I had a list of topics that I’ve wanted to blog about and couldn’t decide which one to pick so I thought I’d address them all! Here goes:

• They came back! Kudos, once again to my DRE, Arlene, for making it clear that Confirmation is not the end. All of my students (save for one absentee) returned last night for their first class after Confirmation!
• Their biggest comment about Confirmation? “The bishop put SO much oil on my forehead!”  I told them that this was a symbol of the abundance of the Spirit and of the outpouring of the Spirit’s gifts.
• My blog has been nominated for a Catholic Blog Award! My category is Best Individual Catholic Blog. Thanks to whomever it was that nominated me.
• Here’s some feedback about report cards in religious education from a DRE:

Dear Joe,

You asked for the results or feedback concerning the use of report cards in our program this year.  In general it went well.  I think the catechists liked the opportunity to use report cards for feedback.  I didn’t receive negative comments from any of them.

We gave about 150 report cards.  I heard of only six negative comments by parents.  Only two were directed to me.  They boiled down to saying there should be no report cards for religious education.  One thought it puts too much pressure on children.  The other wasn’t happy with one of her child’s marks.

What I hope to find out from catechists is whether or not a significant number of children begin to strive to do well and improve their weak areas.  In other words, was this effort motivational.

• Lots of stories on the news about the Vatican announcing “new sins.” I find it amusing how many newscasters introduced this story with a smirk on their face as though to imply “that wacky old Church…still hung up on the idea of sin while we know better.” 
• Another thought about the “new sins.”  There’s a saying about heresies that goes like this: “there are no new heresies…just old ones in new packaging.” The same can be true of the “new sins” identified by the Church. They really are not new but the same old “seven deadly sins” in new packaging.
• Best quote related to the “new sins” story:  “Father Antonio Pelayo, a Spanish priest and Vatican expert noted that it is time for both sinners and confessors to get over their obsession with sex and think about other ways humans hurt each other in the world in which they live.”  Well said, Fr. Pelayo.
• If I have time today, I’ll watch Oprah’s second session on spirituality and offer some thoughts tomorrow or the next day.

How often do we hear kids say, either about Mass or about religious education class, “It’s boring”? Too often, I’m sure.

Kids (and most of us in general) are engaged when there is drama involved.  That’s why sports is so big…we don’t know how the game is going to turn out and so we are engaged. Movies and video games are big because we don’t know how they will end.

One of the challenges we face as catechists is to present the drama of the Christian story. This can be particularly challenging because, on the surface, we know how the story ends. During Holy Week, we enter into the dramatic events of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection. And yet, we know “how the story ends.” Where’s the drama?

The drama is, in fact, discovered in how the death and resurrection of Christ intersects with our own lives.WE DO NOT KNOW HOW OUR OWN PERSONAL STORY “ENDS.” We do not know how the Paschal Mystery will “play out” in our own lives.

The only way that the Christian story, and Mass, and religious education can be perceived as boring is if we in general find life to be boring. Granted, we do experience redundancy in our lives, but there is nothing boring about the human experience. Our challenge is to tap into the drama of the human experience and show our young people how the death and resurrection of Jesus is found in that experience and how the paschal mystery of Jesus can transform our experience.

One way we can bring our young people to this realization is to be sure that we are always addressing the profound issues of life going on around us. We need to invite our young people to pray for and keep in mind those people who are sick, suffering, oppressed, enduring hardships, experiencing the loss of a loved one, or a relationship, or of a job, and so on. We need to invite the young people to share prayers for people in their own lives who are experiencing these things, as well as the great joys of life…births, accomplishments, victories, vacations, engagements and marriages, and so on.

Life is not boring. It is full of turns and twists that can make our heads spin. We need to invite our young people to plunge headlong into the mystery of life and help them to see how God is found in the midst of it. We do our young people no favors by suggesting that following Jesus is fun or that it will take away all of our problems. The biggest favor we can offer our young people is to recognize the profound complexities of life within the context of the death and Resurrection of Jesus.

My thanks to Fr. J. Glenn Murray, S.J. for touching on this topic in his workshop at the L.A. Congress this past weekend. It obviously made me think!

