sin uncomfortable in your life. Above all, love God so much that you will always see sin as an intolerable and uncomfortable pair of shoes you simply refuse to wear.

2018  Gabriel Garnica

Power Perfected in Weakness and Failure as a Pathway to Grace

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St. Paul speaks quite a bit about boasting!

In his second letter to the Corinthians, he mentions that he has been the recipient of many revelations and could well boast. After all, Jesus himself has spoken directly to Paul, on the road to Damascus. Paul is a beloved preacher and has won many souls for God. But instead of boasting of his achievements, which he recognizes as a distraction, he boasts because the Lord has permitted him to be a weak and troubled vessel. An “angel of Satan,” he says, torments his flesh.

Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me. (2 Cor 12:8-9)

Here’s my weakness.

I rather casually gave up complaining for Lent, right at the last minute, because I hadn’t really given it much thought. But I know that I complain too much, so it seemed like a great idea, and honestly, I really didn’t expect it to be that hard.

But the Lord saw fit to allow me to go through a period of intense suffering that has consumed my Lent.

An old emotional wound that I thought was healed broke open and my life became profoundly dark. The pain was unrelenting and terrible. I was raw and weak. To say that I was overflowing with complaints and loss of temper is an understatement. I was a total mess for most of Lent, which got me going to confession a lot more than usual, which brought me more graces than usual.

The Crucifixion, Francisco de Zurbarán, 1627

In agony, I clung to Jesus and contemplated the cross. I was in desolation.

But that desolation is a privilege, according to the saints. Hard to accept, but it’s so revealing. I felt so intimate with Christ. One day, I looked up at the cross at Mass and the thought came to me, “He felt this. So it must be a good thing to feel.”

I didn’t get a rush of good feelings—the pain remained—but I had a deep sense of calm that I knew was His voice in my soul, and it has not left me.

And I learned something that is probably the biggest grace I’ve ever received in any Lent in all of my 58 years as a Catholic:

It was strangely empowering being so weak and so desperate.

I had nothing to boast about but the cross.

But may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Gal 6:14)

Total failure was the place where Jesus met me, this Lent. Failure cleared away all my pride and showed me that the cross could truly be a place of victory.

In the eighth century, St. Andrew of Crete wrote that the cross is “both the sign of God’s suffering and the trophy of his victory” because the cross is “the means by which the devil was wounded and death conquered.”

Chris Tomlin sings a song called, “At the Cross,” and my favorite line says that the cross is “a place where sin and shame are powerless.”

Jesus rendered my sin and my shame powerless: through the cross, through the consecration, and through reconciliation. So that when I was weakest, I received a gift that I don’t think I would have received if I were having a “perfect” Lent and feeling good about myself.

Yesterday, I was at an RCIA review session, and one of the team members was describing the moment of the consecration, at Mass, when the priest elevates the host. She told the catechumens that as we enter into the one-time sacrifice of the cross, Jesus is lifted up and offered to the Father for all of our sins, for all time.

But she added that, as baptized members of the Body of Christ, at the moment of the consecration, we too are lifted up and offered to the Father, and that bestows on us an astounding dignity.

In Holy Week, we will walk with Jesus through the failures of those he loves. Contemplate his response when the apostles all flee him and when Peter denies him three times. Jesus never stops working to save them.

Even the crucified thief, who squandered his life in sin–St. Dismas, whose feast day was today (March 25)–received the gift of paradise that very day. Why? Because, in the depths of his failure, St. Dismas recognized that he needed mercy and that Jesus was the Lord. And the response of Jesus went beyond his wildest imaginings. Paradise. THAT DAY.

My major offering for Lent was to avoid complaining. During the previous five weeks, I have complained more than I have in many years. To say that I failed is an understatement. My sin of complaint and ingratitude was magnified; it exploded and expanded and became epic in its power to color my days.

And yet, that sense of powerlessness drew me closer to God and increased my trust. At a particularly low moment, when the pain was almost unbearable, I felt God urging me to count blessings—which felt like sprinkling a thimbleful of water on a blazing fire. To turn my thoughts away from complaint and refocus on what was beautiful in my life was like walking head-on into a hurricane. I recognize that this powerful resistance within me was partly my own weakness and sin but also a sign of a spiritual battle taking place in my soul.

And yet, when I yielded grudgingly and started counting the beauty of the day, my comfortable home, my family and friends, my health—simple things—strength returned, and my mind began to clear. What had seemed unrelentingly dark faded and receded. It was like breaking a spell.

Our failures can bring us closer to God; they can make us more aware of our dependence, more ardent in prayer, and more childlike.

It is not the failure He focuses on; it is the disposition of our hearts.

Are we reaching for him? Learning from our falls? Resting in mercy?

