Archive for March, 2007
From my experience as a catechist, I’ve compiled a list of the top ten things that can go wrong when teaching a class. These are not in any order. Do these resonate with your experience? What else would you add?
- Your audiovisual equipment either didn’t show up or doesn’t work
- You find yourself short on the amount of books, handouts, or materials needed
- You are emotionally and/or physically run down and can’t find the energy needed to teach this lesson
- Your students totally misunderstand the complex directions you thought you just explained, and everything is up for grabs
- A student stumps you with a question that you have no idea how to answer—e.g.: “Did Judas go to hell?” or “Why can’t women be priests?” or “If we’re eating the Body and Blood of Jesus at communion, doesn’t that make us cannibals?”
- The lesson, video, or text turns out to be a lemon
- A minor discipline problem makes you lose your train of thought —e.g.: giggling, side talking, tapping a pen, a well-timed burp (or other gastrointestinal sound effects), etc.
- An interruption (someone at the door) allows the students just the sliver of opportunity they needed to create a disruption
- Someone (a guest speaker or student scheduled to do a presentation) doesn’t show up when they are supposed to
- You’re done with your lesson and you still have thirty-five minutes to go!
“If you are going through hell, keep going.”—Sir Winston Churchill
Patti, my co-catechist, met the mom of one of our students who, to say the least, has been a handful. The mom expressed surprise that she hadn’t received a phone call yet this year since “I get a call from his catechists every year!” The mom went on to express her disdain for continuing classes after Confirmation saying, “I don’t see why that’s necessary.” Patti did her best to explain to her that Confirmation is not the end of anything but a beginning of a new chapter in the spiritual journey. She also acknowledged that this student has been a handful but that we have dealt with it in class.
All of this to say that it is no wonder that some of our students show little interest in their religious formation when it is not a high priority for their parents. I’m not about to go on here beating up parents. First, as catechists, we are partners with parents, called to support them in any way we can. If they are not in a place to be the primary teachers of their children when it comes to the Catholic faith, our role becomes even more indispensable. Second, our parish communities must do more to nurture the faith of adults and to empower parents to assume their role as the primary educators of their children in matters of faith. Whether these efforts be called whole community catechesis, total parish catechesis, life-long catechesis, intergenerational catechesis, or, as I like to think of it, catechesis done properly, our parish communities must do more to help adults, such as the mom that Patti met, to grow in their own faith and to give witness to their children.
So 11 of my 14 students came back for class after Confirmation! I’m pretty happy with that because it is a typical weekly absentee rate. We had a good discussion about their Confirmation (once they got past saying “It was too long!”) and an especially good discussion about their service experiences.
There are so many highs and lows during any given class. On the one hand, 11 students returned. On the other hand, only 4 brought their books. On the one hand, we had a great discussion about their service experience. On the other hand, as we were reviewing later, one group of boys could not name the Ten Commandments. On the one hand, we had a beautiful prayer experience with the lights down and only a candle giving off light. On the other hand, the final seconds of the prayer were marred by an unwelcome gastro-intestinal sound from one of the boys. What a roller coaster!
I’ve learned over the years, to not let the bad moments negate the good. The good moments are just as real as the bad moments. I deal with the bad moments by isolating them from the good moments. It’s like the Gospel story of the weeds and the wheat (Matthew 13:24-30) where the Master says that we must allow them to grow together until the harvest lest we uproot the wheat with the weeds. As catechists, we need to harvest everything, collect the weeds (bad moments) and bundle them for burning, and gather the wheat (good moments) into the Master’s barn!
I came across a good book for catechists and for teachers of any kind. The book is My Best Teachers Were Saints: What Every Educator Can Learn from the Heroes of the Church. Susan Swetnam does a fine job of showing how the saints can serve as a source of wisdom and empowerment for any teacher. In all, she identifies 52 role models - one for each week of the year - who provide insight into coping with the challenges that teachers face. As catechists, we can learn much from the saints and, in doing so, can have our vocation nourished and renewed…something that a lot of us need at this time of the year!
Many of us are into the home-stretch of this year’s program and “spring fever” can begin to affect our students (and us!). Please share any ideas you have for keeping kids focused and keeping ourselves refreshed.
