A Laid-Back, Fun Night

Monday’s session turned out very well! I have to say that I had a very laid-back and informal attitude going into this session and my overall goal was to keep it simple which I did. As a result, I actually finished everything I planned to do (for once!) Here’s a summary: Approaching the session, I continued to “downsize” my approach because of the fire drill which would take up time. I decided to set up […]

Celebrating Two New U.S. Saints!

As you prepare your lessons for this week, you may want to include a little information about this coming Sunday’s canonization of 2 American saints: Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American saint, and Blessed Mother Marianne Cope, who spent the last 30 years of her life ministering to the sick on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. The canonization Mass will take place at the Vatican October 21, 2012. Included among the seven total saints […]

Session 5: Keeping it Simple!

 Knowing that we have a fire drill scheduled for Monday evening, I need to keep my lesson plan simple! The fire drill will probably eat up 10 minutes of the schedule which, if you do the math, is nearly 15% of a 75 minute class! With that in mind, I have a simple plan for this lesson which is to tie up some loose ends from the Learning Stations we did a few weeks ago. […]

A Year of Faith…So What?

OK, that title above might be a little provocative. I am certainly not approaching the Year of Faith with a dismissive attitude. However, the “so what?” question is always key: we need to be able to explain what it is that we do as Catholics and why. So, a Year of Faith…faith in WHAT? Faith in whom? Simply put, our faith is not in a set of ideas or in an institution. It is in […]

Understanding the New Evangelization

On this Columbus Day, it seems appropriate to talk about the New Evangelization. Why? Because the treks of Christopher Columbus and his contemporaries epitomize the “old” evangelization: the quest to bring the Gospel to foreign lands. For many centuries, evangelization was thought of as something relegated to missionaries who traveled to faraway exotic lands to convert pagans. Today, we are in need of a New Evangelization – an effort that includes ALL Catholics in “re-proposing” […]

Everyone Has a Right to Faith Formation

This is a guest post by David and Mercedes Rizzo. Around the time of our daughter’s fourth birthday, she was diagnosed with autism. We refer to this period as when the autism bomb dropped. When faced with a diagnosis like that many thoughts flood the mind. One of the thoughts we had was how would Danielle be able to make her First Holy Communion and her other sacraments? We were fortunate that a parish close […]

What Challenge(s) Are YOU Facing This Year?

 One of the things that I take pride in about my blog is the fact that I always try to give an honest account of how my sessions go: the good, the bad, and the ugly! So, it’s no accident that my post yesterday included an honest self-assessment of my Monday evening session with a focus on a couple of the challenges that I face (trying to do too much; dealing with a child exhibiting […]

Biting Off More Than THEY Can Chew!

If you have been following me here at Catechist’s Journey for any length of time, you know that my biggest chronic problem as a catechist is trying to do too much (biting off more than THEY can chew)! From time to time, I need to make an adjustment to narrow the scope of what I hope to accomplish (not lower my expectations, but just be more realistic). Last night was one of those nights. Overall, […]

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