For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son, that believers would not perish but would have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Our Redemption and Memory

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As we proceed through Lent, the recurring themes of redemption and forgiveness bubble to the surface of our thoughts. We understand redemption as literally being saved from our own sinfulness through the blood of Christ.  Left to ourselves, we would surely fall under the repeated weight of our imperfection and weakness.  Through God Almighty’s love and mercy embodied in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, however, we aspire to a salvation we would not otherwise be capable of attaining.

A critical, core component of this second chance for salvation is the willingness of both sides to forget a sinful past.  By this I mean that our redemption is possible only if both God Almighty and each of us as sinners are willing to forget our past sins.

God Almighty’s memory of our sins

God’s willingness is especially supported by a trio of scriptural references. In The Book of Hebrews (8:12) God tells us

For I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sins no more.

In The Book of Psalms (103:12) we find David’s wonderful expression that

     As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us.

Finally, in Isaiah (43:25) we find God’s powerful assurance that

It is I, I, who wipe out, for my own sake, your offenses; your sins I remember no more.

People often have difficulty with the notion of a perfect and omniscient God forgetting anything. Scholars debate whether this simply means that He chooses not to act on our past sins or that He, as all-powerful, chooses to forget. Here we must insert one of my favorite saints, St. Therese The Little Flower, who reminds us to trust God with child-like innocence immersed in love.

Our memory of our sins

Having confirmed God’s part in this dual forgetting, we must turn to ourselves. It is ironic that the same imperfection which leads us to sin likewise prevents us from forgiving ourselves for the very sins that God is willing to forgive us for!  How many people avoid confession altogether out of fear or shame?  How many others turn their very confessions into further sin by concealing sin? Finally, how many of us leave the confessional doubting God’s mercy?

Recall the lesson of Judas and Peter. Judas let his pride and doubt lead to hopelessness, despair, and ultimate, final surrender to the Devil after his sin. In contrast, Peter’s love of Christ overwhelmed his pride leading to humble contrition and surrender to Christ’s love and mercy.  Both men’s ultimate destiny was not shaped by their respective sins but, rather, by their response to their own sin. What better example of such mercy can we find than Our Lord’s promise of paradise to the contrite thief in Calvary?

Conclusion

Scripture confirms God’s promise to forget our sinful past. The harder question as we move through Lent is how willing we are to forget that past ourselves as we reach out to a lovingly forgiving, and forgetting, God.

2018  Gabriel Garnica

MAC Notes For Praying With Children

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It was a great joy to present some ideas about praying with children, this past Friday (February 16), at the Mid-Atlantic Congress, in Baltimore. It touched my heart very much to be in Maryland (Mary-land!) surrounded by dedicated people of faith.

I want to thank all of you who attended for your warmth, your attention, and most of all for your commitment to bring the Faith to others, no matter how difficult that task may seem. But we know that God is faithful, and what we plant He waters.

Please feel free to ask questions in the com boxes and I’ll add more material, as needed. Here are the bullet points, reading resources, Catechism quotes, Scriptures, and other elements of the talk:

The Annunciation, by Henry Tanner

I began by talking about the fact that we are all made for supernatural experiences and interactions. It is natural for us to experience the supernatural! From the beginning of our lives to the moment we enter heaven, we are accompanied by a guardian angel, a pure spirit so unique that it is a separate species from all other spirits (according to Catholic angelologists). This mighty being beholds the face of God in heaven and attends to our souls with perfect dedication and love.

I shared two prayers from my new book, Heads Bowed: Prayers for Catholic School Days. The first is from Week One and was written for the adult preparing for the school year (there are two weeks of preparation prayers), and the other is from Week Nine of the children’s prayers and provides a prayer lesson on the same topic: Angels!

Here they are:

Holy Angels, you surround us with your prayerful and protective presence at all times, and I thank you. I ask that you watch over our classroom throughout the coming year, filling it with your praises to God and guarding it diligently with your holy presence and your powerful prayers. Draw down from heaven every grace and blessing we need to heal our wounds, repent of our sins, and offer our sufferings in union with the cross of Jesus Christ for the good of souls. Amen. (Week 1: Theme: Strength in Weakness)

Dear Jesus, St. Anselm taught that from the moment we are created in our mother’s womb, God gives us a guardian angel to watch over us.  We are precious to God no matter how small we are. Even though we are hidden away for a little while before we were born, God always sees us and loves us! After we are born, God’s angel stays with us throughout our lives and guides us safely to God, when we die. Our angel will not leave us or stop praying for us until we are ready to enter into the joy of heaven! Amen.  (Week 9: Theme: The Unborn)

Nothing is more natural than teaching the Faith through prayer. We do this naturally when we are raising our own children. We call out the attributes of God, express our trust in His mercy, and use a language of love that helps each child feel they are a part of something beautiful and true.

