Archive for December, 2007
As we celebrate this Christmas season, let the Herald Angels be an inspiration for us catechists.
To be a herald is to be a bearer of the Good News. Each time we teach, we bring tidings of great joy: God is with us in Jesus Christ! We are, indeed, privileged to be heralds of the Gospel.
May the Herald Angels inspire you this Christmas season and throughout the New Year! God’s blessings during this Christmas season. I’ll not post during vacation…I’ll meet you back here January 2!
I know that it is better to give than to receive, but receiving is nice too!
I was touched to receive Christmas gifts from several of my students (I’m sure it was their parents who put them up to it!). What a nice gesture to express appreciation for the partnership we catechists enter into with parents.
I was also delighted to receive a beautiful leather bound New American Bible from my DRE, Arlene. It will assume it’s rightful position at my bedside.
Oh, yeah, back to the kids. As one of the girls was leaving class Monday night, she said, “Merry Christmas! I’ll bring your gift next time…I left it at home!” These kids are something else, aren’t they?
Last night’s Confirmation Intensive, a 2-hour session with the 8th graders, was a resounding success!
The kids were not surprisingly curious and anxious about what they were going to do for “2 WHOLE HOURS!!!”
We had them on the move for the whole 2 hours and they were delightfully engaged in their mini-sessions (20 minutes with each of the 4 eighth grade catechists. For my sessions, we met in my room in the school and then moved from the school building to the convent chapel. To do so, we formed a procession: I asked for volunteers to carry a cross, a candle, and my CD player that was blaring “Lord, send out you Spirit!” I got a kick out of how the kids got into this. No, they were not solemn and in fact they were somewhat giddy but I would have to say that they processed in a spirited manner and it set the tone for my sessions with them.
The 2 hours went by in a flash and the DRE tells me that she surveyed a number of kids on their way out and they said they enjoyed it. This was an engaging and effective method for covering a great deal of information about Confirmation in a significant block of time without “boring” the young people.
I’m greatly appreciative to my DRE, Arlene, who is so supportive and open to new ideas. I am also greatful to my fellow 8th grade catechists…they are such a great team to work with and I was so impressed with the kids from their classes…they are obviously doing wonderful work with them.
We’re off now until after Christmas and then we have a few more Confirmation intensives.
I’ll post the rest of this week and then will take Christmas week off. Talk to you tomorrow.
This evening is the first of 4 Confirmation “Intensives” planned for our 8th graders. Normally, our sessions are 75 minutes long. The intensives will be 2 hours, giving us a chance to do a variety of things and go into more depth with our young people.
For tonight’s session, we will begin by having a prayer service in which we present the young people with their copies of Confirmed in the Spirit, their confirmation text book.
Then, they will move through four, 20-minute segments, one with each of the four 8th grade catechists. My segment focuses on the symbols of the Holy Spirit that will be prevalent at their Confirmation liturgy: water, oil, fire, and a dove. I plan to focus on how water regenerates, oil heals and strengthens, fire transforms, and a dove soars peacefully, showing how all of these symbols speak to us of the reality of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
I plan to end by showing them a small model of a sail boat that I have, pointing out how such a boat is totally reliant upon the wind - a force that cannot be seen but is a reality. I will work with them to come to the realization that the Holy Spirit, who cannot be seen, is very real, and that Confirmation preparation is an opportunity to learn how to “hoist our sails” and journey with the Holy Spirit, led by the Holy Spirit, reliant upon the Holy Spirit.
This 20-minute segment is short and to-the-point, as are the other segments. Our hope is that the young people will come away with a solid understanding of some of the basic concepts of Confirmation, and will do so in a format that is engaging and fast-moving.
The evening ends back in our “homerooms” with a brief summary of the evening and an opportunity for prayer.
I look forward to letting you know how things go.
Rather than post something new, I’d like to direct your attention to the lively conversation that is going on over my December 7 post on Intergenerational Catechesis (inspired by an intergenerational event I recently attended). Several of the folks from the coordinating team of the host parish left some insightful and challenging comments and questions and we’ve engaged in a very productive conversation over the last couple of days.
I’m most impressed by the passion that these folks have for providing meaningful faith formation for their parish. From their comments, one can tell that they are committed to shaping the most effective catechetical model possible for their faith community. I’m also deeply impressed with their knowledge of catechetical documents that provide vision for developing effective models of faith formation.
You’re most welcome to add your thoughts about intergenerational catechesis, whole community catechesis, evangelization and catechesis, and any of the other subjects that we touch on in our exchanges.
Today is the 10th anniversary of my Dad’s passing into eternal life.
My Dad was a pharmacist, owner of his own store Paprocki Pharmacy which he inherited from my grandfather who started the business in1919.
The picture below is of the store’s 2nd (more contemporary-looking) location, taken in the mid-1980’s when the store literally became a “mom & pop” operation. All of us children (there were 9 of us) were grown and moved away and my parents now ran the store on their own, with help from a boy in the neighborhood.
The store closed when my Dad retired in 1987.
In the picture, Dad is sitting on his favorite little chair which he had since his childhood…a chair that all of us children played with in our childhoods and which now sits in my mom’s living room!
I’m one of the lucky people who has nothing but good memories of my Dad who was a loving, gentle, and holy man.
Miss you, Dad. Love ya.
Today is my First Blogaversary! One year ago today, on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I posted for the first time on Catechist’s Journey.
