Just 5 more days until we begin our Online Retreat for Catechists - The Spirituality of the Catechist - right here at Catechist’s Journey! I went over most of the particulars in my last post and have received such great feedback from so many people…thanks!

Included, there have been 2 questions that have come up repeatedly, so permit me to address them here:

Q: Do I need to register for the retreat?

A: No…no need to register. Just visit my blog to jump right in to the retreat at your convenience.

Q: What if I miss a couple of weeks because of vacation or other commitments? Can I review the weeks I missed?

A: YES! Each installment will simply appear as a post here on my blog. You’ll be able to access any of the weeks at any time, view the videos, read the posts, and join in the “conversation.”

Any other questions?

Beginning on Monday, June 8, 2009, I invite you to join in an Online Retreat for Catechists that I will be hosting right here at Catechist’s Journey!

This will be an opportunity for you to spend some time this summer, reflecting (at your own convenience and in the comfort of your own home) on the spirituality of the catechist. It will be an opportunity for you to share thoughts and join in online discussion with catechists from all over the world about our unique spirituality as catechists. How will it work?

• First of all, IT’S FREE!
• The online retreat will be available right here at www.catechistsjourney.com beginning Monday, June 8, 2009.
• The first week, June 8, will simply be an introduction and overview of where we are headed in the retreat.
• For the following 6 weeks (June 15 through July 20), I will post each Monday, focusing on the following themes that represent 6 characteristics of the spirituality of the catechist as outlined in the Guide for Catechists, published by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in 1993 (section II, 6-10):
  • An Openness to God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)
  • An Openness to the Church
  • An Openness to the World
  • A Coherence and Authenticity of Life
  • Missionary Zeal
  • Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary
• Each week’s installment will include:
  • a brief video (of me!) providing an overview of the theme we are focusing on
  • a post that develops the theme a little further and shares a personal anectdote from my teaching experience that relates to the theme
  • reflection questions and suggested Scripture passages for reflection
  • suggested spiritual exercises to practice in the ensuing days
  • an invitation to post comments and interact with fellow catechists/retreatants
• on the first day of each week, you’re invited to view the brief video, read and reflect on the post and the questions/suggestions, and then return to Catechists Journey, hopefully each day for a few minutes, to share your own thoughts and to read/comment on what others are saying. THIS EXCHANGE OF THOUGHTS WILL BE ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT ASPECTS OF THE RETREAT.

For most catechists, summer is a time to renew ourselves and take a bit of a break from the grind of our teaching assignments. What better way to renew your spirit this summer than to join with catechists from all over the world, reflecting on the spirituality of the catechist?

Spread the word! If you’re a catechetical leader, please forward this post to your catechists and to your fellow DREs/CREs in neighboring parishes. If you’re a catechist, be sure to tell your catechetical leader about it and let your fellow catechists know.

I look forward to “getting away” with you this summer!

Great stories and comments being shared about becoming a catechist in response to my May 26 post Becoming a Catechist: What’s YOUR Story? Please join in!

At this time of the year, many people are being asked to consider the possibility of becoming a catechist for next year. This is a monumental responsibility of the catechetical leader: to discern which individuals God may be calling to this privileged vocation. By the same token, those who are invited to serve as catechists are faced with discerning whether or not this is their vocation.

Part of that discernment is listening to the stories of other catechists. You and I can assist by sharing our stories of how we were called to become catechists. No story is too mundane to share: God works through the ordinary experiences of everyday life to create extraordinary opportunites!

So WHAT’S YOUR STORY?  How did you become a catechist? What went through your head and heart as you discerned this call?

I just heard from a colleague of mine, a DRE who was a student at Quigley South high school when I taught there back in the 1980s! Patrick says, “Hello Joe! All is well at the parish. We finished a great year on May 3 with a May Crowning with all of the students.”

Yes, May Crownings still happen!

I remember with great fondness the May Crownings of my childhood…nothing said “spring is here” more powerfully than a good May Crowning.

Are May Crownings passe? Hopefully not. As catechists, a May Crowning is a good opportunity for us to help those we teach understand that Catholics do not worship Mary but rather honor her.

May Crownings may be considered out of date by some but, with the proper catechesis, they can continue to be a wonderful devotion and a way to bring us closer to Jesus. So what makes for “sound” Marian devotion? In his apostolic exhortation on Mary, Marialis Cultus (To Honor Mary), Pope Paul VI outlined 5 characteristics that are required, saying that sound Marian devotions and good Marian theology must be:

1. Biblical - rooted in the testimony of Scripture
2. Liturgical - in tuen with the great liturgical seasons
3. Ecumenical - in harmony with the agreements we have reached with fellow Christian churches
4. Anthropological - be sensitive to the changing role of women in society (i.e. to present Mary as a woman who was passive and subservient does not resonate with the perception of women in today’s society)
5. Theological - have God at the center - with Mary placed in relation to Christ and to the Church

You can celebrate a simple May Crowning with those you teach by doing the following:

• place a statue of Mary on a pedestal
• sing a hymn honoring Mary
• read a Scripture passage about Mary such as Luke 1:26-38 (the Anunciation); Luke 1:39-45 (the Visitation); Luke 2:6-12 (the Nativity); Luke 2:41-50 (the boy Jesus in the Temple); John 2:1-12 (the wedding feast at Cana); Luke 23:27-29 (Mary meets Jesus carrying his cross); John 19:25-30 (Mary at the foot of the cross).
• offer a brief reflection on the role of Mary as the first disciple (or, if you do this May Crowning for catechists, reflect on Mary as the model catechist)
• walk in procession while singing or playing a Marian hymn
• place a garland of flowers on the head of the statue
• pray the Hail Mary, the Hail, Holy Queen, or the Memorare

By the way, click here for a good list of other Marian resources for catechists. If you are looking for a good explanation of why May is considered the month of Mary, click here. Finally, if you’re looking for a good resource to better understand the role of Mary in the Church, consider getting a hold of Jim Campbell’s Mary and the Saints, part of the Catholic Basics series.