Every one of the almost 300 prayers in my book is a short catechetical lesson, as well as a prayer. The collection spans about 10 months of school days, plus special occasion prayers, a glossary of challenge words, and a scriptural reference for each week. The traditional dedications of the days and months, the liturgical seasons, virtues, and mysteries of the Rosary, are also woven into the prayers, so that young children experience them simply and older children and adults have more to interest them.

More notes:

We ourselves express an amazing nature that will be perfected, in heaven. On earth, we possess five senses that help us to access the intangibles of heaven, and after the Resurrection of the Dead, our glorified senses will be even more amazing! That’s why the Church is so wise about beauty, which is a gateway to truth and goodness–to God Himself.

Body and Soul: One Human Nature: CCC 365

The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

When Jesus entered into time, He sanctified it. And when He took on human flesh, he sanctified that, too. That means that every moment of our lives is holy and our lives have meaning and purpose from our earliest biological beginnings to the very end of our natural lives. It is all His! Every moment is precious. The world tells us otherwise, discarding the helpless unborn and the elderly, which is the darkest kind of ignorance, masquerading as sophistication.

Note: Those who have been lied to, indoctrinated, pressured, and wounded by these evils (i.e., post-abortive women and families) are tenderly loved by God and need only seek His healing love to be restored and strengthened, to be given new life, and to carry out their true purpose in Him. Check out Rachel’s Vineyard for loving support in finding healing.

Never doubt the dignity of your own soul. God, who contains the entire universe and all of heaven–the angels, saints, holy souls, our beloved who are living and those who have died, the stars and planets, every layer of creation–this God abides tenderly and devotedly in our souls. Within our souls dwells the Holy Spirit, by virtue of our baptism, and each time we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, we become tabernacles of His holy presence. That Presence has an impact on the world around us, as it radiates through us.

  • St. Therese of Lisieux said, “How great must a soul be to contain a God.”
  • Jesus said, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (Jn 14:23)
  • When the Lord is with us, we are empowered to live the adventure of our own lives, to fulfill the unique calling of God to our individual souls!
  • God wants to make a masterpiece in our souls.
  • Learning and teaching the Faith is a key to that wondrous transformation in Christ.

“For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

Learning our faith a little at a time draws us closer to God and empowers our mission.

As we move through our lives, studying our faith, we “scratch” at ideas that may be familiar, but perhaps we don’t fully understand, yet. The Liturgical year takes us round and round the treasure map of our faith, and we scratch a little every year, going deeper into the treasury of grace and knowledge that feeds our walk with Christ. If we keep scratching a little at a time, we uncover treasures that change our lives, light our souls on fire, and make it impossible for us to keep our excitement to ourselves.

I absolutely love Dr. Edward Sri’s book, A Biblical Walk Through the Mass: Understanding What We Say and Do in the Liturgy. He takes each piece of the Mass, scratches and digs deeply into the origins and biblical connections, and unearths the treasures within. He begins with the very start of the Mass:

“On the one hand, from a Scriptural perspective, the words ‘The Lord be with you’ remind us of the high calling we each have. As God’s children, we each have a particular mission to fulfill in the Father’s plan…each of us has a role that no one else can play…these words also assure us that we have access to a higher power that can support us through the trials and challenges of life and help us be faithful in whatever task God has entrusted to us.”  (p. 26)

Dr. Sri goes on to explain that when God says, “I will be with you,” or an angel says, “The Lord is with you,” he is saying that we need not fear anything. He describes some examples: Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Mary. Each is empowered to accomplish the impossible, in friendship with God.

When we hear the priest say, at Mass, “The Lord be with you,” we should hear the voice of the Lord saying to us:

  • I will equip you, I will provide for you, I will defend you, and I will give you victory.
  • Through the gift of Himself in the Eucharist, Christ strengthens us.
  • Our heroes are heroes because they trusted in the power of God.
  • Prayer and study change us, opening us up to God’s grace (LIFE).
  • When we persevere in prayer and sacramental life, we become radiant witnesses.

Pope Paul VI famously wrote: “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.”

We all want to be radiant witnesses, but I sometimes feel, working with children, that I’m ill-prepared or uninspired, so I pray, “Lord, light me up! You are my wattage!” And He never lets me down. If I walk out of class feeling like a failure, I say, “Lord, I don’t know what I did in there, but I know You did something!”

The amazing Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen always prayed before he taught: “Lord, send me Pentecostal fire!”

But to become Radiant Witnesses, we need sacramental healing and cleansing: confession. Here’s the fun commercial I do at all my talks. When you do this for your own presentations, have fun! Sell it! Make them laugh. It will help them remember.

Feeling tired? Rundown? Discouraged? Feel like Jesus hasn’t been answering your prayers, lately? Well, how would you like to get back in the game so fast it’ll make the enemy’s head spin? Get some religion, get your groove back? Let the light of the Lord shine right through you and out to the world? Well, you’re in luck! Because right now you, my friend, can get back in the race with some sanctifying grace. Discovering the elation of reconciliation. Free at last! Free of charge, at a Catholic parish near you, where a priest is waiting to take your call. Get back in the game. Get back to confession!

