Catechist’s Journey is a blog where I reflect on the joys and challenges of my 30 years in ministry, including my current work as an eighth-grade catechist. It is also a place for you to share what’s working–or not working–in your ministry. Learning together, we can more effectively proclaim the Catholic faith to others.
This past Monday evening, Chicago lived up to its name as the “windy city” (although that name originated not as a description of the climate in Chicago but of the politics!) with wind gusts reaching 40-50 mph. A good night to be teaching about the Holy Spirit!
Sure enough, just as I told the young people that we would be learning about the Holy Spirit, a huge gust of wind blew through an open window, blew papers off of the tables in the room and blew open the door to the room! I couldn’t have asked for a more dramatic introduction!
The evening had other highlights as well:
We reviewed Jn 3:16 with a short quiz and then I introduced the term INCARNATION: Jesus becoming flesh and asked what holiday we celebrate this on. After a brief moment, one young man correctly responded, “Christmas.”
I then played Joan Osborne’s song “One of Us” in which she asks the question, “what if God was one of us?” After the song, I asked the young people how they would respond to her as a Christian. Interestingly enough, 4 or 5 of them responded with statements about what it would be like if God were one of us. I said, “that’s nice, but you’re all speaking in the future tense as though this is something that may happen. As Christians, we believe this already happened!” I pointed to the word INCARNATION on the board and explained that this is what we beleive about Jesus: he (God) became “one of us.” Several of them looked genuinely pleased to know this!
I said “we’ve talked about the Father and the Son so far, any guess as to who we’ll talk about next?” One young person answered without hesitation, “the Holy Spirit.”
After the “mighty wind” experience that I described above we did a short activity in which they made their own “sail boats” out of a piece of styrofoam, a toothpick, and a piece of construction paper (for the sail). Using straws, they blew their boats across a baking pan filled with water. I talked about how a sail boat can do nothing on its own but relies on the wind and compared that to how we cooperate with the power of the Holy Spirit: we can do nothing on our own, but with the Spirit of God, we can do many wonderful things.
We read from the Finding God text book about the Holy Spirit, with an emphasis on the Spirit as the breath of God (I used this to explain why we always start our sacred space prayer by taking deep breaths…so that we are reminded of the life of the Spirit within us).
I introduced the word ADVOCATE and said this is another way of understanding the Holy Spirit. I then had my aide, Lucy, talk about how, as a nurse, she advocates for patients. (I’ll go in to detail about this tomorrow…it was really special).
The young people then took their vigil candles and went off to sacred space. After they took some deep breaths and quieted down, I played a Mariah Carey song “Anytime You Need a Friend” that expresses what it means to be a steadfast advocate for someone and encouraged them to listen as if the Spirit were speaking these words to them. Following the song, I guided them to talk to the Spirit, asking for guidance, help, strength, and courage.
Following sacred space (about 10 minutes), we wrapped up by talking about the Trinity. I did my little demonstration of water, ice, and steam to help understand how, in the Trinity, we have 3 distinct Persons and yet One God. We ended by having them bless themselves with Holy Water in the name of the Trinity.
OK, I finally successfully uploaded a short video I made earlier today that demonstrates a couple of activities for teaching young people about the Holy Spirit and the Trinity. Here tis…
I had a very enjoyable session last night! Here are the highlights:
We began in church with an opening prayer service with the pastor. I met my group out in the parking lot and they were jovial and polite. I had a full class with the 2 absentees from last week being present.
The kids were very well behaved in church…I was quite pleased to see that. My aide Lucy was there as well and it was nice to have her present as well.
I eased out of church after the prayer service and before our class was dismissed to get upstairs, allowing Lucy to bring them up. This gave me a few minutes to get a few more things in place before they arrived. We had 45 minutes left at this point.
As they entered, I greeted them with a short “quiz” about what we covered last week. This got their attention immediately and then they realized that the questions were fun and we enjoyed going over the correct answers. It actually made for a nice review of last week.