Since that time, I have posted 249 times and you good folks have posted 534 comments!
It’s hard to believe that 1 year has already passed. I just want to take this moment to thank all of you for visiting and posting comments and I invite you to continue doing so as together, we continue to journey as catechists, on the way to the Kingdom!
Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!
Yesterday, I had the privilege of reuniting with one of my high school religion teachers, the great Fr. Mark Link, S.J.
Fr. Mark is one of the most prolific Catholic writers around, having sold millions of books including These Stones Will Shout, The Seventh Trumpet, The Still Point of the Turning World, You, Vision 2000, Challenge, Path Through Scripture, and Path Through Catholicism, just to name a few (over 60 titles in all).
During my years as a student at St. Ignatius College Prep (1973-77), Fr. Mark was one of my religion teachers. We were one of the first groups of students to use his book, These Stones Will Shout which is about the Old Testament. I was very taken by this Jesuit priest who had such a passion for Scripture (kind of a “new” idea in the early 70’s). I have no doubt that the seeds of my vocation as a teacher and a catechist were sown right there in Fr. Mark’s class.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure and privilege of sharing this with him. I also gave him a copy of my book, God’s Library: A Catholic Introduction to the World’s Greatest Book and read to him from the Acknowledgment page:
Special thanks to the Scripture professors at whose feet I was privileged to sit: Fr. Mark Link, S.J…
Check out Fr. Mark’s web site www.staygreat.com which he put together with the help of students at Rockhurst high school in Kansas City. He recently turned 80…I hope I’m that “with it” when I’m that age!
Thanks, Fr. Mark…keep on writing!
A colleague of mine sent me the following interesting bit of information just a short while ago and I’m happy to pass it along to you:
The Congregation for Clergy has just started an email service for priests, deacons and catechists through which you can sign in to receive via email all documents issue by the congregation. To sign up go to:
http://www.clerus.org/pls/clerus/cn_clerus.h_start_consult_ext?dicastero=2&tema=-1&argomento=-1&sottoargomento=-1&lingua=2&Classe=1&operazione=ges_email&rif=&rif1=&vers=2 They also have a new page http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerus/index_eng.html which contains the Bible in many languages along with interpretation of each verse, meditations, etc (until now these was only available in CDRom from the congregation). Thanks, Santiago, for the info!
Last night, I had the pleasure of attending an intergenerational catechetical event at St. Raphael parish in Naperville, Illinois. The DRE, Jane Ehrlich, does a fantastic job of catechizing the entire parish!
I was amazed at the amount of planning and coordination that must go into such an event for about 700 people! The evening began with dinner (pizza and salad) in the gym followed by an opening experience in the church. This experience served to gather folks, engage them, and set the tone for the evening. It segued nicely from a lighthearted look at the craziness of the secular Christmas season to the prayerfulness of Advent.
After that, there were 3 venues that each featured 20-minute experiences focusing on the Advent and Christmas season. Groups alternated between these 3 venues and then met again in the church for a closing experience.
In all, it was a wonderful experience and was masterfully planned and coordinated by Jane Ehrlich and her staff. What I like most about it is that Jane and her staff see these events as complementing the existing religious education program. They are periodic rallying points throughout the catechetical year to gather families together in community and involve parents in their children’s faith formation. They are like mini-revivals that energize the parish and the religious education program. They are not seen as a replacement for ongoing catechetical programming.
I think that is very wise. For one, much of what happens at events like these is not so much catechesis as it is evangelization or even pre-evangelization. By this, I mean, that the activities at these events are designed to be an entry-point into the life of the Church, helping everyone involved to feel more comfortable with a church-environment.
The General Directory for Catechesis reminds us that “catechesis is a moment within the whole process of evangelization and that there are “activities which prepare for catechesis.” (#63) This is what intergenerational events accomplish, preparing people for catechesis which is the formalizing of faith. Here’s more from the GDC:
Nevertheless in pastoral practice it is not always easy to define the boundaries of these activities. Frequently, many who present themselves for catechesis truly require genuine conversion. Because of this the Church usually desires that the first stage in the catechetical process be dedicated to ensuring conversion. (185) In the “missio ad gentes”, this task is normally accomplished during the ‘pre-catechumenate’. (186) In the context of “new evangelization” it is effected by means of a “kerygmatic catechesis”, sometimes called “pre-catechesis”, (187) because it is based on the precatechumenate and is proposed by the Gospel and directed towards a solid option of faith. Only by starting with conversion, and therefore by making allowance for the interior disposition of “whoever believes”, can catechesis, strictly speaking, fulfil its proper task of education in the faith. (188)
All of this to say that intergenerational events play a very important role in the evangelizing mission of the Church. In particular, they help to achieve the first-stated goal of the U.S. bishops’ evangelization document Go and Make Disciples:
To bring about in all Catholics such an enthusiasm for their faith that, in living their faith in Jesus, they freely share it with others
One caveat that I do have in this whole discussion is calling these intergenerational events “whole community catechesis.” As mentioned above, what is taking place is not so much catechesis as it is evangelization or pre-catechesis. Secondly, the atmosphere at these events is so heavily geared toward parents with young children that, even when parishes offer a track strictly for adults, those adults feel out of place. I thought last night’s experience was wonderful…if you have young children. As someone who has college-age children, I would personally not attend such events…I definitely felt out of place not having kids with me. However, I wish that such events were offered when my kids were young and in religious education!!!