Why It is Important to Pray With Children

  • Adults humbly approaching the throne of God is a powerful witness.
  • Recognizing something greater than ourselves is an important reality check.
  • Respecting authority in childhood—leads to exercising healthy authority as adults.
  • Praying together gives children a blueprint for prayer—they mimic to learn the language of love.
  • They realize they can have a relationship with God, Our Lady, the saints, angels, and the Holy Souls.
  • They are reminded that they are made for supernatural encounters.
  • Prayer empowers them to enter into the mystery—and the paradoxes of a life lived for God.
  • Memories and habits of prayer, soaked in love, become rich in meaning and take root for a lifetime.
  • An intimate relationship with God is an indispensable means to achieving their life’s purpose with clarity.
  • The habit of prayer strengthens them to stand against dark influences and live for God.

Pixabay

Working prayer into our lessons and lessons into our prayers

Here, I shared some ideas about the naturalness of prayer as a way to teach, and lessons as a way to incorporate prayer, beginning with the Sign of the Cross–again, based on a lesson from Dr. Sri’s book. I began with this excerpt, however, from an EWTN interview with author and editor, Bert Ghezzi:

Bert Ghezzi (from EWTN interview):

  • The sign of the cross is: a confession of faith; a renewal of baptism; a mark of discipleship; an acceptance of suffering; a defense against the devil; and a victory over self-indulgence.
  • When you make the sign, you are professing a mini version of the creed — you are professing your belief in the Father, and in the Son and in the Holy Spirit.
  • When you say the words and pray in someone’s name you are declaring their presence and coming into their presence— that’s how a name is used in Scripture.

The ancient version of the Hebrew letter “Tav” looks like a cross (or an X)

Dr. Sri talked about “signs” in the Bible:

  • Exodus 12: Passover: the Israelites were spared because of the lamb’s blood on their doorposts
  • Revelations 7:3: the saints in heaven have a seal on their forehead
  • Ezekial 9:4: those marked with the TAV were spared the wrath of God.

St. John Chrysostom said this about the Sign of the Cross:

When, then, you make the sign of the cross on the forehead, arm yourself with a saintly boldness, and reinstall your soul in its old liberty; for you are not ignorant that the cross is a prize beyond all price.

Consider what is the price given for your ransom, and you will never more be slave to any man on earth. This reward and ransom is the cross. You should not then, carelessly make the sign on the forehead, but you should impress it on your heart with the love of a fervent faith. Nothing impure will dare to molest you on seeing the weapon, which overcometh all things.

All of this to say that when we “scratch” below the surface and find treasures, we cannot help but share them and that passion ignites a fire in children.

Pixabay

Creating a Prayerful Environment for Children:

  • No phones, please. The addictive quality of cell phones and other electronic devices is very real and should be prohibited in class.
  • Basic discipline should create a safe environment for the shyest children. Don’t let alpha kids take over. Be forgiving but firm.
  • Your own example of faith and reverence is contagious.
  • Beauty! As we know, our souls are touched by beauty. Use it as much as you can: sacred art, candles, music, Easter and Christmas cards! God speaks through beauty and touches our hearts when nothing else can.

Meeting Them Where They Are

  • Learning styles and developmental issues can be understood easily. Lots of information is available online.
  • They remember how you made them feel, so ask Jesus to act through you and speak through you with the love only He can give.
  • The grace of forgiveness and second chances: show mercy, while maintaining order.
  • Children’s memories and associations: sometimes they surprise us with weird connections. They are making memories, as they connect their own ideas with the new ones. Don’t despair that they don’t seem to understand. They’re working on it.
  • Communication and cleaning up messes: be sensitive to the children’s feelings. You don’t know how much you may matter to them or how God may be touching that child by your witness, without your knowledge. If you think you may have done something insensitive, circle back and make amends.
  • Prayer Basket keeps the community strong: get the names of all their loved ones on cards that go in a basket for weekly prayer. They stay connected with the community of the classroom that way, even when they are not able to be present.