We did our opening prayer: “This is the day the Lord has made…” followed by signing our foreheads, lips, and hearts, and then passing the candle to offer prayers of thanksgiving or petition. They are doing very nicely with that, thanking God for very simple things, not being silly, and just looking and sounding comfortable.
2 of the students, both boys, brought personal symbols for the prayer center! One brought his 3rd grade Rosary and the other brought a small stone. I was very pleased with this and encouraged the others to follow suit.
We did an activity called “Revealing Moments” in which I covered a poster of a celebrity (Taylor Swift) with cards that we played a memory game with. One of the girls guessed pretty early and then I explained that we didn’t know who it was until we revealed various parts of her face. I said that today we were going to learn about how God has revealed himself to us in Jesus.
We read from the textbook about how Jesus reveals to us the face of God. We used the ball toss for taking turns reading and they continue to enjoy that and it keeps them engaged a bit more.
One of them asked me if we were doing sacred space! I said that’s up next.
The article in the text mentioned Jn 3:16 – “For God so loved the world…” I sent them to their sacred space to reflect on this passage which I provided on small slips of paper, inviting them to memorize the words. I turned out the lights, put on some music, and they were very quiet. I did a sort of Lectio Divina on this passage, repeating it every 30-45 seconds or so for 2 or 3 minutes and then just leaving it silent for a few minutes.
I finished by telling them that their “assignment” was to spend some quality time with someone who needs love in the days ahead because God sent his only Son Jesus to spend quality time with us!
We gathered for a Glory Be and they blessed themselves with Holy Water as they left.
So far, I’ve summarized the first 45-50 minutes of my first session with my 8th graders this past Monday evening, detailing the Engage and Explore steps of my lesson. Today, I’ll detail the REFLECT step which is designed to lead the young people to pray from within the truths they are learning. Here are the details:
I had the young people put their textbooks on the floor underneath their chairs and told them that it was time to move into another segment of the class that they are going to really like.
I introduced the concept of sacred space telling them that, as much as possible, we will spend about 15 minutes of each class in quiet prayerful time. I explained that, one by one, I will call them forward to pick up their candle, turn it on, and proceed to a location anywhere in the room (under a table, on top of a table, behind a desk, in a chair, on the floor, etc.) that they will then claim as their own personal sacred space.
One by one, they came forward to do just that as I made sure that each location chosen was about 10-15 feet away from the nearest classmate.
Once they were all in position, I turned the lights out and put on some quiet instrumental background music.
I invited them to get comfortable, to put their candle down and just stare at it, and led them in some breathing exercises for about a minute and a half.
Surprisingly they were very quiet and cooperative – usually I get a few wise guys who make wheezing sounds when I invite them to breathe deeply!
I then led them on a guided reflection, inviting them to imagine that they were aboard the Space Shuttle, orbiting the earth. I invited them to imagine looking down at the earth below and taking in all of the beauty of God’s creation and to look at the moon and stars, thinkin about how good God’s creation is. I did this for about 2-3 minutes.
I spoke about how we can trust God because of the goodness of his creation that he shares with us. I invited them to talk to God, thanking him for creation. I then invited them to thank God for this quiet time, for the beautiful weather we’ve been enjoying, for the peaceful sounds of the night outside our room, and so on. I did this for 2-3 minutes.
I then allowed them to just rest in the quiet presence of God for a couple of minutes – complete silence. I finished by telling them that they most likely feel very peaceful right now and to remember that the next time they are in Church and extend a Sign of Peace to someone, that they are wishing that this person will experience the same peace you are feeling right now.
I slowly called them back to the room, turned a few lights on slowly, and made sure we had not lost any of them to sleep! I’m happy to report that they all stayed awake! They then returned to their seats, placing their candles back on the prayer table.
When we gathered back, I asked if this was the quietest moment of their day and all but one raised their hand. I said that this is how we are going to pray each week whenever possible – that this is a little different from how they may have prayed before but that it is a grownup way to pray. I asked if they liked it and they responded positively (no gushing or anything, just a few nods, a few “yeahs” and a couple of “uh-huhs”)
All told, we took between 15-20 minutes total for the Reflect step. I never once used the word meditation…kids can often act goofy when they hear that word. I’ll tell them in a few weeks that this is what they’re doing.