Have you recently experienced a May Crowning? Tell us about it!

Here’s an idea for engaging young people in grades 7 through 12 around the Church’s social teaching, helping them to recognize the root causes of poverty and injustice. It is the 2010 Catholic Campaign for Human Development Mulit-Media Arts Contest. Schools and parish religious education programs can participate in this as a tool to help young people engage in Catholic social action. The 2010 contest theme is “Empowering Neighborhoods, Uprooting Poverty.” The contest invites all art forms, including YouTube videos, music, painting, drama, writing, and PowerPoint presentations. For more information and for resources (including lesson plans), visit http://www.usccb.org/cchd/contestmaterials.shtml.

I have to tell you about an exciting new resource: Ignatian Spirituality.com.

IgnatianSpirituality.com is a service of Loyola Press, a ministry of the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). It offers information on and experiences of Ignatian spirituality from Jesuit and Ignatian sources around the world. IgnatianSpirituality.com serves all audiences—the curious, the knowledgeable, and the expert.

IgnatianSpirituality.com provides pathways into the major areas of Ignatian spirituality:

• prayer
• spiritual direction
• retreats
• making good decisions

Be sure to check out this wonderful new resource!

This coming Friday, the blockbuster film Angels and Demons will open to much fanfare and, no doubt, cries of protest from Catholic officials who see the movie as anti-Catholic. Save your breath! It’s FICTION! Dan Brown could care less about the Catholic Church, he’s simply an opportunist (a creative one at that) who is laughing all the way to the bank.

Dan Brown doesn’t scare me. What scares me are all the people who accept anything they see in a movie (or on the Internet) as fact. It’s no different than Oliver Stone’s JFK, which the majority of Americans believe accurately represents the events of November 23, 1963 even though the movie freely blends fact and fiction througout.

So what’s a Catholic to do? Personally, I’ll watch Angels and Demons the same way I watched the new Star Trek movie (which I loved!)…for entertainment and escape. I didn’t leave the Star Trek movie believing in the existence of Klingons and Romulans or in the veracity of transwarp drive or transporter systems. Why would I leave Angels and Demons believing in the Illuminati?

Bottom line is, know your facts. There are lots of excellent online resources about the non-truths in Angels and Demons for your edification. I’ll not try to recreate them here. I will, however, offer 2 points:

1. The premise of the entire movie is NOT factual. The Catholic Church did NOT sponsor a murderous persecution of scientists in the 16th century that led to the formation of a secret society called the Illuminati who were bent on revenge. The Illuminati was not formed in the 16th century and its members did not include Galileo, Copernicus, or Bernini. Galileo was not publicly flogged by the Church (although his house arrest is a black eye in Church history) and Copernicus was never at odds with the Church and he was not murdered by the Church. He died of a stroke. The list goes on… Suffice to say that the Church was suspicious of science for a few centuries but there was no violent perscecution.
2. The above fiction is set forth to establish the premise for the movie: an ongoing battle between faith and reason…between the Church and science. The relationship between faith and science is a discussion worth having and would make for a great adult catechesis experience. Are there tensions between faith and science? Yes. However, the Chuch is not at war with science. On the contrary, the present Pope and his predecessor have gone to great lengths to speak about the relationship between faith and reason.

In the end, there are only 2 things worth spending our time discussing as Catholics when it comes to the movie Angels and Demons: an accurate understanding of Church history and the ongoing relationship between faith and reason. These make for good discussion. The movie is another opportunity for evangelization and catechesis. It is another entry point (as St. Ignatius taught: enter through THEIR door but be sure to leave through YOUR door!). If we waste our time crying about anti-Catholicism, it will be another missed opportunity.

When we gather with our young people for religious education classes, it’s not always easy for them to make the transition from their day into “the sacred.” One strategy is to emply some discussion starters to break the ice: questions that are non-threatening, fun, and substantive. I recommend a product created by my friends Tom McGrath and Bret Nicholaus called The Meal Box. The Meal Box is a set of 52 cards featuring questions designed to “spice up conversations and get parents and kids talking” around the dinner table. I think these would work very well in a catechetical setting as well.

Here are some samples:

If you could build a private bridge or tunnel that would take you directly from your home to any place at all, what would it connect to?

*   *   *

If you could transport yourself back in time and experience first-hand any story in the Bible, which one would it be?

*   *   *

If you asked five people who know you to write down the one word that they think best describes you, what do you think would be the most common answer? (consider the answer carefully from their viewpoint, not yours)

*   *   *

If you could literally jump into the pages of any book you’ve ever read and experience the action along with the characters, which book would you choose?

*   *   *

If you were in charge of planning for and building a brand-new museum, what specific theme would be the focus of the museum and where do you think would be the best place to build it?

These questions could be especially helpful at the start of the year as you attempt to break the ice and get to know your students and help them to get to know one another if they don’t already.

Check it out: The Meal Box