First Through Third Grade

  • A decade of the Rosary takes five minutes! Inviting Our Lady into the classroom makes everything better. And Sister Lucia, one of the seers of Fatima (and many saints) have said, “…there is no problem that cannot be resolved by the recitation of the Holy Rosary.” It is a spiritual weapon par excellence!
  • Intentions clarified: make sure the children understand what they are praying for. Invite feedback.
  • Marching to hymns of praise gets their wiggles out and provides a liturgical feel as you transition to the next activity.
  • Spontaneous prayer is important. If a child brings up a worry or concern, pray on the spot.
  • Throwing their prayers up to God. I have them close their eyes and hold out their hands, palms up, giving God everything on their hearts and then making a tossing motion, giving it to him to take care of.
  • God can make good come out of any bad thing, can bring beauty from ugliness, and hope from despair. Keep weaving this into prayer with them.
  • Name saints! I research the children’s names at the start of the year and weave those saints into lesson time.
  • Trips to the Church are essential: entering reverently, blessing themselves with holy water, and genuflecting with their eyes on the tabernacle (greeting Jesus silently in their hearts) can be practiced ahead of time, in class. I love to walk through the Stations of the Cross with them, having the boys say one half and the girls the other, and then switching halfway through (We bless thee oh Lord and we praise you; for by your holy cross you have redeemed the world). Talking about the altar as a table for a holy meal, a place of sacrifice (the Lamb of God), and connecting it all to the sacraments gives them more connection to the Mass.
  • Sacramentals: have them reverently practice venerating blessed sacramentals: i.e., a crucifix, a sacred image, a relic, a medal.
  • Living a moment in Scripture: I act out Bible stories with my kids after I read them aloud, so they get to experience in different ways: they hear the story, see the pictures, and then “live” it for a few short minutes. Every learning style is covered, this way, and it helps them remember. It’s all very easy and loose. For more information, see my booklet, Be An Amazing Catechist: Inspire the Faith of Children.

Fourth Through Eighth Grade and Beyond

  • See above, plus…
  • Cultivating silence: their lives are noisy. Give them opportunities to experience silent prayer.
  • Spiritual bouquets for the Holy Souls: these powerful allies in purgatory need our prayers and pray for us with great impact when we pray for them. Establish this relationship early. It benefits the Church and many souls.
  • Adopting a mission or ministry: choose something where they can receive progress reports and other kinds of feedback, so they see the impact of their prayers and a way to help out when they are old enough.
  • Relationships with saints: through their name saints, the liturgical year, and martyr stories, children can be intrigued about the saints and want to know them better and learn from them. Also, namesaintgenerator.com is a great online resource. Have them pray to the Holy Spirit, then click the interface to choose a saint. They should study the saint’s life and pray, “Teach me what you know,” for a set period of time.
  • Eucharistic miracles: true accounts abound and are fascinating to tweens and teens: see this website: http://therealpresence.org/ 

Scroll down to these images for more information.

  • Incorruptibles: these somewhat strange miraculous occurrences fascinate teens and tweens.
  • Adoration: teens often find a personal relationship with Christ in front of the Blessed Sacrament. I even take very young children and tell them that Jesus is waiting for them, His arms loaded with gifts of grace. They should silently tell Him about their day, share their hopes and worries, and pray simply, “Jesus, I adore You!” With older students, we memorize the Anima Christi for after Communion and for Adoration:

Soul of Christ, sanctify me
Body of Christ, save me
Blood of Christ, inebriate me
Water from the side of Christ, wash me
Passion of Christ, strengthen me
O good Jesus, hear me
Within Thy wounds hide me
Suffer me not to be separated from Thee
From the malignant enemy defend me
At the hour of my death call me
And bid me come to Thee
That with thy saints I may praise thee
Forever and ever
Amen

  • Special liturgies that involve them in the planning, reading, and music, help them to understand the Mass and their role as contributing members of the community.
  • Conferences can do what we can’t. Chastity, TOB, the Real Presence, Vocations–youth speakers have a powerful calling to reach the hearts and minds of teens and tweens. Do whatever you can to get your middle and high school students to appropriate events.

Remember, what we plant, He waters!

 

Here’s my resource list! Let me know if you need anything else. I’m happy to help!

Published Resources:

Heads Bowed: Prayers for Catholic School Days, by Lisa Mladinich (Liguori Publications)

Be An Amazing Catechist: Inspire the Faith of Children, by Lisa Mladinich (in English and Spanish, from Our Sunday Visitor)

Be An Amazing Catechist: Sacramental Preparation, by Lisa Mladinich (in English and Spanish, from Our Sunday Visitor)

A Biblical Walk Through the Mass: Understanding What We Say and Do in the Liturgy, by Edward Sri (Ascension Press)

The Happiness of Heaven: The Joys and Rewards of Eternal Glory, by Fr. J. Boudreau, S.J. (1870) (TAN reprint)

Champions of the Rosary: The History and Heroes of a Spiritual Weapon, by Father Donald Calloway (Marian Press)

What Matters Most: Empowering Young Catholics for Life’s Big Decisions, by Leonard J. DeLorenzo (Ave Maria Press)

Prayer for Beginners, by Peter Kreeft (Ignatius Press)

Free Online Resources:

AmazingCatechists.com

Article on praying with children: http://amazingcatechists.com/2018/02/teach-kids-pray-5-simple-steps/

CatholicMom.com (my puppet scripts)

https://catholicmom.com/kids/puppet-ministry/

MyFirstHolyCommunion.com (Tarcisius)

http://www.myfirstholycommunion.com/portfolio-view/st-tarcisius-boy-martyr-of-the-eucharist/

TheRealPresence.org

http://therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/a3.html

SaintsNameGenerator.com

http://saintsnamegenerator.com/

Fisheaters.com (tour of the church)

https://www.fisheaters.com/churchbuilding.html

 

Forgiveness Beyond the Grave

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My father died last week.  It was unexpected.  He had had health issues the last couple of years and had never seemed particularly robust, but he was never near death, either.