Only once during the guided reflection did I need to stop and correct some behavior. One of the boys was trying to hold back laughter and finally let loose with some giggles and guffaws. Over what, I have no idea. I just stopped and said to the whole group, “you need to resist the urge to laugh and giggle when we do this because that’s what children do and you’re not little children anymore. You need to act like young adults.” That seemed to work.
When we were all done, I complimented them on their behavior, telling them that they acted very maturely. We were now ready to move into the final step of the class, the RESPOND step, where I send them out through “my door” (remember, St. Ignatius’ advice? “Enter through THEIR door but be sure to leave through YOUR door!”) I’ll describe that experience tomorrow.
Yesterday, I told you about the first 35 minutes or so of my first session on Monday evening during which time my focus was to ENGAGE the young people. My Engage step normally does not take that long however, being the first night, there was more engaging to do! With the focus on the theme of TRUST, we next moved into the EXPLORE step of the lesson, where we look at the story of salvation and how it connects with the lived experience we just talked about in the Engage step. Here are the highlights:
First, the pastor stopped in. This is always a welcome interruption. He is a new pastor and he came in to introduce himself to me and to the young people and I thought he did a fine job of doing so. He was very cordial and outgoing and he engaged the young people in some brief conversation. I thought this showed great interest and support for these young people.
I did a brief “book presentation ceremony” to present the young people with their textbooks, telling them that this is not just any textbook but is a means by which we encounter Jesus and so we do more than simply distribute them. I called them forward one at a time by name and presented their book to them saying, “May the Word of God be in your heart.” They behaved quite well for this and it went very quickly.
We then immediately opened our books to chapter 1 and, using the ball toss, the young people took turns reading a few paragraphs at a time. I inserted some comments along the way. The article we read was about how our story of creation in Genesis teaches us that God is good, all of creation is good, and that we can trust in the God of our creation who continues to care for His creation. The article compares this to the Babylonian creation myth that teaches that creation came about as a result of a violent battle between angry gods who then enslaved human beings.
We spent about 15 minutes focused on this chapter and the content. Normally, I would spend more time on the content, however, being the first night, I had spent a lot of time engaging them and I wanted to be sure to introduce them to the REFLECT step of our sessions, where they go to their “sacred space” for guided reflection.
I emphasized to them that, out of the first 45 minutes or so of class, we had only read from the book for about a third of the time. I told them that we are not just going to come here and read from a book for 75 minutes but that we will continue to do a variety of things to keep them going.
Normally, I would want to have the young people DO something with the material that has been read…some type of informal assessment to see if they “get it.” Again, given the time constraints of the first session, I was unable to do this. However, I wasn’t too concerned because the concept – we can trust in God our Father – was very simple.
Next we moved in to the Reflect step. I’ll share about that tomorrow.
Thanks to those who have sent in comments about their first session. I invite more of you to do so. I/we love to compare notes and we learn from one another. In all honesty, I did 4 or 5 things on Monday night that I picked up from other catechists who shared their ideas here on my blog…THANKS!
This past Monday evening, Chicago lived up to its name as the “windy city” (although that name originated not as a description of the climate in Chicago but of the politics!) with wind gusts reaching 40-50 mph. A good night to be teaching about the Holy Spirit!
we did a short activity in which they made their own “sail boats” out of a piece of styrofoam, a toothpick, and a piece of construction paper (for the sail). Using straws, they blew their boats across a baking pan filled with water. I talked about how a sail boat can do nothing on its own but relies on the wind and compared that to how we cooperate with the power of the Holy Spirit: we can do nothing on our own, but with the Spirit of God, we can do many wonderful things.
So far, I’ve summarized the first 45-50 minutes of my first session with my 8th graders this past Monday evening, detailing the Engage and Explore steps of my lesson. Today, I’ll detail the REFLECT step which is designed to lead the young people to pray from within the truths they are learning. Here are the details:
