patience Archives - Catechist's Journey

arms folded - gesture of ignoring or non-participation

Patience with Quiet Students

Being a catechist requires patience. Some years it’s patience with behavior issues, and other years it’s patience with a class that’s too quiet. Let me explain. When discipline issues arise, there are a number of strategies for managing classroom behavior. But when young people are well-behaved yet non-participatory, we need different strategies, which we often don’t hear much about. The overreaching strategy to working with young people who don’t want to join in discussions or […]

Love Never Fails

Lisa Brown

In the hubbub of teaching faith formation classes, living and working, trying to do the right thing, and discerning God’s will, there is the simple reality that pervades all things: “Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:8). This Scripture verse haunts me as a catechist. There are two reasons why our students will remember our lessons and see our Church as their home: the love that they feel when they come to class and the gift […]

9 Advent Attitudes – #4: Patience

Joe Paprocki

Advent is, above all else, a season of hope – a virtue that is all too rare in our world. To live as a person of hope is to behave in such a manner as to draw suspicion that we are behaving somewhat erratically as far as worldly norms go. This new type of behavior – what some may even call erratic behavior (the behavior that led people to conclude that the Apostles were “under […]