My mom passed away eight years prior.  Here I am, in my 30s (barely!) with five small children and no parents.  It’s not a common status among my circle of friends, but it could be far worse.

I mention this simply to show that I have a frame of reference when I talk about grieving deceased parents.  This isn’t my first rodeo.  What is different this time, however, is that my father was, well, a different man than what he seemed to be.  Over the last few years we had uncovered surprising details about his life–details that I will spare you, dear reader.

So the grief I feel is an alloyed grief.  There is sadness that the opportunity has passed for our relationship to transform coupled with confusion over details that keep popping up (such as the bewildering claim he apparently made that he had been sent on a secret mission for the Department of Defense) commingled with utter dismay that his last note to us–intentionally placed in a spot where we would find it–was as efficient as a corporate memo and as warm as a ransom note.

The question I am left with–aside from the question of what is true regarding his life–is the question of forgiveness.  How do you forgive someone who lies in his grave and whose lies extend beyond the grave?  (The last sentence of his last note to us was, in fact, untrue.)  How do you forgive someone who betrayed his family but who genuinely believed he could fool everyone–and who maybe, in the end, fooled himself?

As I have pondered these questions, a specific path to forgiveness and healing keeps coming to mind.  Think back to Cana, the site of Jesus’ first public miracle.  The hosts had run out of wine, and Mary, with the compassion of a mother’s heart, knew the embarrassment they would face.  Her son is at the same wedding feast, so she hurries to him and tells him the problem.  At first, Jesus seems to resist her urging.  But she–great Jewish mama that she is–brushes aside his response and turns to the servants. “Do whatever he tells you,” she says with complete confidence in him.  Jesus is moved by his mother’s urging and by her faith.  Jesus acts, in this instance, because of his mother’s intercession.

This intercessor was given to us from the cross when Jesus gave her to John.  John stands there in history as the faithful disciple but also stands in for us when Jesus gives Mary to his care: “behold your mother.”  She is our mother as well, our dear compassionate mother, who is also, in evangelical parlance, a “prayer warrior.”  Mary, just as she was at Cana, is a compassionate intercessor for those of us who face complicated situations.

Mary is known by many names.  One such name comes from a meditation by St Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in the last quarter of the second century and a Church Father.  Drawing out a comparison between Eve and Mary, he noted:

“And thus also it was that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary” (Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 22).

Man’s fall from grace due to original sin–what knot could be more complicated than that?  Original sin, endured since our first parents, was loosed by the obedience of Mary to the will of God when she gave her fiat to become the mother of the Holy God.  And so she is known as “Mary, Undoer of Knots.”  Mary, undoer of the knot of original sin.  Mary, undoer of whatever knot is in your life and the big knot that is in mine.

I once had a lovely little card that had printed on it “The best way out is always through.”  The best way out of the pain is to walk through it.  And so I have been given the answer to my question of how do I forgive: pray a daily Rosary alongside Mary, Undoer of Knots, for my father’s departed soul and for my wounded one.

What does this prayer do?  Two things.  When we pray in good faith for someone who has hurt us we cannot help but love that person more.  It is hard for us to love the person whom we do not know.  I have only done this prayer for the last week, and already I am looking at my father through more compassionate eyes than ever before; somehow, it is giving me more knowledge of him.

Secondly, praying the Rosary has a way of showing us who we are.  Contemplating the mysteries of the God-Man being scourged or crowned with thorns gives me pause to think about the ways in which I have unleashed my own contempt for my Savior.  The prayer becomes, then, less about offender (dad) and victim (me) and instead becomes two sinners contemplating God’s passion and his love and mercy.

And then, of course, the prayer is the outpouring of hope that God will and does redeem all things.  Everything else in my life–my mother’s terminal brain disease, for example–has shown itself to be a gift.  Perhaps the gift is a severe mercy, but there is always mercy.  There is always the great Divine Act of turning evil on its head to bless–witness the crucifixion itself.

Praying a daily Rosary for those who have wounded us alongside our great mother and intercessor is ultimately an act of hope, an act of humility, and an act of love.  By focusing daily and for a sustained time on the life of Jesus in the company of Mary, Undoer of Knots, I have confidence that I will find healing and peace.

(This post first appeared at www.inaplaceofgrace.com.  Text by Amanda Woodiel [2018].  All rights reserved.  Photo by Petra [2015] via Pixabay, CCO Public Domain.)

