November is, of course, the month of all souls, a special time of the year for us to remember those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith.

To mark this special month, as part of our opening prayer last night, instead of having the kids offer prayers of thanksgiving or petitions for needs, I asked them each to share the name(s) of loved ones who have passed away so that we could remember them in a special way this month.

We passed the candle and each of the kids mentioned someone dear to them. I begn by remembering my Dad who passed away 12 years ago next month. One of the kids remembered a soldier – a native of Evergreen Park - who recently gave his life in service of his country. Most remembered grandparents. One girl remembered a cousin who just died within the previous week. Lucy, my aide, mentioned both of her parents. It was a very solemn moment and a moment for each of them to recognize that we are all touched by the pain of death.

I also taught them the prayer that Catholics pray for those who have died: “Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON THEM.” We repeated that 3 times.

After the prayer, I briefly explained our understanding of the Communion of Saints and how these loved ones are still with us, separated by a “veil” between this life and the next and that we can still communicate with them, praying with them and for them. I mentioned how I occasionally have conversations with my Dad and Lucy added that she converses with both of her parents. I emphasized that for Catholics, this is quite normal and is not strange because we know that even death cannot truly separate us from our loved ones.

It made for a very prayerful beginning for class and helped to sensitize me and I’m sure each of the young people to the depth of feeling that each of us is capable of.

It’s hard to believe that we have only 3 Sundays left in the current Church year! Advent begins on November 29! With that in mind, don’t miss my (free) Advent Webinar on Wednesday, November 18. And if you do miss it, it will be recorded and made available the week following right here on my blog. Have a great weekend!

Advent begins on Sunday, November 29, 2009— are you ready? Joe Paprocki, National Consultant for Faith Formation for Loyola Press and veteran catechist, invites catechists, religion teachers, and RCIA leaders to join him in this Webinar that explores how to create engaging advent-themed faith-formation activities drawn from the Sunday Scripture Readings of Cycle C (the Gospel of Luke). Joe will take us through the readings for this Advent season, explore the theme for each week, and share some unique ways you can develop the theme into activities that inspire children, youth, and adults to enter more deeply into the beauty and holiness of Advent. In the days following the Webinar, Joe will offer additional Advent-related activities on his blog, Catechist’s Journey. If you are unable to attend the Webinar, you may view the video on Joe’s blog. It will be posted the week following the Webinar. This free Webinar is led by Joe Paprocki, an 8th-grade catechist in the Archdiocese of Chicago with over 30 years of experience in pastoral ministry. Joe, National Consultant for Faith Formation at Loyola Press, is the author of numerous books including the best-selling The Catechist’s Toolbox and A Well-Built Faith, as well as the host of the blog Catechist’s Journey. Register for this free Webinar today by clicking here. If you have additional questions about the Webinar, please contact Carrie Freyer at freyer@loyolapress.com.

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This phrase, of course, is from Isaiah 11:6, and is used from time to time in catechesis with regards to children taking leadership roles. I experimented with this concept on Monday evening by having one of my students lead the guided reflection!

This was a big risk for me and I have to admit that I have a very hard time of letting go of things like this because I know how it should be done. However, I thought I’d give it a whirl and it turned out OK.

Good thing is, I have a small group and they like doing the guided reflections and they have been behaving very well during these experiences. So what I did was, I chose a student who is a good reader and I asked her before class if she would be willing to read the script that I had ready. I showed her the technique of counting slowly to 2 in her head after every sentence (to slow the pace down) and counting slowly to 5 in her head after every time the script said “pause” to allow for reflection.

I still did my part of getting everyone into their “sacred space” and quieting them down before turning it over to my volunteer. My aide and I were able to “patrol” the room as the reflection went on (I also had quiet music in the background and the lights dimmed).

In all, my volunteer did pretty well. She was a bit nervous and so her pace was a bit too quick but not terribly so. I slowed her down once but I basically let go and allowed her to do it on her own.

The script she used was from a book called Guided Reflections for Children – Volume 1: Praying with Scripture.  I would say that her reading part took about 8-10 minutes, including all of the built-in pauses. The rest of the group was as quiet as usual and perhaps more so since it was one of their peers leading them and since 2 adults were patrolling the room!

Afterwards, I thanked the volunteer and asked if anyone else would like to do this in the future and one young lady raised her hand, so I’m going to give it another try.

Has anyone else tried something like this?

I’m going to prod one of the young men to volunteer as well. I’ve been noticing how the guys often sit back and let the young ladies take the lead when it comes to speaking and leadership roles in RE. Years ago, young girls felt pressure to not assert themselves in learning situations…even feeling the need to “act dumb” in certain situations when they were around guys. Thankfully, that has changed. Unfortunately, now sometimes, it is the guys who feel they need to “act dumb” when around the girls (no big surprise when you see how men, especially fathers, are portrayed on TV and in the movies these days).

Anyone else noticing this?

So things went fairly well last night with my experiment in having the kids make PowerPoint slides to describe who Jesus is. I say fairly well because I was surprised at how poorly some of them are at keyboarding and that slowed the whole process down (they know how to use Powerpoint, but they type slowly!). They behaved well and seemed to like the idea of working on computers in religious education class, but they worked so slowly that most were unable to finish.

Of the 3 groups, one did exceptionally well, due in no small part to the fact that one of the young ladies volunteered to type for her group mates and she was a whiz at keyboarding! Here is the work of that one successful group so you can see what they came up with (this is untouched by me so it still includes mispellings, etc.).

Group 3 Slides: The Words and Actions of Jesus

This is closest to what I envisioned however, even for this group, there was no time for them to add any clip art. The other 2 groups didn’t come close to completing their slides. I’m not upset about that because they did complete a hard copy first before they began typing, so I know that they did interact with the content of the session which is the most important thing.

I am finishing the Powerpoint and will use it next week to have them present about Jesus to the group, each one commenting on (or at least reading aloud)  the slides he or she was responsible for. I will have a Who Is Jesus? booklet put together for next week for everyone to take notes in throughout the presentation so that when they go home, they can show their parents how much they learned about Jesus. I’ll make that booklet available to you when I have it ready!