prayer table Archives - Catechist's Journey

Introducing Pop-Up Catechesis! Episode 1: Creating a Prayer Space in Your Home

During this ongoing COVID-19 crisis, as families continue to find themselves hunkered down in their homes and unable to gather with others—including for church or faith formation—we at Catechist’s Journey thought it would be a good idea to provide some Pop-Up Catechesis. This is a new series of one-minute videos with bite-size suggestions for how to make faith alive in the home. These will appear here on Catechist’s Journey every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday for […]

Classroom Prayer Corner

Barb Gilman

Every classroom should have a prayer corner. This is a special place used exclusively for prayer and reflection. Since I have 32 students in my third-grade class, I don’t have much space—my prayer corner is on top of a steel storage cabinet. With a little work, I’ve transformed it into a place that speaks of the beauty of our faith by decorating it with objects that capture my students’ attention. Some of these objects are […]

Smells and Bells: Props for the Catechetical Session

Joyce Donahue

This is the third article in a series about liturgical catechesis. One of the treasures of liturgical prayer is that it is physical and sensory in nature, filled with sights of seasonal colors and sacramental symbols: the smells of incense and chrism, the sounds of words and music. When we include these in our catechetical sessions, we let children know they are not entering mere school classrooms; they are entering sacred spaces where faith is […]

Does Your Faith Formation Space “Speak Catholic”?

Joyce Donahue

When children walk into religious education sessions in your parish, what do they see: another classroom like they have been sitting in all day in school? Or is it an inviting space that makes it easy to form community, where matters of the heart and spirit can be shared? Does your faith formation space “speak Catholic” through sign, symbol, and a welcoming atmosphere? When Joe Paprocki suggests in Beyond the Catechist’s Toolbox that religious education […]

Heaven Is in the Details

Lisa Brown

One Sunday, as I was preparing my classroom for the arrival of my second graders, the popular saying “The devil is in the details” came to mind. I seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time preparing for my class and attending to every little detail. I noticed that I began to worry: Is my prayer space too busy? Will the children understand my explanation of the day’s Gospel reading? Will my craft backfire? I […]

Setting the Stage: Creating the Space for Prayer

Joyce Donahue

This is the first article in a series about leading prayer. When Catholics pray, we are often surrounded by reminders of who we are. At Mass, we can easily identify the current liturgical season or feast from how the sanctuary is decorated, the color of the priest’s vestments, the hymns we sing, and sometimes from the aroma of incense. We are accompanied in our liturgical prayers by statues of the saints, Scripture stories in stained […]

Purchasing Objects for Your Prayer Table

Joe Paprocki

Whether you are doing child catechesis or adult catechesis, it is crucial to establish a climate of prayer and one of the most effective ways of doing this is by setting up a prayer table. People ask me where they can get the objects they need for a prayer table and I thought I had posted on that sometime ago but I guess I was dreaming! So here are some suggestions for purchasing objects for […]

Personal Prayer Symbols

Joe Paprocki

Last evening turned out to be a very lovely evening with my sixth graders. First, we gathered in Church for the Opening Mass with the pastor. I was able to recall many of my students by name as they arrived and that always makes them light up. They were well behaved during Mass (as I’ve mentioned before, almost too well-behaved, meaning that they are so passive and hardly respond to the parts of the Mass, […]