Saint Patrick’s Day will fall during Holy Week this year for the first time since 1940. This means that there will be no Mass in honor of St. Patrick on March 17 which is the Monday of Holy Week (according to the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Divine Worship).

Many Catholic bishops are asking for even more sensitivity to this overlap by urging parades and festivities to be scheduled outside of Holy Week. Many cities and organizations are doing just that. However, in Columbus, Ohio, the Shamrock Club is going ahead with its March 17 parade. The president of the club cites the following:

“It’s not a sin to celebrate your Irish culture.”

and

“Actually, you’re born Irish first and then you’re baptized.”

In both cases, he is technically correct but spiritually wrong. It is not a sin to celebrate your culture. It’s a matter of timing and of priorities. The word “holy” means to be “set apart for God’s purposes.” Holy Week is thus a time that we set aside from our usual practices to enter more deeply into the Paschal Mystery of Christ. To insist on celebrating Irish heritage during this week is to miss the profundity of the Paschal Mystery in our lives.

Likewise, when we place anything, including our cultural heritage, in a position of more prominence than our relationship with God, we are skewing our relationship with God. What is sin other than the skewing of our relationship with God and others?

Most importantly, the idea that we are born Irish (or Polish, or African-American, or Puerto-Rican, etc.) first and then baptized is chronologically correct. However, it misses the entire point of baptism. In baptism, we are born again, recognizing that our true heritage is as children of God. This is why St. Paul said,

“for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” (Galatians 3:26-28)

As in many cases, this is not a case of the Church asking us to say “No” to something as it is asking us to remember what it is that we have said (and must continue to say) a greater “YES!” to.

Being Irish (or any other ethnic background) is nice, but it’s not our source of salvation.

Catechists, let’s be sure to plan any recognition of St. Patrick’s Day with our students BEFORE Holy Week so that Holy Week is truly holy: set apart for God’s purposes.

There’s a popular children’s book featuring Grover from Sesame Street titled There’s a Monster at the End of This Book! I remember reading this book to my daughter when she was little. Throughout the book, loveable furry Grover begs the reader not to turn the page for fear that there is a monster at the end of the book. At the end, Grover says, “oops, I am so embarrassed” because the monster at the end of the book is none other than Grover himself.

Children are afraid of monsters. But then, so are adults. Oh we may not believe in gigantic furry creatures with claws, be we are afraid of human monsters…those seemingly less than human people who hurt, maim, and kill other human beings. When good people die senselessly, we look for the monster. We’re still looking for the monster(s) responsible for the JFK assassination because we can’t believe that a little twerp like Lee Harvey Oswald could be responsible for such a heinous deed. People are still looking for the monsters responsible for Princess Diana’s tragic car crash. In the aftermath of the killings at Columbine HS and at Virginia Tech, you could almost feel a palpable sense of relief in the American psyche when it was revealed that the young men responsible for those killings were such  social misfits: clearly monsters waiting to attack.

Now, we have Steven Kazmierczak who killed 5 people and injured numerous others at Northern Illinois University last week. Authorities still don’t really know what set him off. Indications are that he struggled with some mental illness but so do countless millions of Americans. We will keep searching until we dig up something that shows us he was a monster so that we can all relax knowing that there is a huge chasm between creatures like him and ourselves.

However, we are not finding any evidence that he was a monster. What he did was monstrous but the frightening reality is that Stephen Kazmierczak apparently was not all that different from most of us. Something pushed him over a line that most of us do not cross but that we all brush up against in our lives. I say all this because I have heard that some people’s bright idea of how to “solve” the problem of campus shootings is to allow students to carry concealed weapons. The people who advocate this believe in monsters. They believe that “normal” people will be able to protect themselves with concealed weapons should monsters appear on campus. They don’t realize that they will simply be putting guns in the hands of more people like Stephen Kazmierczak – people who are basically normal until something pushes them over a line and they can easily reach into their holster and use their weapon to release their rage.

There are no monsters at the end of this story. Just ourselves. Let’s not arm ourselves with the weapons that make it so easy for normally law-abiding citizens to cross that line.