Thanks to all the folks who spent the day with me today at the St. Charles Borromeo Pastoral Center in the Diocese of Joliet, IL, for a Being, Knowing, and Doing workshop. We had a wonderful day looking at how we can provide formation for catechists that includes these 3 dimensions. Special thanks to Tom Quinlan, the Director of the Religious Education Office, and Joyce Donahue, Catechetical Associate. I was also honored to have in attendance 2 representatives from the Catechetical Office of the Diocese of Springfield, IL, Jonathan Sullivan, Director, and Chris Malmevik, Associate Director. A great big THANK YOU to all of the catechetical leaders who came out today to talk about ways of caring for our catechists! Best wishes to you all!
Books
Check Out a New Online Course on Bible Basics!
I was honored to write a new course for the University of Dayton Virtual Learning Community for Faith Formation (VLCFF). It is called Bible Basics and the required text for the course is my book, The Bible Blueprint: A Catholic’s Guide to Understanding and Embracing God’s Word. Thanks to Richard Drabick, the Assistant Director of the Institute for Pastoral Initiatives for inviting me to write the course and to Sr. Angela Ann Zukowski, MHSH, the Director […]
Catechist Training
A Catechist’s Bill of Rights – The Right to Formation and Training
Today we hear a lot about people demanding their rights! Fortunately, we live in a country that guarantees those rights according to the Constitution. If there were a “catechist’s bill of rights,” one of those rights would be training and formation and I wish that more catechists would speak up, demanding this right. I’ll never forget my friend Brian Lemoi, Director of the Catechetical Office in the Diocese of St. Petersburg, FLA, telling me that, […]
Growing as a Catechist
Ends With a Whimper, Not a Bang
Alas, the catechetical year with my 6th graders ended with more of a whimper than a bang last evening! Suffice it to say that their eagerness to be done with Monday night religious education sessions outweighed any anguish they were feeling about not seeing Mr. Paprocki any more! 🙂 Part of the problem stemmed from the usual shenanigans that one encounters when supervising a large group of pre-adolescents attending Mass on a Monday evening after […]
Thank YOU, Joe! It was great. Lots of good comments after.
Joyce, you and Tom are doing great work in Joliet…keep it up!