And I’m not just talking about food.

Last night, I was with about 40 catechists from 2 different parishes and the interesting thing was that all but 2 of them were returning catechists! That rate of return is a testament to the care and support of their catechetical leaders who are both very professional and have outstanding vision for the catechetical ministry. They know how to “feed” their catechists.

We catechists owe so much to our catechetical leaders (DREs) who provide support, guidance, and resources so that we may be more effective catechists.

Let’s pray that the Church and especially pastors continue to find ways to offer the same support and care for catechetical leaders. Too many parishes are trying to do without DREs, thinking that all that they need to do is order books and fill catechist slots with warm bodies while saving money with reduced payroll.

This approach is like shooting ourselves in the foot. In the short run, parishes without DREs will have leaner budgets and the RE program might maintain itself for the most part for a few years. However, in the long run, there will be no vision for growing the catechetical ministry to better form catechists and to make adult catechesis the priority it should be. Catechists who are not supported, formed, and nourished quickly burn-out and drop off and a vicious cycle begins of constantly recruiting new catechists who will never get proper formation and will not last. And without proper formation, the quality of catechesis suffers, and eventually the catechetical program becomes moribound.

So please, FEED THE CATECHISTS!

I’ll be talking with my DRE today about finalizing the schedule (syllabus) for the year for grade 8. I know that both of us will have to resist the temptation to “try to do too much.”

There’s so much great stuff packed into the textbook (Finding God, Loyola Press) and we also schedule a number of additional events that take us out of the classroom and into the Church, meaning that there’s just never enough time to do it all.

I keep going back to the notion of: it’s better to do a few things and to do them exceptionally well than it is to do a number of things only fairly well.

I think the same holds true for each class that we teach. Sometimes we try to do so many things that we end up accomplishing very little. It’s like a homily that tries to accomplish too much…if you can’t summarize a homily in one line, then it’s not a good homily. This can be applied to our lessons: we need to focus on one BIG idea and hammer it home. We should be able to summarize the focus of our lesson in one sentence. If we can’t, then there’s no way the kids will be able to respond to their parents’ question of “So, what did you learn in religious education today?”

Today, catechists not only have excellent catechetical textbooks placed in their hands, but they also have access to quality Websites offered by the various publishers where additional resources can be accessed. The nice thing is, for many of these resources, you don’t have to be using that particular publisher’s textbook to gain access to. (Of course users of that publisher’s textbook have access to even more).

Be sure to visit these Websites for quality resources for your sessions:

Finding God (Loyola Press) – http://www.findinggod.com/loggedin_home.asp

Christ Our Life (Loyola Press) – http://www.christourlife.org/index.asp?bhcp=1

Faith First (RCL-Benziger) – http://www.faithfirst.com/

Christ Jesus, the Way (RCL-Benziger) – http://christjesustheway.com/program/cjtw/index.html

We Believe (Sadlier) – http://www.webelieveweb.com/ as well as http://www.cyberfaith.com/

Coming to Faith (Sadlier) – http://www.comingtofaith.com/

Blest Are We (Silver Burdett Ginn) – http://www.blestarewe.com/index.cfm

Call to Faith (Harcourt) – http://your.harcourtreligion.com/ctf/nsmedia/menu.html

I’m terrible at remembering names! That’s why I work so hard at trying to get to know the names of my students on the first day of class.

My inspiration comes from a college professor I had at Loyola University, a Jesuit priest, who brought in a Polaroid camera on the first day of class, arranged us in groups of 5 or 6 (the class had over 50 students!), took photos, and had us write our names on the back of the photo in the order we were standing.

The very next day, as we entered class, he greeted every single one of us at the door BY NAME! And this was a college theology course!

The sooner we get to know our students’ names, and use those names, the better our rapport with them will be.

God calls us each by name. Let’s use those names!