Today is the annual Southside Irish parade in Chicago which kicks off the many celebrations of St. Patrick’s Day. I think for many Catholics, when they think of St. Patrick, they think of his 3-leaf clover metaphor for the Trinity. I suppose that helps for little kids, but what about us adults?
Too often the Trinity is dismissed as a mystery that we can never understand. While we can never solve the mystery of the Trinity, we can KNOW it. Doctrine is meant to help us understand. The doctrine of the Trinity helps us to understand the God in whose image we are made: a God who is, in essence, loving relationship - 3 persons in one God. This means that, as people made in God’s image, we are called to live in loving relationship with all people - to truly be community.
3-leaf clovers are fine, but the real message of the Trinity has to do with how we live. Let’s use this coming week to help our students understand that the doctrine of the Trinity calls us to live in loving relationship with one another just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are, in essence, loving relationship.
My 8th graders were confirmed last weekend and then had Monday off (because of a state holiday in Illinois). This coming Monday will be the first post-Confirmation class and I’m curious to see who shows up. We’ve emphasized over and over that Confirmation is not graduation but is the beginning of a new chapter in their spiritual journey. I’m told that the return factor at the parish is pretty good but this is my first experience of the situation and I’m anxious to see how things work out. Pray that the Spirit guides them and all of our young people to continue deepening their commitment to the Lord!
Prayers and best wishes to all those involved in the Scrutinies (rites of “self-searching and repentance” in the RCIA) beginning this Sunday!
Some catechists give “homework” to their students and have success in getting them to complete it. This does not appear to be the culture in the parish I’m at. Things sent home with the kids tend to disappear into a black hole. I know that we’ve struggled with getting kids to bring their books to class (normally we keep their text books at the parish but we experimented with sending home their Confirmation books…only about 70% remembered to bring them the following week).
So I’m wondering: do you give homework in your religious education classes? Do your students complete homework and bring it back? if so, what is your secret? Finally, is giving homework in religious education a good idea?
In recent times, there has been a big emphasis in education on building self-esteem. This, of course, has carried over into catechesis (we begin teaching 3-year olds the refrain “I Am Special”). A recent study reveals, however that this emphasis has led to an increase in narcissistic tendencies. My concern is, if we are all so special, then who needs salvation?
Of course, self-esteem is important. But so is humility. As Catholics, our self-esteem is grounded in the fact that God loves us, despite our sinfulness. Our self-esteem is not a celebration of self but a celebration of God’s steadfast love of us, despite our sins. At the Annunciation, Mary did not respond by saying, “I am special!” but rather, “my soul glorifies the Lord.” It is no accident that we begin Mass by praising God (opening song) followed by an admission of our sinfulness (Penitential Rite). Then we praise God more in the Gloria (not during Lent, of course!) emphasizing YOU alone are the Lord, YOU alone are the holy one, YOU alone are the most high. Not me. YOU (God).
I continually remind my students that all of us are sinners and that we are so blessed to be loved and redeemed by Jesus. Whenever we pray, I ask the students to recall our sinfulness and to be thankful for God’s redeeming love that calls us to grow and change. If we simply keep telling our students how special they are, they will conclude that they have no need of redemption. Therein lies the wisdom of Ash Wednesday…that stark reminder of who we really are: sinners in need of and blessed with redemption!
As catechists, we must love our students and we must help them have a healthy self-esteem. But we must do so not by leading them to think that they are perfect but rather that they (and we) are so blessed to be loved in all of our imperfection.
P.S. I find it interesting that the role of the court jester in medeival monarchies was to use his license to mock and speak freely in order to keep the monarch grounded. Richard Rohr states bluntly that the jester was the only person in the kingdom who could tell the king, in essence, that he’s full of @#*&! and get away with it. He emphasizes that we all need someone in our own lives who can do this. I thank God for my wife and kids.
I recently heard a reference to a “crash course” for teaching religion. My understanding of a crash course is a course of study offered to people in an emergency or to people who really don’t want to commit over the long haul. That’s not how I see the role of a catechist. A crash course is the antithesis of life-long learning. A crash course suggests that we can get, in one small package or time period, what is supposed to take a long time to acquire.
