Catechist's Journey

We’ve had a good conversation here about sacramental readiness over the last few days thanks to a plea for help from “Monica.” Thank you to all who have so generously shared their wisdom. Our discussion got me thinking about the notion of readiness and the fact that all of our catechesis takes its cue from [...]

Here is an opportunity to help one of our colleagues (we’ll call her Monica) who is faced with a situation of determining sacramental readiness. Please offer your advice by leaving a reply below. Hi Joe — One of our RCIC students, 13 year old, missed lots of classes, has not done any home make up [...]

Recently, I received a review copy of a DVD titled Understanding Sunday Mass: A Kid’s Point of View by David Yrisarri (Anchor Productions, sundaymass4kids.com). David is a visual effects producer who worked with the Diocese of Orange, CA, to produce this instructional video after his own son’s First Communion. David felt that his son and [...]

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am preparing a lesson on the Sacraments of Initiation for this Monday evening and plan to connect it to our study of the Old Testament, in particular, the Exodus/Passover story. As part of that, I put together a review of the Exodus/Passover story – 10 pictures from [...]

As I look ahead to this coming Monday’s session, I see that I am scheduled to teach about the Sacraments of Initiation: Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist. It’s one of those strange situations where I’ve been teaching about the Old Testament and then all of a sudden I’m supposed to teach about the Sacraments of Initiation. [...]

The current issue of RTJ’s Creative Catechist Magazine features an article that I wrote titled “How We Speak in the Kingdom of God” and describes how First Eucharist is an ideal time to introduce what I call a “language of mystery” to those we teach. Here’s a PDF of the article: How We Speak in [...]