Turn Your Crosses into Ladders

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If Christ came to earth to teach us the way to Heaven, then we may rightly accept that his words and actions are sanctified lessons in that path.  His examples of love, service, sacrifice, mercy, compassion, dedication, and obedience to the Will of God are found throughout his life and ministry. Beyond the more obvious lessons, however, lie transcendent yet pervasive examples of how to fall. Typically, we see falls as dreaded, embarrassing stumbles to be avoided at all costs. Many times, we see them as windows to our weakness we would much rather stuff under the bed and forget or deny. Such terror in the face of falls dissolves in the face of trusting God. In that context, let me offer the following gentle suggestions.

God Fell for Us

We know that God is perfect and cannot fall but, in a sense, He fell for us from the moment He created us. We know that God loved us before He created us ( Jer 31:3) and that this love has been present in everything He has done for us ( Ps 139: 13-16).  We also know that Christ fell for us because he became one of us, while still divine as well, to defeat sin and permit our salvation.

Fall for God

There are mainly two reasons why we may fall.  We may fall due to our human weakness and sin. While we should certainly do our best to avoid such falls, the fact is that we will fall despite those struggles because we are human. The devil wants us to give up when we fall due to sin, to feel hopeless and helpless. Reconciliation offers us the way back from such falls precisely because God’s love always defeats the devil’s lies.

The second reason we may fall will be due to things beyond our control. These innocent falls are part of life. Since he was perfect and sinless, Christ never fell to sin, but he certainly fell into struggles and frustrations because he was human. St Alphonsus Liguori often tells us to offer our falls to the goodness of God’s Will regardless of our distaste for them.  People often allow injustice or misfortune to sow bitterness and resentment.  Again, that is precisely what the devil wants, so we must look beyond our human agenda and have enough trust and love of God to embrace such falls as His Will. Since God is all good, then it follows that his Will is all good. If we offer our falls as products of God’s Will, then we will come to accept them as serving some good purpose despite our distaste for them.

The Pauses That are Not

It is easy to see falls as mistakes to be avoided and embarrassing signs of our weakness. However, such feelings stem from worrying too much about what this world thinks of us or thinking too much about our ego.  Others see falls as breaks in the actions, pauses in the proceedings, intermissions or bathroom or food breaks during the play or big game. Such views help us to ignore or brush falls aside and fail to learn and grow from them.

The truth is, falls are a part of the big game and the play of life.  They are very much part of the action and players in our plot if we allow them to contribute to who we are and become. Imagine that every play or movie was all success and smiles. Such efforts would teach very little and pretend a lot. They would not be real.

The more we come to see our falls as active parts of our lives and not aberrations, the more we will learn from and, yes, even embrace them as lessons and opportunities to grow toward God.  Falls are not silent pauses; rather, they can speak volumes if we are willing to listen and act on them.

Let Your Crosses Become Ladders

St. Rose of Lima is quoted as saying that “Apart from the cross, there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.”  If we truly fancy ourselves followers of Christ, we must start seeing our crosses as ladders rather than burdens.  The key to that view is trying to see falls as opportunities to learn how to grow toward God instead of feverishly trying to avoid them like misfortunes, mistakes, or failures. By doing this, we too may sanctify the falls in our lives rather than spend our efforts cursing them.

2018 Gabriel Garnica

 

 

VIDEO: My Visit With Doug Keck on EWTN Bookmark

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My new book for parents, catechists, and Catholic school teachers, helps adults and children learn their faith together!

It was an honor to be interviewed by Doug Keck, on EWTN’s BookMark, on location at the Catholic Marketing Network Tradeshow.

In this episode, Doug featured me and three other members of the Catholic Writers’ Guild, talented Catholic writers with a true heart for the Church: Joe Wetterling, A.J. Cattapan, and Cathy Gilmore.

My interview starts at about the 5 1/2 minute mark, FYI.

Email me directly, if you’d like to gift a bundle of discounted copies of my book to your catechists, faculty, or homeschool network!

Blessings of Advent

Lisa Mladinich

lisa@mladinich.com

EWTN to Broadcast Superb 8-Part Queen of Heaven Study

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SET YOUR DVRs!!!

I led this program in my parish, and it was STELLAR.

Do not miss this chance to see it free on EWTN, and consider bringing it to your parish! We prayed the Rosary before each episode, and hearts were changed, love for Our Lady increased, and many committed to praying the daily Rosary for the first time.

Here are the particulars:

Queen of Heaven series airs on EWTN

Beginning Friday, Oct. 6 through Friday, Oct. 13 at 6:30 PM Eastern, QUEEN OF HEAVEN will air on EWTN (check your local listings for the channel) or via Live Streaming on the EWTN website.