To be a catechist is to have a vocation. It is to live a lifestyle. There is no crash course in discipleship. Yes, we do need to offer intensive courses and materials on teaching skills for beginning catechists, but let’s not suggest that this role can be entered into with minimal commitment. Catechists don’t need crash courses…we need ongoing formation.
I watched a good comedy Sunday evening: the Discovery Channel’s showing of The Jesus Tomb. It was truly laughable. At the same time, I realize that the kids we teach can be very impressionable and might be swayed by such programs simply because a lot of scientific jargon was tossed around (those of us who are Trekkies refer to it as “techno-babble”…impressive sounding nonsense used in Star Trek episodes to solve seemingly unsolveable problems). With that in mind, I offer the following talking points from the U.S. bishops.
On Sunday, March 4, the Discovery Channel will present a program called “The Lost Tomb of Jesus.” A number of claims made in the program have been the subject of severe criticism by a wide-ranging group of scholars. The backgrounder below attempts to juxtapose some of the assertions in the program against known facts. We hope it is helpful. The “Claim vs. Fact” list will also be posted on www.JesusDecoded.com, the Web site developed by the Catholic Communications Campaign last year as a source of public information on authentic teaching about Jesus Christ. The upcoming Discovery Channel program “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” has occasioned a number of inquiries. The claims made in the program have already been roundly denounced by biblical scholars and archaeologists, by no means all of them Christian. They have also been the subject of serious scrutiny in the secular media. The following Talking Points, prepared by the Office of Media Relations and done in a “claim vs. fact” format, are meant to address some of the principal assertions in the program. They are largely derived from the Catholic News Service story “Biblical scholars reject filmmakers’ claim about tomb of Jesus,” which is on the Conference Web site. http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0701131.htmCLAIM: The filmmakers suggest they have discovered something new, a tomb that was the burial site of Jesus and his family.
FACT: The tomb was discovered nearly 30 years ago in Jerusalem. The Israeli archaeologist who wrote the original excavation report on the site calls the claim “nonsense.”“In their movie they are billing it as ‘never before reported information’ but it is not new,” said Amos Kloner, professor of archaeology at Bar-llan University in Israel. “I published all the details in…1996, and I didn’t say it was the tomb of Jesus’ family.”
Dominican Father Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, a biblical archaeologist and expert in the New Testament at the French Biblical and Archaeological School in Jerusalem, who was interviewed for the film, said Kloner had written about the findings a decade ago, and though it was all out in the public domain, nobody had been interested. “It’s a commercial ploy that all the media is playing into,” Father Murphy-O’Connor said.
CLAIM: The filmmakers claim that by using new technology and DNA studies they have determined that among the 10 ossuaries—burial boxes used in biblical times to house the bones of the dead which were found in the cave in 1980—are the ossuaries of Jesus, his brothers, Mary, another Mary whom they say is Mary Magdalene, and “Judah, son of Jesus.”
FACT: The names found on the ossuaries “are a combination of very common names,” according to Fr. Murphy-O’Connor. “Fifty percent of all Jewish women in the first century were called either Mary or Salome. It doesn’t mean much at all. You can prove anything with statistics.” Fr. Murphy-O’Connor said the DNA tests could “only prove that they are human” but “certainly did not prove any familial connection.”
CLAIM: The filmmakers claim the ossuaries were not identified as belonging to Jesus’ family when they were first discovered because present day knowledge and scientific tools were not available.
FACT: Jesus’ family was from Galilee and had no ties to Jerusalem, casting serious doubt that they would have had a burial cave in Jerusalem. Kloner said the names on the ossuaries were common during that time and their presence in the tomb was coincidental.
CLAIM: The filmmakers say the so-called “James Ossuary,” which came to public attention several years ago and was purported by its owner, Oded Golan, to have belonged to the brother of Jesus, was also from the tomb, and that a forensic technique was used to determine this.
FACT: In 2003 the Israel Antiquities Authority declared the inscription on the James ossuary a forgery. Golan is currently on trial for forging the inscription.