Queen of Heaven is an approximately 4 hour documentary-style program on Mary hosted by acclaimed Catholic actor Leonardo Defilippis and filmed in multiple locations and Marian shrines including the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the World Apostolate of Fatima Shrine, and the Saint John Paul II National Shrine.

It includes contributions from 15 theological experts including Tim Staples, Fr. Dominic Legge, Dr. Carrie Gress, Dr. Paul Thigpen, Fr. Chris Alar, Fr. Jeffrey Kirby and more.

In Queen of Heaven, viewers will accompany Mary from her Immaculate Conception through her Assumption and beyond. They’ll join her as she defends Christendom at Lepanto, frees a captive people at Guadalupe and heals a broken nation at Lourdes. Listen to her at Fatima as she predicts the rise of Communism—and watch as she defeats it through her beloved Pope.

Above all, viewers will discover why, though the battle continues, victory is assured to all who turn to the Queen of Heaven.

 

SCHEDULE:

The Battle Begins: The Woman and the Serpent

Airs on EWTN: Oct. 6 at 6:30 PM

 

The Annunciation: The Day Creation Held Its Breath

Airs on EWTN: Oct. 7 at 6:30 PM

 

Mother of the Church: All Generations Will Call Me Blessed

Airs on EWTN: Oct. 9 at 6:30 PM Eastern

 

Guadalupe: Mother of the Americas

Airs on EWTN: Oct. 10 at 6:30 PM Eastern

 

Lourdes: I Am the Immaculate Conception

Airs on EWTN: Oct. 11 at 6:30 PM Eastern

 

10/12 – Fatima: The Lady of the Rosary

Airs on EWTN: Oct. 12 at 6:30 PM Eastern

 

The Consecration: My Immaculate Heart Will Triumph

Airs on EWTN: Oct. 13 at 6:30 PM Eastern

Breakfast with Jesus; Why it is so Important

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Freeimages.com/CMay

“Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”” (John 21:12) During the weeks after Easter, we hear several references to Jesus eating with his disciples. This is important for two reasons, first, it reminds us that Jesus rises from the dead with his human body! The apostles were not seeing a ghost. Jesus ate with them. He is fully human and fully divine.

Equally important, Jesus feeds them! It had probably been a long night fishing and Our Lord provided for his friends’ physical needs as well as their spiritual ones. He feeds us in the Eucharist and through his word in the Gospel. He is still meeting our needs, finding us where we are… just as he found the apostles fishing.

There are two images of Christ that I find especially appealing; Our Lord cooking breakfast for his friends and when scripture describes him as “reclining at supper.” It is easy to focus solely on the divinity of Christ and forget his human friendships. I love to think of Jesus with his head tipped back in laughter, eyes sparkling and relishing the uniqueness and even quirkiness of his circle of friends. This is the Jesus who still lives, loves and has redeemed us. He is our Savior; he is also our friend.

We can help our children to understand the complicated issue of the two natures of Jesus by practicing a simpler version of Lectio Divina (read, meditate, pray and contemplate):

Read the Gospel stories of Jesus out loud.

Discuss eating breakfast with Jesus. (meditate)
What would you like Jesus to make you for breakfast?
Would you like fire-roasted fish, like the apostles did?
How does Jesus feed your soul as well as your need for physical nourishment?
Remember that Jesus calls the Eucharist “true food.” Why do you think He says that?

Pray!
Have the children ask Jesus what he wants them to see or hear in the story.

Consider acting out a breakfast with Jesus. (contemplate)
What person in the story would you be?
How would you feel about Jesus cooking for you?
Explain how Jesus is your friend.

(C) 2017

On Being Ordinary

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Freeimages.com/ HermanBrinkman

I love Ordinary Time. It is Mac-n-Cheese on a Friday night, comforting, predictable and filled with love. Unlike Advent or Lent, Ordinary time is neither a time of preparation nor a particularly penitential period. It is not a time of celebration like Christmas or Easter; it is, well, ordinary.

When you work in ministry, the other seasons of the liturgical year are often accompanied by a frenzied pace. As an RCIA Coordinator, I find Lent especially challenging. There are Rites to celebrate, paperwork to do and catechesis to finish before the Easter Vigil. Ordinary Time provides an opportunity to slow down and appreciate the everyday beauty of the Mass and the Gospel. I find it a time for reflection and a time to breathe in my faith…deeply.

As a wife and mother, I recognize that many of the moments I treasure most are not those that happen on vacations or holidays but those nestled into the most normal of days. When my adult son sends me a text in the morning to say he loves me or the older kids unexpectedly help the younger ones, those are the things that take my breath away. In the same way, I see and hear the Mass differently during Ordinary Time. Small nuggets of wisdom pop out of the readings and into my consciousness when it is not cluttered by the busyness of other seasons. I see the Consecration as if in slow motion, savoring each second. I do not feel rushed.

As the days of this period will pass by quickly, I will enjoy the blessings that are anything but ordinary.

(C) 2017